Three weeks ago I wrote about the natural human tendency to avoid exposure to ideas or facts that will challenge one’s own world view. Not every refusal to expose oneself to threatening ideas signifies intellectual cowardice or sloth. In the case of kefirah it is even required. But most disconcerting evidence does not fall into that category and intellectual honesty requires that we test our ideas in the marketplace of ideas.

In that spirit when I heard that my friend Dr. David Luchins chairman of the political science department atTouroCollegeand a former senior advisor to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan would be debating Marc Zell the head of Republicans inIsrael on the upcoming presidential election I decided to attend. Dr. Luchins is very smart and original. I figured if anyone could persuade me to be more enthusiastic about the prospect of President Obama being re-elected it would be Dr. Luchins.

It is far from clear to me that Dr. Luchins himself intends to vote for Barack Obama. He began by saying that he never votes for an incumbent president because second-term presidents have so much more freedom to stick it toIsrael. Richard Nixon in 1972 was the only exception to his rule. If that rule applies even to presidents who sought to maintain an impression of closeness toIsraelin their first terms how much more so to one who came into office determined to place “daylight” between theUnited StatesandIsrael.

To avoid the implications of his own principle Dr. Luchins offered another which he claimed trumps the first: One-party control of all three branches is dangerous. Since Republicans already control the Supreme Court the House of Representatives and are likely to gain control of the Senate he argued theUnited Stateswould be better served by a Democratic president who would be forced to negotiate with Congress.

First the premise of this argument is itself questionable. Ever since Rep. Todd Akin the Republican senatorial candidate in Missouri managed with one idiotic comment to transform an 11-point lead in the polls to a nine-point deficit overnight the chances of Republicans taking control of the Senate slipped to 50-50 at best.

And why should the principle of divided government take precedence over that of no second term presidents especially one like President Obama who has already been overheard telling Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev that he’ll finally be able to do what he wants vis-à-vis Israel when he no longer has to worry about re-election? Stiff competition between two parties is certainly a desideratum for American democracy but that doesn’t mean that divided government is always better. If one favors Obamacare for instance it is clear that it was only enacted because of large Democratic majorities in Congress and a Democratic president. And in the converse it is clear that Obamacare can only be repealed by a Republican Congress and president.

Luchins next point was that Romney invited Dr. Condoleeza Rice toUtahto meet with big donors. (He could now add that she was given a “star turn” at the Republican convention.) I agree that Rice was as bad a secretary of state as Hilary Clinton and that she tended to view the Israeli-Palestinian dispute through the lens of her childhood in segregatedBirmingham just as the President views it through the lens of fashionable campus leftism.

But she will not return as secretary of state and is not a major Romney foreign policy advisor. Republican voters are according to every poll far more favorably disposed to Israel than Democratic voters less enchanted by the U.N. and efforts to subvert American sovereignty to “the international community” (the majority of whose members are decidedly anti-Israel) and supportive of a strong defense posture and therefore appreciative of what Israel contributes to American defense capabilities in the world’s most volatile region. Those are the constraints with which any Republican president must deal.

Luchins also argued that Romney would be thrall to the isolationist “Ron Paul”-wing of the Republican Party if elected. Proof? In 2008 Barack Obama wonOhiodespite winning fewer votes than the 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry who lostOhio. Reason: The Republican candidate John McCain received 350 000 less votes than President George W. Bush in 2004. Conclusion: All those Republicans who sat at home are isolationists whom Romney must win over to become president.

This is — to put it gently — pretty weak stuff.

President George W. Bush was no more attractive to isolationists in 2004 than John McCain four years later — not after the invasion ofIraqand his bold outline of a doctrine of legitimate pre-emption atWest Point. So much for the alleged 360000 Ron Paul voters inOhio(far more than Paul won in the Republican primary). The placement of such weak “guilt-by-association” arguments at the forefront suggested to me that my friend has not fully convinced himself. After all if we want to play the guilt-by-association game far-leftIsraelbashers Jeremiah Wright Bill Ayers Rashid Khalidi and Franklin Marshall Davis were all personal intimates the Barack Obama over the years.

