Reacting to Trump: A Jewish Perspective

I’m on Facebook, so I get it. There are people who think that Donald J. Trump is the devil incarnate, that he is a raging racist, sexist, homophobic buffoon who has zero political experience and is going to drag America back into the Dark Ages. They are convinced that he will return the country to a time when racism, sexism, homophobia and all manner of social deficiencies prevailed.

 

There are others who feel that Trump is America’s only hope. They believe that liberal values have brought the US an astronomical economic deficit, lessened America’s prestige in the world, allowed millions of illegal immigrants into the country, seriously weakened America’s relationship with Israel and raised political correctness to a supreme value, far above common sense.

Everyone is convinced they know the real Donald Trump.

 

When we judge, things often seem crystal clear. We can have trouble understanding why everyone can’t see what we see.

I'm suggesting that the story is more nuanced than we have so far acknowledged. I’m suggesting that Jewish wisdom offers us a third possibility. The third possibility acknowledges that Trump is flawed, but believes, because of Jewish teachings, that we are obligated to give him a chance to prove himself.

 

In Pirke Avot 1:6 (Ethics of the Fathers), we are taught the principle of dan l’kaf zechut - to judge everyone on the side of merit. The Hebrew phrase that means everyone is kol adam. These words can also mean the whole person, meaning judge the entirety of a person. Not just the campaign speeches, not only the sound bites, not the memes alone, but the person’s entire track record.

There is no person alive who does not have pluses and minuses in their character. And we all judge. However, as Jews, we are obligated to judge favorably. We are obligated to give people the benefit of the doubt. We are required to judge the entirety of a person on the side of merit.

 

There is a second teaching in Pirke Avot (3:2) that is relevant to this issue. We are taught to pray for the welfare of the government, because without a strong government, the citizens will destroy one another.

 

In other words, we are taught to pray for the government and to respect its authority, for our own good. We pray that our human leaders should be granted wisdom. Since the 14^th century, Jews have prayed for the welfare of their governments in whatever country they live. Although the texts vary, here’s an excerpt from a contemporary prayer, recited in synagogue after the Torah reading.

Our God and God of our ancestors:
Accept with mercy our prayer for our land and its government.
Pour out your blessing on this land,
on its President, judges, officers and officials, who work faithfully for the public good.
Teach them from the laws of Your Torah, enlighten them with the rules of Your justice,
so that peace, tranquility, happiness and freedom will never depart from our land.

 

If you’ve spent more than five minutes this week on social media or watching the news, you are well aware that many people are so convinced that their assessment of President-Elect Trump is 100% accurate, that they cannot even imagine how anyone could disagree with them.

Jewish wisdom gives us another way to assess the events of the past week. It asks us to judge the entire story of President-Elect Trump on the side of merit, to give him a chance to prove or disprove anyone’s current opinion of him. 

And it asks us to pray, to ask for God’s help assuring the welfare of the government and its leaders. This is true wherever and whenever you live.