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Local rabbis don't plan to discuss Clinton in holiday sermons
RANDI BAROCAS
Staff Writer
Although some of the 15 Jewish clergy who attended President Clinton's Sept. 11 White House prayer breakfast plan to use the presidential scandal as a modern parable in their Yom Kippur sermons, many Valley rabbis say they plan to steer clear of the controversial topic.
Some local rabbis even doubted the president's sincerity at the breakfast, during which he reportedly read a Yom Kippur prayer about penitence from "Gates of Repentance," a Reform High Holidays prayer book. (See "President invokes Reform prayer")
Rabbi Chaim Silver of Young Israel, an Orthodox congregation in Phoenix, said he thinks Clinton read the prayer to "get the reaction he wants" from the American people, and that his recent public effort at repentance is "just an act."
"Just by getting up there and conducting a prayer breakfast doesn't make one a better person," Silver said. "You have to change your ways."
Rabbi Rick Sherwin of Conservative Beth El Congregation in Phoenix - while admittedly disappointed with the president - is not as skeptical of his motives for reading the prayer. He said people should pull meaningful messages from wherever they can.
"If I can find relevant stories in " 'Chicken Soup for the Soul,' " he said, Clinton should be able to find a passage somewhere that pertains to his own predicament.
While the rabbis interviewed for this story expressed different opinions about the sincerity of the president's effort to make amends with the American people and with the friends and family whom he has wronged, they all agreed on their desire to keep their High Holiday sermons relatively Clinton-free.
Two local Reform rabbis, Kenneth Segel of Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale and Maynard Bell of Temple Solel in Paradise Valley, acknowledged the parallels between Clinton's present need to atone for his sins and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, but said that sermonizing about it would detract from the personal nature of the holiday.
"I will make no reference throughout the holy days, either by name or by oblique reference, to the president or his shameful scandal," said Segel. "I think that people are sickened by it, they are disgusted by it. And I think, personally, ... that the holy days inspire me to seek a higher level of visionary pursuit."
Bell said he may use Clinton's predicament as an illustration in his sermon, but he does not plan to make the scandal and the president's pursuit of forgiveness the focus of his talk. The rabbi stressed that the High Holidays are a time for personal reflection and that they "don't necessarily fall into sync with what is absorbing everybody's attention in the media."
"I don't think it is the most important issue to be dealt with at the pulpit," Bell said. "I think ultimately, the issues we deal with on the High Holidays are basic and essential issues of our own lives. And they are personal issues. High Holiday sermons don't have to respond to the headlines."
Sherwin and Silver concurred.
Silver said he is so disgusted with the president and his behavior that he considers his words meaningless and therefore irrelevant to his High Holiday sermons.
"I'm not going to (talk about Clinton), but if I were to do it, I would use him as an example of how not to repent," Silver said. "(What he has done is) not repentance. Repentance, according to the Torah, is actually changing one's state of being, not just by proclaiming oneself as a cleansed individual."
Whether the president sincerely wishes to make amends for his sins and change his ways remains to be seen, Segel said, adding, "I can't read his mind."
And regardless of Clinton's intent and political strategizing, his sordid story does not belong in synagogues during this time of year, Sherwin said.
"What comes from the bimah (platform) should touch every single person sitting in the congregation on a personal and spiritual level," Sherwin explained. "I find that for me, not for others, when I bring in political considerations or the political world, I find that it is distracting from that personal and spiritual involvement."
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