Many times, during the Argentine military dictatorship, people asked me: ‘What are you doing as a rabbi in politics?’ I replied: ‘What do you mean politics?’ They said: ‘Well, you’re involved in human rights.’ ‘Human rights’ in Argentina for eight years was the subversive phrase. It is true that politics and religion can be mixed in a very unhealthy fashion.
When fundamentalists declare that government should legislate religion, this is unhealthy. On the other hand, that which comes from the depth of one’s being and militates in favor of the sanctity of life—that is neither religion nor politics. It is the essence of being human.
Suggested Discussion Questions:
1. Can you separate human rights from religion and politics?
2. What makes this text a Jewish text?
Time Period: Contemporary (The Yom Kippur War until the present-day)