Two of my columns last week generated a lot of commentary.

My article on the United Church of Canada’s (UCC) general council meeting, during which several resolutions with respect to divestment in Israel were defeated, generated 18 comments, which must be close to a record at TD — certainly, it is the most talked about article I have written.

My theology article, which will be a regular Friday feature from now on, generated six comments — and the single longest reply I have ever written, a reply that is an article by itself.

I am interested that my UCC piece did not generate religious commentary. I did not write the article as a religious perspective but even so…

Huan Rights Tribute next to Cit Hall

I spoke at the Capital Pride human rights vigil three days ago. I spoke from the podium at the vigil in front of Ottawa’s human rights monument. I mostly listened at the public education session the preceded the vigil.

The biblical proscription of homosexuality (“You shall not sleep with a man as you do with a woman. This is an abomination.”Leviticus 18:22) was mentioned in the public education session. We do our best as certified liberals to ignore this proscription. We regard it with frank distaste and pass it off as a primitive law that’s outdated.What we don’t do is ask a simple question — is it physically possible to lie with a man as you do with a woman?

No.

So what is he Torah proscribing? The answer will be apparent if you think on it; it’s also appalling and definitely worthy of being called an “abomination”.

Tommy Douglas was a United Church minister, a Canadian icon, and the prime mover behind Canada’s universal health care system. He famously said “The trouble with socialists is that they let their bleeding hearts go to their bloody heads“. The United Church, alas, is awash in blood.

The United Church of Canada (UCC) is Canada’s largest Protestant denomination. It has been a major force in the transmisson of the Social Gospel in Canada.

Multiculturalism and universal medicare are perhaps the two most significant differences between the Canadian and American experiencs. The UCC had a committed core of religious activists that fought for both, and both are icons of Canadian identity.

Reb Arie as Hasidic Rebbe

Being a traditional Jew, my day begins at sunset, so today began yetserday evening when I spoke at the human rights vigil organised by Capital Pride. I was dressed like the Hasidic rebbe I am, sharing a podium with the Austrian ambassador and my local MPP, Yasir Naqvi.

Where else in the world will a Catholic, a Hasidic rabbi, and a Muslim speak to a community of GLBT activists? I suppose it might be possible in Washinton, DC — but first I’d have to take up residence there, because I’m reasonably certain I’m the only Hasidic rebbe in North America who can be considered a straight ally.

Being a traditional Jew the daytime begins about 6am, sometime earlier. When I am not overcome by fatigue — this is becoming less and less routine, Barukh Hashem (thank G!d) — I almost always now make it to the morning minyan (prayer service). A Conservative synagogue is about a one minute walk away; a modern Orthodox congregation is about 15 minutes north of me, while a fervently Orthodox school, the Kollel of Ottawa, is about 15 minutes west.

I wasn’t fatigued when I awoke this morning. I didn’t make it to the minyan.

I was on a radio show in Ottawa yesterday opposing the decision by the administration of Carleton University to fire Hassan Diab. There were several challenges involved for me, both with deciding to appear on the Gerry Cammy Show and with the opposition to Diab’s dismissal.

Gerry, who is a friend of mine in spite of the fact that he is a conservative, invited me to appear on the show two weeks ago. I initially refused. Rania Tfaily, Hassan Diab’s wife, later asked me to do so. I appeared with two other guests. Eric Vernon is a senior staff member for Canadian Jewish Congress in Ottawa. Ian Lee is Director of MBA programs at Carleton University.

Wm. Lyon MacKenzie King, 10th prime minister of Canada. He was PM three times over 21 years.

In 1936 the government of Canada appointed Frederick Charles Blair as the director of the Immigration Branch. Blair was appointed assistant deputy of immigration in 1924, under the Liberal government of MacKenzie-King.

The Liberals had been in and out of power twice in the intervening years but were elected again in 1935. Blair was promoted in 1936 to become director of the Immigration Branch.

Blair responded to the question of how many Jews would be admitted to Canada with the remark “None is too many”.

The ghost of Blair remains a powerful force in the government of Canada, even as the face of Canada has coloured significantly in the past 65 years. I can think of no other reason for the shameful targeting of six Arab-Canadian citizens by three successive government administrations since 2001.

Criminal conduct in Canada is normally prosecuted by a Crown counsel representing the formal person of the Canadian state, this being The Queen.

This time the situation is reversed — it is The Queen on trial, and the prosecutor is a remarkably foolish young man named Omar Khadr, who is the last prisoner of a western nation at Gitmo. Omar Khadr was 15 years old when he allegedly threw a grenade and killed a US soldier fighting in Afghanistan.

Precisely why Omar Khadr is the last western prisoner at Gitmo is a tale that will come to define Canada in the 21st century. Barely 10 years into the century and Canada has used the ship of state to ram the lifeboats of six Canadian citizens. All of them are Arabs.

I cannot claim that the ship of state was steered politically. The Canadian citizens in question were victmised under both Conservative and Liberal administrations.

Justice scales superimposed on this image of a Torah parchment symbolises the reliance of the Institute and the Court on social justice principles found in the Torah

The Canadian Beth Din Institute at the Metivta of Ottawa is the parent organisation of the Jewish Court for Social Justice. This all sounds very grand, and it is: the Metivta and all it purports to be is located on a sprawling campus of 400 square feet that stretches between my living room and kitchen.

