A RELIGION THAT'S NOT RIGID?:

A self-defeating ideological rigidity (JONATHAN S. TOBIN, Mar. 29, 2004, Jerusalem Post)

The first time I heard Rabbi Daniel Lapin speak, he told a story that struck me as odd.

The setting was the 1995 Washington, D.C., conference that launched Lapin's Toward Tradition organization. The event attracted an array of luminaries whose presence seemed to emphasize the seriousness of this effort to create a politically conservative Jewish group.

Rising to address a gala luncheon, Lapin sounded the message that all people of faith had more in common with each other than with their nominal co-religionists. To reinforce this point, Lapin confided that he and his wife had chosen for their children to be born in a Catholic hospital that had a cross on the wall of every room rather than at Cedars-Sinai, a Jewish hospital in Los Angeles where he then lived.

Why? Because abortions were conducted at Cedars-Sinai, a practice the Lapins could not countenance.

The Lapins are entitled to choose their own health-care options. They also have a right to their opinions on abortion. But I thought it odd that someone seeking to bring his political message to a wider Jewish audience would think that most Jews would share his sensibilities.

Not so much about abortion, mind you, but about the crosses – a symbol of faith and love for Christians, but one that history has left most Jews viewing differently.

I was reminded of this by Lapin's recent spurt of public visibility during the dispute over Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

A month after its opening, the film is still packing theaters, making Gibson a fortune. Worries that this cinematic version of the crucifixion would undermine dialogue between Christians and Jews were probably exaggerated. Fears of pogroms breaking out at the cineplexes were downright silly.

But the reaction of most American Jewish viewers of the movie is still puzzlement at why most Christians, including many film critics who didn't like it, failed to see why Jews viewed it as dangerous.

Does not the fact that Mr. Tobin is unbothered by abortion but horrified by a film that takes religious belief seriously tend to prove Rabbi Lapin's point?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 1, 2004 8:12 AM