Dr. Luchins offered only one positive argument for the Obama presidency to date: Preventing the Security Council from ever voting on Palestinian statehood without theU.S.even having to cast a veto constituted a diplomatic triumph. Perhaps so. But the only reason the Palestinians tried that stunt in the first place was that the President had already brought Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to a three-year standstill. By insisting on an absolute cessation of all settlement expansion including inWest Jerusalem Obama made it impossible for the Palestinians to demand anything less as a pre-condition of negotiations.

Dr. Luchins did not say much about the American economy except to predict disaster if the “fiscal cliff” of dramatic cuts in defense and discretionary spending are not enacted by January 1. He is probably right that Republican spending cuts would reduce monies to a number of programs that disproportionately benefit the Orthodox Jewish world. But that is like blaming the Republicans for the laws of gravity or arithmetic. The economy left for future generations of Americans will be strangled by debt unless spending and entitlements are dramatically cut. And Orthodox Jews will have to recognize like every other group — farmers teachers unions corporations benefitting from specially tailored income tax treatment — that it cannot just be the “other guy” who gets cut if government spending is to be brought under control.

Most telling in my mind — especially in a presentation to a Jewish audience inIsrael— was Dr. Luchins omission of almost any mention ofIran other than to point to the recent sanctions which were largely forced upon the Obama administration by Congress. He might have plausibly argued that as president Mitt Romney would also never order an attack onIran. But that still ignores the three years wasted in futile hopes that diplomacy might still win over the contempt-spewing mullahs including the refusal to provide any encouragement toIran’s internal Green Revolution and the President’s obvious failure to convince Supreme Leader Khameini that he is serious about preventing a nuclearIran. Luchins did not ask which man — Obama or Romney — would be more likely to supportIsraelin the event of an Israeli strike onIran and which would be more likely to punishIsrael.

In sum I’m delighted I went to the debate. At least now I can say that I’ve been exposed to the best arguments for a second Obama term and remain unpersuaded.

A Shocking Forgiveness

An oldIsraeljoke asks “How do you make a small fortune inIsrael?” Answer: “Start with a large one.” While the joke is outdated as the Israeli economy outperforms the American a friend of mine did relive it.

He and his family moved toIsraela few years ago with a large fortune by Israeli chareidi standards. He moved there to learn full-time but with the intent of starting a side business manufacturing for the Israeli chareidi market. Being new to the country and with no experience setting up a manufacturing operation in China he decided he needed an Israeli partner.

Unfortunately like many a naïve American before him he was unlucky in his choice of partners and did not heed various warnings that a kippah on the head is not always a certificate of honesty. Somehow his partner convinced him that he should be the sole name on the bank account and chose his own brother-in-law as the company’s accountant without revealing the relationship.

The business did well but one day my friend awakened to find that everything had been stolen out from under him and he had lost not only profits but his considerable initial investment.

A few days ago I saw my friend for the first time in months at a chasunah and I asked him whether there were any new developments in his case. He told me that he had consulted a rav who told him that the only way to move on with his life was to forgive the person who had defrauded him of between a quarter and half a million dollars.

He did so that very night as he recited hamapil. When he told me this I just stood there with my mouth agape. He continued: “I want to be a person who loves every Jew. I had to get the hatred out of my heart. Now I just feel sorry for him.”

He told me that the day after he forgave his former partner his wife returned home to their sealed apartment and found two white birds flying around the apartment. That had never happened before and was inexplicable as the windows were all closed. White birds he told me are a sign of parnassah according to the mekubalim.

I’m unqualified to comment on kabbalistic matters. But of one thing I’m sure my friend has a much more precious gift guaranteed to him this approaching Yom HaDin: “Hamaavir al midosav maavirin lo al kol pesha’av” (Rosh HaShanah 17a). And he has provided us all with a wonderful example for our own preparations for Yom HaDin.