Calibrating our Moral Compass

"You are a holy nation unto G-d. G-d has chosen you to be His treasured nation, more than all the nations on the face of the earth."
(Deuteronomy 7:6)

The nations of the world understand this perfectly. They look on as we send our Olympics delegation to the blood-stained city of Beijing. There, on the ruins of the homes of one million Chinese citizens, the Olympics are taking place.

But the direct destruction is not the whole picture at all. There in Beijing, the nation that is supposed to be the moral compass of the world is giving moral legitimacy to unbelievable horrors.

"Why are you so upset about the Chinese?" my rightist and religious friends ask. "We don't have enough home-grown outrages? Why get involved with Chinese battles?"

We are not fighting for the Chinese. We are simply attempting to fulfill our Jewish destiny. Without our destiny, we are irrelevant. That is why our entire existence as a nation seems to be melting away. The state of the Jews must have a much broader goal than the simple preservation of Jewish existence. Judaism is a culture with a universal message a message of liberty.

"I am G-d, your G-d, Who has take you out of Egypt, from the house of bondage." (From this week's Torah portion).

If we truly desire to create a Jewish state, we had better begin with some Judaism. After all, if our entire purpose for living in Israel is to preserve our security, we have made an awful deal. In New Zealand or Uganda we could have realized our security goal with much greater ease.

Israel's Olympic delegation represents Israel. Israel represents the Jews and the Jews represent divine morality. When Israel sends its delegation to the largest labor camp in the world, lending legitimacy to the horrors being perpetrated by the Chinese regime, it denies its Jewish destiny and shakes the foundations of the existence of the State of Israel.

We are not opposed to Israel's participation in the Olympics only because of our concern for the Chinese. First and foremost, we are concerned for Israel.