(RNS) — The late Arthur Hertzberg was one of American Judaism’s greatest rabbis and intellectual leaders.
But he did not start out that way.
More than 70 years ago, he was a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. One of his teachers was Mordecai Kaplan, one of American Judaism’s most seminal thinkers and rabbis, and the founder of the Reconstructionist movement.
The day came for young Arthur to deliver a trial sermon before the student body and the faculty. Afterward, Rabbi Kaplan lambasted Arthur for the ideas that he had presented.
“But, Rabbi Kaplan,” Arthur said. “You, yourself, said those things just a few days ago.”
To which Rabbi Kaplan responded: “Ah, yes. But, Arthur, I have changed since then.”
Let’s talk about what it means to change one’s mind — even ever so slightly.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
This has been one of those weeks. Israel hit Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. Iran retaliated, by targeting civilian locations — horrifically, the Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva and the Weizmann Institute, wiping out 45 laboratories and untold amounts of scientific and medical research.
President Donald Trump made the decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, which has significantly undermined the Islamic regime’s ability to produce atomic weapons. In response, Iran attacked a U.S. military base in Qatar — for which Trump chose not to retaliate. Now, we supposedly have a ceasefire, though both sides arguably violated it in the first hour — or moments before, as in the case of the lethal Beer Sheva bombing.
Trump not only stood up to Iran, as he has stood up to Israel when necessary (and did so today, using some rather choice language). He has also stood up to the isolationist elements in the MAGA movement — some of whom harbor no great love for the Jewish state, or for Jews. (Notice, once again, the extreme left and the extreme right share something in common — a disdain for Israel.)
Where am I — at least, today?
I stand with the vast majority of American Jewish organizations in praising this administration’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and capabilities.
Why? Because President Trump stood up to an evil regime that has had as its stated purpose for more than 40 years the destruction of Israel. Iran has hosted a Holocaust denial conference, even while planning the next one. There was an “Israel doomsday clock” in Tehran, counting the days until Israel’s destruction — which was itself destroyed.
Iran has attacked Israeli and Jewish targets: among them, the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires and numerous attacks on Israeli diplomats.
Iran has attacked Americans, as well: the 1979 hostage crisis at the American Embassy in Tehran; the 1983 bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, followed by the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in that city; and others.
So, to be clear: This is hardly just about Israel. This is also about America, and it is about the entire world. Iran is the principal sponsor of terror in the world.
I recall how Mordecai Kaplan confronted Arthur Hertzberg. Have I, a die-hard anti-Trumper, changed?
Thomas Friedman reads my mind, in these words:
I am a big believer that two (and sometimes three) contradictory things can be true at the same time … I will unapologetically resist Netanyahu’s annexationist agenda, his refusal to even consider a Palestinian state under secure conditions and his attempt to overthrow Israel’s Supreme Court, as if Israel were not at war with Iran. And I will unapologetically praise Netanyahu for taking on this terrible Iranian regime … I will unapologetically praise Trump for efforts to shrink Iran’s nuclear-bomb-making capabilities … I will resist with all my might Trump’s autocratic moves at home as if he were not taking on Iran’s autocracy abroad. All are true and need to be said.
Why would I praise President Trump’s actions regarding Iran?
Because there is a Jewish value — hakarat ha-tov, recognizing the good that people do — even the ones we don’t like, and even if we are not entirely sure about their motives.
Moreover: Like Friedman, I believe that a multitude of contradictory things can be simultaneously true, especially about political leaders.
Consider King David. He is known as the greatest king of ancient Israel — the ideal king, the purported author of many of the psalms, the most sublime religious poetry in the world.
David was also an adulterer, a man who desired another man’s wife, and then sent that man to his death in battle. David was a master at manipulation, for whom most relationships were merely transactional, who loved power for its own sake, who could not build the Temple in Jerusalem because his hands were too stained with blood.
And yet, with all that, Jewish lore considers him to be the ancestor of the Messiah.
“Which” David is the ancestor of the Messiah?
All of them.
This goes to the very depth of Jewish teaching about the individual — that we are endowed with a good inclination and a not so good inclination — and those two forces battle within us.
As Walt Whitman said: “I contain multitudes.”
We all do. To honor that complexity and that duality within us is part of the religious task.
My friends to the left will be disappointed in my even limited praise for President Trump. Likewise, my friends to the right will be disappointed they have not won a convert to their cause.
I am sorry to disappoint all of you. I still maintain my dissent from President Trump and his domestic policies, and I expect to continue to rail against them.
But I refuse to make a religion of that dissent, even as I would refuse to make a religion of praise for a leader. I must maintain the right to judge a leader, as with all people, for their deeds, within the context of the times in which we live.
I will let Yossi Klein Halevi have the final word here. In a recent episode of the “For Heaven’s Sake” podcast that he does with Rabbi Donniel Hartman, he talked about that often-heralded Jewish value of tikkun olam, repairing the world:
Tikkun olam is not only the enhancement of the good; it is also the prevention of evil, the denial of power to evil. And from that perspective, I think what we’ve just seen (Israel and America’s attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities) is an extraordinary act of tikkun olam.
Perhaps — perhaps — the world just got a little bit better.