America's Rabbi / Shmuley Boteach

Every Friday night at our Sabbath table my wife and I host all kinds of people. We love having guests and it would be my honor for us to host you and your family either this coming Friday night or whenever it may suit you. Over the years we’ve hosted thousands of people. Many have been Democratic politicians like yourself - from Governor Jon Corzine, to Mayors Michael Wildes, Frank Huttle, and Cory Booker.

With Congressman Steve Rothman being accused of dual loyalties simply over a pro-Israel voting record in government, what could I, who has a daughter serving in Israel’s military, expect from these same opponents? What charges would they lodge against me? How ugly would the attacks be?

What can explain the "Shades of Grey" phenomenon? Why are so many married women reading about submission in an age of feminine liberation?

Americans are sick and tired of rancorous, scorched-earth politics, which has given Congress a nine percent approval rating. Let’s show America that politics is an honorable profession, a noble calling, filled with people who put values, country, and integrity first. Let’s start winning people back to the political theater by demonstrating that politics are inspiring rather than depressing, ennobling rather than corrupting, and harmonious rather than rancorous.

Few people I have met have been more committed to social unity and bringing people together than Cory Booker. Which other African-American Christian Rhodes scholar would have agreed to become President of an orthodox Jewish student organization that was run by a Hassidic Rabbi?

It was when Congressman Steve Rothman defended the rights of Former Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi’s personal envoy to live peacefully and tax-free next to me that I first thought of running against him. What was Rothman's purpose in defending the right of an envoy of a terror-sponsoring government to live in our midst?

Time magazine's cover story about attachment parenting garnered a great deal of attention. Clearly, the shock value of showing an attractive young mother breast-feeding a child nearly four years of age was enough to excite worldwide conversation. The story inside focused on a controversial theory…

What business does the government have entering a church, synagogue, or mosque to legitimize or define the spiritual nature of a person's marriage? We are supposed to have separation of church and state in America. Far from harming religion, this change would encourage non-religious people to entertain the concept of how religion can enhance and enrich one’s life, and be an invitation to engage in further religious learning, traditions, communities, and beliefs.

Several headlines recently caught my attention when I heard that a man who claims to have worked as Michael Jackson's bodyguard made the incredulous charge that Michael was a Nazi sympathizer. This kind of viciousness should usually not be indulged because it just gives it more credibility for the retelling. But the slander against Michael's name in this instance is so great that it deserves to be rebutted.

Tied as we are in Martin Luther King's 'single garment of destiny' where 'whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly,' courageous soldiers of the US military are forced to engage in war so that the rest of us might live in peace, to stain their hands so that our future might be clear. We do not gloat over the death of evil since its very existence must be mourned.

The Bible consists of 613 commandments, one of which is for a man to marry and have children, and the other is for a man to avoid gay sex with another man. That leaves 611 commandments for gay men to observe. That should keep them pretty busy. Homosexuality should be treated like lighting fire on the Sabbath or eating non-kosher foods, both Biblical prohibitions

In the time that I spent with Professor Benzion Netanyahu, I discerned a Jewish nationalist of phenomenal determination. Zionism was in his DNA and I have rarely met a more passionate Jewish patriot or a prouder Jew. He had a sweeping view of history and could clearly argue the precarious state of the Jewish people throughout time.

Last week I was quoted as saying that President Obama is a strong friend of the Jewish people and that anyone who calls him anti-Semitic is guilty of character assassination. I stand by that quote. But being a great friend of the Jewish people does not automatically make one a great friend of Israel.

Is this what three thousand and three hundred years of Jewish tradition has come to, that a nation that has always dared to walk alone, with different ideals and values from the wider culture, should so fully capitulate to the most corrupt, misogynistic values, that we would advocate that our young women have plastic surgery in order to get married?