Writing in First Things before a new leader of the Catholic Church was chosen Seth Chalmer assistant director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at New York University observed that based on past experience the organized Jewish community was sure to “present a long wish list to the chief cleric of a religion in which it does not believe ” which he wrote “is no problem in itself.” But he cautioned Jewish leaders not to do what they’ve sometimes done in the past:

We in the Jewish community should resist the urge to tell Christians how to be Christians.… Instead … Jews should identify the maximum we can reasonably ask from the Catholic Church without asking it to stop being the Catholic Church.

He’s right but he should have stated more directly that when Jewish “leaders” do agitate for Christians to change their own doctrines they stir deep animosity towards Jews. He also might have asked why Jews would even care what Christians believe and why paradoxically the more religious the Jew the less he bothered he is by non-Jews’ religious beliefs and practices.

The answer of course has much to do with two deep-seated emotions harbored by secular Jews: fear and guilt. Fear that his children or congregants raised on a meager diet of tepid G-d-less Judaism will fall prey to Christian proselytization and guilt that he doesn’t have nonnegotiable beliefs about his religion’s superiority to match those of the non-Jew.

What even Mr. Chalmer probably didn’t expect was anything like the piece on the JTA website entitled “Why Don’t the Jews Have a Pope?” It is nothing less than a sneering condescending assault on the very institution of the papacy which begins: “We Jews have a thing about infallibility. We don’t like it.” It continues with “[T]his is hardly the golden age of the papacy…. We live in an age of … deep distrust of leadership particularly religious leaders. Maybe Benedict was wise to quit the game early.”

I think I’ll file this article away for the next time the JTA runs a story about Orthodox teens spitting on Christian seminarians in Yerushalayim. That apparently happens from time to time; it’s a vile thing to do and has been condemned as such by the Badatz. But in its potential to foment Jew-hatred it doesn’t approach this article written by an editor of secular Jewry’s primary news source appearing on the Internet for all to see — and featuring the sweet sentiment of the leader of the Reform movement Rick Jacobs that “we actually don’t believe there’s one person who can and should speak for all of us….”

The irony of Jacobs’ anti-pontiff pontification is so rich. Never mind that the heads of the heterodox movements regularly deign to speak not only for their movements but for all Jews. But more: when Jacobs was nominated for his post I took note here of a small group of Reform members who questioned his candidacy based on his views and actions relating to Israel such as marching with the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement which regards Israel as a budding apartheid state.

The strongest sentiments this group’s ads expressed were that Jacobs “does not represent us” and “we question his judgment.” The response to this was a ferocious op-ed by the head of Reform’s seminary accusing this group of engaging in the use of “distorted caricatures” “tactics of witch-hunting and demagoguery” and “vilifying canards.” 

But don’t worry Reform believes in fallibility and a multiplicity of voices speaking for Jews.

A RUNNER'S REWARD The sign on the shul bulletin board announced a pre-Pesach shiur by an out-of-town rosh yeshivah taking place that evening at another local shul. Emblazoned across the bottom of the poster in bold white letters were the Hebrew words “T’nu Kavod LaTorah! [Give honor to Torah!]” And I admit I was a bit perturbed. Is this what it takes to bring people out to a shiur nowadays an appeal to their sense of kavod haTorah? Noble though it is to wish to honor Torah whatever happened to wanting to hear a shiur for the knowledge to be gained and the sheer enjoyment it affords?

Then I thought back to my zeideh Reb Yoseif Chaim Eliezer a simple Jew from a simple litvishe town Shkud in the vicinity of Kovna. For all the simplicity of the man and the town when I write those words I feel as if I’m presenting my credentials as an authentic Litvak and a great pride overtakes me.

Back to Zeideh: He came to these shores as a child having received only the most rudimentary Jewish education. I imagine that during whatever time he spent in cheder he was more than a little distracted by pangs of deprivation. When my father asked him what he remembered of Lita there was a three-word response: “Hungry always hungry.”

Zeideh lived on New York’s Delancey Street above the haberdashery store he and my bubby owned. He davened at the famed Bais Medrash Hagadol and each Shabbos afternoon without fail he was in his seat there for the rav’s shiur before Minchah. I don’t know what the shiur covered but it was likely something beyond Zeideh’s ken. And so once as a young man my father said to his father “Papa if you don’t really grasp the rav’s shiur how do you sit there week after week?” My zeideh laconic Litvak that he was said simply “A rav has to have an olam to whom to speak.”

I have no doubt that those few words and more so my zeideh’s weekly actions to make good on them contributed to the amazing sense of kavod haTorah and bittul before gedolei Torah that his son my father demonstrated during his lifetime. One story of many: A certain tzedakah organization would hold a yearly Melaveh Malkah in theBronx neighborhood where we lived which Rav Moshe Feinstein would attend. It attracted shul rabbis from throughout the borough many of whom would use the occasion to sharpen their homiletic skills on the ears of the attendees as Rav Moshe awaited his turn to speak.

Then my father became the event’s chairman and that year Reb Moshe’s speech was placed first on the program. The Rosh Yeshivah made his remarks in support of the tzedakah and left at which point most of the attendees did too only too happy to escape the impending avalanche of oratory.

At evening’s end my father had a rather irate group of rabbis to deal with. His program shuffling had meant that that year they’d lost the opportunity to speak to a full hall holding the Rosh Yeshivah and the people who’d come primarily to see and hear him “hostage.” But my father wasn’t fazed; what mattered most to him was the kavod of the gadol hador and as he put it plainly “After schlepping up to the Bronx should the Rosh Yeshivah also have to use his precious time which could be used to learn or to answer sh’eilos to instead sit through rabbis’ drashos?” That was my father my zeideh’s son.

The Gemara (Brachos 6b) says igra d’pirka rihata meaning that the reward of a shiur is running to hear it. How so? Because one may run to hear a shiur that turns out to be beyond his understanding and spend the next hour studying … the animated style of the maggid shiur the faces of the listeners the seforim-lined bookcases. But the mitzvah of running to get there? That’s his for keeps; no one can take that from him.

And then there are the shiurim that one knows from the outset are beyond his level and there are the people who know from the outset that they won’t understand because they weren’t blessed with the background to do so. But even they — no especially they — can all give kavod to Torah just with their presence.

I turned back to the sign and felt embarrassed.