Arts News

Touring Seattle’s moral landscape

Seattle is the focus of David Klinghoffer’s latest book, Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandments at Our Peril, but he won’t lead you to fascinating shops in the Pike Place Market or set you wandering off in search of misty beaches on nearby islands.
Klinghoffer instead takes us through Seattle’s moral landscape, past the drug dealers, junkies and prostitutes he passes along the route to his office each day in the heart of Seattle’s increasingly dense and dangerous downtown grid.
Our increasingly secular culture, Jewish and non-Jewish, is in the early stages of decline both here and across the United States, he contends, and as he sees it, the moral relativity that has invaded everyday American life can’t possibly hold up for very long.
The converted Orthodox Jew, born to non-Jewish parents and adopted into a “very sweet” but “completely vacuous” Reform Jewish temple in San Pedro, Calif., is challenging liberal and secular Seattleites, moral relativists across America, and Jews in the highest ranks of national leadership who have unabashedly rejected God, in favor of rewriting their own moral code.
His first book, The Lord Will Gather Me In, is a memoir about his transition to observant Judaism.
“My main point in Shattered Tablets is that ultimately, you can’t have a moral, ethical society without God and that societies that attempt to disentangle themselves from faith ultimately fail,” Klinghoffer told JTNews from his downtown office at the Discovery Institute. “Our culture is attempting to do just that.”
Unrepentant anti-faith Jewish intellectuals like atheist Sam Harris and anti-theist Christopher Hitchens, who are paraded on cable news networks, repel Klinghoffer. They are Jewish by birth but have no reverence for God.
“They’re absolutely contemptuous of the Hebrew Bible,” he said. “These Jews will protest any negative depiction of Israel. We’re all over that. But if the God of Israel is depicted in the most hateful, false, simplistic terms, then we’ve got no problem with that. That’s fine. Not a peep from the Jewish community. Nothing.”
In this would-be cultural war, Jews could play a critical role if they would only step up and be a “nation of priests” as God intends, Klinghoffer explains, because the deep levels of meaning hidden in the Decalogue, according to Jewish rabbinical teaching, cannot be fully understood by those outside of the Jewish religion.
“It’s a locked tradition to which Jews hold the key,” said Klinghoffer. “Christians don’t have access to the deepest levels of meaning in the Ten Commandments without the Jewish tradition. That’s why Christians need Jews and many Christians today in America understand that and would agree with it.”
For him, American society is in serious decline and adrift without the Ten Commandments — our divine blueprint.
“A culture that doesn’t take the first five Commandments seriously, which describe the ideal relationship between a society and God, will not have its human interrelationships in the correct functioning order,” said Klinghoffer.
In the book, he illustrates how the first five commandments guide human relations but writes that if they are ignored, the second five will play out poorly.
The Brown University graduate and father of four argues that the culture as a whole, and Jews in particular, are better off in a religiously engaged society than a secular one.
In Shattered Tablets, the former writer for the National Review and the Washington Times is hoping to capture the attention of “swing” readers, those who have not yet decided if there is a God.
“A lot of Jews will assume, in their innocence, that a secular society disengaged from God will be good for the Jews, that it will make the Jews safe, and comfortable,” said Klinghoffer. “But in the end, there will be a price to pay, and Jews will pay it.”
Klinghoffer, who lives on Mercer Island, has been a senior fellow in the Discovery Institute’s Program on Religion, Liberty & Public Life for the last year-and-a-half.
“I’m not a rabbi. I’m a journalist, and I’m very far from being any sort of a moral exemplar,” Klinghoffer admits. “But the question I would pose to liberal Jews in Seattle is, “˜Is secularism good for the Jews?’ My answer is “˜No.’”
Klinghoffer said he would be anything but devastated if liberal Jews in Seattle were to have a problem with his book, but he hopes they will be inspired to start a dialogue about key political issues and what Judaism actually says about them.
“There’s no way to reconcile liberalism with the Hebrew Bible; it just can’t be done,” said Klinghoffer. “You could try, but the Hebrew Bible is fundamentally a deeply conservative text, and our tradition, our religion, is deeply, radically conservative and very politically incorrect. You can deny it, but then you’re in denial. That’s just the truth.”
Klinghoffer contends Jews have all but substituted politics for Judaism, but he says that secular and liberal Jews are even getting Jewish politics all wrong.
“The idea that Judaism would be in favor of gay marriage or ready access to abortion is just insane,” said Klinghoffer.
And the Terry Schiavo case, where the ex-husband of a brain-damaged woman claimed the right to take her off life support based on earlier statements made by her during their marriage, would, according to Jewish law, have never resulted in a win for his side, adds Klinghoffer.
“Jewish law is absolutely crystal clear that you may not hasten the time of someone’s death — period,” he said, explaining that Maimonides included this law in his writings when he codified the laws of murder in the Torah.
“I would love to have a dialogue at a Reform temple about what Judaism actually says about the political and cultural teachings of the Hebrew Bible for America,” said Klinghoffer.
“I would love to debate Rabbi Singer at Temple Beth Am or Rabbi Weiner at Temple De Hirsch [Sinai] on the question of what is the correct political outlook for a Jew?
“Let’s talk about gay marriage. Let’s talk about abortion and media censorship. Let’s talk about war and the role of war in Judaism. Let’s talk about the role of the Jewish people in a Gentile society. What are we meant to be doing as Jews? I’d propose that either of these rabbis invite me to their synagogue and let’s lay out our respective ideas and clarify these basic and fascinating questions and other political questions that our tradition raises.”