Topic: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

The sin of Confederate hero worship

September 26, 2008 |

Why do Americans stand for Southerners idolizing the Confederacy, despite the evils of slavery and treason at its heart?

By The Rebbe with a Cause, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

This week, I took my family to Virginia in pursuit of one of my favorite summertime activities, visiting Civil War battlefields. We traveled to the four great battlefields around Fredericksburg, where more than 100,000 soldiers died in the course of the war. I also fulfilled my lifelong dream of visiting Appomattox Courthouse where on April 9, 1865, Lee famously surrendered to Grant, in effect ending the war.

What consistently baffles me in making these visits is the romanticization of the Confederacy that continues 140 years after the war’s end. Wherever you go in the South, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, James Longstreet, and the other Confederate leaders are venerated as heroes. In the course of my travels, I have driven on Robert E. Lee Drive and Jefferson Davis Highway. I’ve seen myriad monuments to Stonewall Jackson, and I’ve seen the Confederate flag flying from cars and homes.

As an American who loves his country, I am appalled by the persistence of Confederate hero worship in the South 140 years after the Civil War’s end. After all, the South fought for a truly evil cause. While there were other factors that led to the Civil War, no serious, objective historian would deny that the principal cause of the war was the institution of slavery, and that the South fought to preserve its “peculiar institution.” «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Business, Events, Opinion, Politics, Spirituality | 4 Comments

Should anyone claim to know G_d’s Mind in this presidential election campaign?

By Turner McCullough Jr. | September 21, 2008 |

This is an authorized posting of a Sept. 2, 2008 This article is reprinted with authorization from by its author, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, our guest commentator. With all the political clamor of late about knowing G_d’s plan, and executing his tasks, a moment of reflection just might be beneficial to all of us.

“G-d’s Thoughts on the Presidential Election”

It’s time to play that fun, all-American game, Who is G-d punishing now? Three years ago, when Katrina devastated New Orleans, some on the religious right suggested that the city with the infamous French Quarter was being destroyed for its debauchery and licentiousness. G-d poured fire and brimstone on Sodom in ancient times, and He rained down lightning and broken levies on New Sodom in modern times.

Fast forward three years and here we go again, only this time G-d is punishing innocent men and women in Louisiana for the Republican Convention in Minnesota. According to filmmaker Michael Moore “Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven. To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.” The theme was echoed by Don Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, who joked that the hurricane was God’s favor to Democrats. But Mr. Fowler will have to forgive some of the residents of New Orleans, both Democrat and Republican alike, if they don’t get the joke. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics, Spirituality | No Comments

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