Ancient Wisdom for an American Midterm Election Year
It is springtime in a midterm election year where I live and toil. There is a string of holidays in the springtime months on the lunar Hebrew calendar, or luach, starting with Tu B’Shevat, the “new year of the trees” observed with the first fruits of the year, like dates and figs; through Purim and the wild revelry that accompanies the public reading of the Book of Esther; to Passover, or Pesach, the most widely celebrated holiday among American Jews, according to the data. Meanwhile, America’s likely voters in every US congressional district begin choosing candidates this spring for two-year terms in the House of Representatives.
Rabbi Tarfon is a Talmudic sage of the generation from the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and one of the leading scholars of Yavneh, the first rabbinic academy founded by Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. About a thousand years later, give or take, the rabbinate established itself as something of a Jewish government in exile.
“Be careful with the ruling authorities,” said Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi the compiler of the Babylonian Talmud, “for they do not befriend a person except for their own needs; they seem like friends when it is to their own interest, but they do not stand by a man in the hour of his distress.”