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“All this argument is for the sake of Heaven.”

- The Chapters of the Ancestors, Chapter 5, verse 17

            Healthy debate – it's Jewish! That’s right, when two people argue for the sake of a higher purpose, in Judaism, that is viewed as a good thing. We live in a country that continues to be bitterly divided on many issues – it is high time that we remember that we are all in it together, and that more can be accomplished by a civil discourse more focused on solutions than on name-calling, finger-pointing, and drawing of lines in the sand.

            In this sense, Jewish learning has much to contribute to our political process.

            How?

            Easy – in the Talmud, the 4^th-5^th century text by which all Judaism since has truly been shaped – the method of argument is absolutely thorough, as well as direct and simple. The Talmudic scholars start with a question, then explore options for answers, explanations for why some answers work and others don’t, discuss the best of the answers, and work towards a conclusion – leaving open the possibility that some of the discarded answers may be useful in the future.

            Our culture’s completion of the move towards sound-bites and simple answers to complex problems leaves us barren of anyone seeking real solutions. We have not even discussed in any real sense on the public level what it is that we as a society believe that government ought to be doing, and not doing.

            Yet there is good news, especially for us here in Lake Tahoe. If anything, our moderate cultural and religious communities situated right here offer us models for cooperation, compromise, and mutual understanding that we should offer our politicians. After all, we work together, put on events together, and attempt to bring our communities together in a spirit of healing the world, all the while setting aside ethnic, cultural and theological differences for the sake of a better society.

            Jewish teachings, like the teachings of many other cultures and faiths, help us focus on priorities in the most simple of ways – Jews have always been concerned with first and foremost taking care of necessities. So, Jewish governance has been about taking care of national and civic defense (first), and then taking care of those who can least take care of themselves (second). Throw in a little emphasis on recognizing that the earth is not ours and that we are responsible for being good stewards, (third), and you have what I would consider a Jewish teaching towards creating a helpful, non-polarized public discourse, that might lead to a public policy for governance on which we could all agree.

            If we could accomplish these three things with any degree of reliability, our government might be headed in a direction that would do some good, informed by pretty sound Jewish values, as well as the values of pretty much every ethnic, cultural, and religious community represented in our great community and country. On top of which, most of us, conservative or liberal, could actually agree that these are worthwhile values to pursue.