I’ve had probably ten emails from several correspondents questioning many aspects of the Court. Two questions are being asked repeatedly.

1. What are you doing (and who do you think you are)?

2. Why are you doing it (there is an established order for such things!)?

I’ll address “why” here and speak of “what” below.

I began planning the Jewish Court for Social Justice almost seven years ago. There has been ample time for a credible organisation to evolve before this, an organisation that speaks to Canadian social justice issues from a Jewish faith perspective, and nothing has happened in all that time.

I have, for the last five years or so, been working to create a kosher trustmark — a symbol that identifies compliance with known standards that are strictly halakhic (in accord with Jewish tradition) and green (including many rubrics, among them animal welfare, fair labour, and fair trade).

The Jewish Renewal movement created this sensitivity in the 1970s but nobody, even Arthur Waskow and Reb Zalman, really knew what the concept they called “eco-kosher” would become. That there was a strong ethical component to even traditional kashrut was known.

What would happen to food because of food science was not known.

The Jewish Court for Social Justice, at our first meeting, decided that Israel/Palestine would not be a primary focus of the Court’s attention in this session. The natural outcome of that decision? A discussion of Israel/Palestine dominated our second meeting.

We live, frankly, in frightening times.

I was somewhat criticised (correctly) by Helen Shapiro, who has posted comments to this article. Helen emailed me directly, wondering why I would answer so stridently with respect to who sits on the Jewish Court for Social Justice.

The stridency was a mistake. I cut and paste from a previous reply to someone else, someone I don’t trust. But the stridency reflects a strong concern of mine –

Security.

A dialogue listserv I subscribe to received several emails about participation in a meeting to assist Carleton University build a dialogue program.

One correspondent, a former professor at Carleton now serving as a dean in western Canada, does not trust the administration of Carleton. She suggests our dialogue group talk about participating in Carleton’s initiative, but only after individuals attend (and not as representatives of the dialogue group) and report back to the group.

This is dialogue as distraction: we’re willing to talk to each other but not the the Carleton administration!

The Jewish Court for Social Justice, by unanimous decision, rejects the opinion of B’nai Brith Canada with respect to the matter of Dr Hassan Diab’s employment at Carleton University. We remind B’nai Brith that Canada is a common law democracy and that an accused is presumed innocent, most especially in these circumstances, inasmuch as Dr Diab has not been accused of a crime in Canada.

This article has changed from its original posting. Additional information has been added on the holy days featured.

When I gave my testimony on behalf of Hassan Diab (see the Update at the bottom of this article) the Crown prosecutor asked why a rabbi would pay chaplaincy visits to a Muslim who is known to be entirely secular.

“The secular have spiritual needs also,” I replied.

“I didn’t say they didn’t,” she replied. Actually, that’s precisely what she said. But why quibble?

It’s not who you think.

Mike Ignatowski makes two interesting assertions about moral documents in this article at Tikkun Daily.

I can accept that the framers of a budget are moral but not that the federal budget is (or ever could be) a moral document: the obvious question becomes “whose morality defines the federal budget?”

I am very honoured to announce that my student Anne Marante will earn her core competency in Deliberative Ethics next week and be admitted as an officer of the Jewish Courts for Social Justice.

I introduced the concept of the Jewish Courts for Social Justice (Bedatz Umi in abbreviated Hebrew) in one of my early posts on Tikkun Daily.

Social justice is oft-called tikkun olam in Hebrew. I can’t think of anyone more influential in making tikkun olam a central Jewish concern than Michael Lerner.

Michael has worked very hard for almost 25 years to see tikkun olam evolve and enfold both Jews and the general community. He did not do this alone, of course, and had many associates and mentors along the way — in itself this is part of the definition of social justice, as we will see below.

The Torah is the very foundation of the world.

Liberals, of course, tend to rely more on science. I won’t say this is a mistake, but I will outline an interesting Torah passage below on conduct disorder, 3500 years before the American Psychiatric Association (APA) defined the criteria for it.

I teach a course called Deliberative Ethics at the Metivta of Ottawa. Deliberative Ethics has a great deal to do with justice and very little to do with law.

The appointment of judges is among the first matters halakha (Jewish law) covers with respect to judging. There are specific qualifications a judge must meet.

Note: I have made some changes to this article, which was originally published on July 21, 2009. I have edited the article to include an explanation of criticism of postmodernism and Reconstructionism. And I have added a page break.

“Ethnocracy” appears to be one of those nefarious postmodernist words that sounds good and means nothing whatever. I will, therefore, dispose of two notions directly.

I am a progressive but by no means am I a postmodernist. Furthermore, I detest postmodernism in its academic regalia and disdain it in its Jewish religious conception, that which we call “Reconstructionist“.

My objection to academic postmodernism is the relativistic lens it uses and its general hijacking by Marxist rhetoricians. This is particularly evident in sociology, anthropology and political science.

I do, moreover, know what I disdain with respect to the religious postmodernism of Reconstructionism. I am a former member of a Reconstructionist synagogue. Two friends areReconstructionist rabbis.