This is the time when we should be hearing from rabbis.
The Jewish people are under an assault, everywhere that Christianty and Islam have found a home, which is of historic proportions. Elie Wiesel says there will not be Jews in Europe in the future.
I live in the United States and I can feel the Jew hate among Lefties and environmentalists. This is not going away. America has, for 50 years, been the safest home for Jews, in the entire history of our people.
There are two rabbis who are exemplars of the public intellectual. One is Shmuley Boteach and the other is Daniel Lapin.
Both are doing a good job of explaining the moral leadership of Israel on the issue of self-defense. But where are the thousands of other rabbis who need to step up to the plate at a time of extraordinary danger and speak both to the Jewish people and to the evil ones around us (including many fellow rabbis) who are complacent or antagonistic when our lives are threatened by Islam and the nuclear armed Mullah of Iran.
Historically the rabbinic world was created with the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersion of the people of Israel. It was an invention, unique in the history of the world, to allow a people to have an ongoing dialogue, education and community.
The creation of Israel necessitates that that rabbinic world take on a different function.
* First the rabbinate should show a dramatic support for Israel around the world and reject people who hate Jews and still call themselves rabbis.
* Second the rabbinate should help interpret the role of Israel to the world. The source of modernity, improved health, moral leadership and vitality.
* Third it should speak to the issues of Jewish tradition that are relevant to the understanding of Jews in the modern world. Explain why we play such an extraordinary role in the creation of modernity. Explain why we do so much good with so little appreciation. Explain why modernity and commerce and Jewish tradition are so intimately and integrally related.
If the rabbinate is to survive the creation of a new Jewish homeland it needs to take a constructive role.