Earl Raab
How do you explain the fact that three- quarters of California's Jews, a much larger proportion than any other comparable group, support easing marijuana sales?
In the current furor over legalized marijuana, the Clinton administration, most medical groups, and excited California marijuana growers have made it clear that legalizing pot for medicinal use would provide some legitimate medical aid, but also legitimize marijuana use in general.
At the very least, the recent Prop. 215 proved again how deliberately twisted and misleading the initiative process in California has become. P.T. Barnum is chortling in his grave.
So, are Jews more gullible than other groups in the state, more knee-jerk in their responses, or just less concerned about the deterioration of the moral order?
There is some evidence that the latter is at least partly the answer. A couple of Jewish researchers have determined that Jews are consistently more permissive than other Americans in their attitudes toward such issues as divorce and sexual practices.
That is a stunning discovery! It is as though the Jews have dumped many of the Ten Commandments, leaving their covenant with God in tatters. Of course, some will say that we have merely "modernized" our interpretations of these Commandments.
Jews have always been understanding about the occasional appropriateness of divorce, and many say that an injunction against premarital sex -- and some other moral abuses -- is just unrealistic in today's world. A brilliant young Orthodox rabbi in Israel once explained to me that all Jews were not expected never to break one of the Commandments -- as long as they recognized they had done so, and would strive not to do so again, still holding them high as sacred moral standards.
But it is the sanctity of those standards that is under general attack in today's relativistic world, even by Jews.
Permissiveness toward the use of drugs, such as marijuana, is just one example. The weight of the Noachide Commandments, at least the last six, is for self-control against the abuse of self and others. It is astonishing that so many of those who properly attack cigarettes as harmful are more tolerant of marijuana, which is not only carcinogenic but destructive of self-control. Sure, it should be available for needed medical use, but Prop. 215 went far beyond that.
Still, the disproportionate support of the marijuana initiative by Jews was just one symptom. Instead of being permissive about personal morality, the Jewish community should launch an aggressive public policy program to promote higher personal moral standards in American society.
We do not have to do that in company with the fundamentalist Christian movements, nor should we abandon that field to them. After all, as messengers, we brought the last six Commandments to and for the western world.
Nor should we underestimate our image in America as a moral and religious force. Most Americans still see us as a fundamental religious force, just as so many steadfastly Reform Jews see Orthodox Jews as a fundamental religious force.
Exercising ourselves as a religious force in the public arena could also be healthy for the Jewish community itself. After all, in our concern about "Jewish continuity," are we not concerned about internally re-establishing ourselves as a religious community?
Of course, a proposal for launching such a campaign in the American community -- not to mention using the marijuana initiative as an example -- will draw merriment among many Jews. And that merriment itself will demonstrate how difficult it will be to launch such a public campaign without first bringing a lot of Jews back to Mt. Sinai.
The writer is director emeritus of Brandeis University's Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy. He is executive director emeritus of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council.