{"id":1416,"date":"2016-03-19T22:59:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T02:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2016-03-19T23:18:10","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T03:18:10","slug":"leviticus-and-voting-on-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1416","title":{"rendered":"Leviticus (and Voting on the Right )"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Voting<\/a>Last Tuesday, I decided to do my civic duty right after lunch. I stepped into a church I attend regularly \u2013 at least, for a Jew. I\u2019ve attended this church for friends\u2019 weddings and for funerals; I also typically give several presentations there each year.<\/p>\n

I know the people working the booths, since they happen to be neighbors of mine. It\u2019s a pretty casual affair. There is never a line, which is sad, and always chit-chat about family life and suchlike, which is nice.<\/p>\n

I was given my number, which was quite high, considering. I was Voter Number 272. I happily acquired my ballot, went to the cubby, set down my bag, and prepared to be a good citizen.<\/p>\n

My choices for president included Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich.I stared at the ballot. I hadn\u2019t had much sleep the night before, so it took me a moment. Then another. By the time the third moment arrived to tap me on the wrist, I had figured it out. Despite asking me my party affiliation (I confess: lifelong Democrat), my neighbors had handed me the opposition\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n

In fact, I had been offered the opportunity to commit voter fraud \u2013 perhaps the very first actual <\/em>case of voter fraud we would have seen in these United States this century. I could make history, right then and there at All Saints Episcopal, just yards away from the sanctuary I had taught in three weekends running the month before. \u201cVoter Fraud Rife in the Tarheel State: Rabbi Arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leviticus came to mind. Just a couple of days earlier I had spent an hour making the case for the beauty of the Torat Kohanim <\/em>with congregants in my Torah study. Each year, as we leave Exodus behind and head into the spring, I wax eloquent over the sheer loveliness of biblical law. \u201cHere we go,\u201d someone is thinking, \u201cshe\u2019s going to tell us about the ethical mandates behind whole chapters on corpses, skin diseases, and genital discharges. Again<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

But none of these things were on my mind. Ritual was.<\/p>\n

Voting is a ritual with all sorts of important constituent parts. Here, in North Carolina, we\u2019ve recently (and unnecessarily) added a few. Before I voted this March, a woman at the door formally informed me to please take out my photo ID before <\/em>stepping forward to the table where I would have to recite my name, my address, and my party affiliation. Then I was reminded that phones must be turned off, ballots must be brought to the altar, and there, one must make sure to mark small ovals properly. The closing ritual includes feeding the completed ballot into a machine which consumes the results with a pleasing, whirring noise offered to the gods of democracy, after which one receives a sticker.<\/p>\n

Ritual, I am fond of telling my congregants, is how Leviticus embeds values. The well-being offering of Leviticus was to demonstrate joy and gratitude and marked the fulfillment of vows. Priests might bring purification offerings to expiate any of the errors they might have committed, errors that could harm the people they served. Reparation offerings provided a way to get right with community, humanity, and God, Godself. Expressing thankfulness, making sure to be attentive to potential error, figuring out a way to repair the hurt or damage one\u2019s actions can cause \u2013 these are values worth embedding in ritual.<\/p>\n

As I stood at the voting booth, I thought of Nadav and Avihu. Obviously, I told myself, casting the Republican ballot would have been offering up some pretty strange fire. Sure, I could run Philo through my mind \u2013 Philo, who asserted in the first century C.E. that Aaron\u2019s sons had acted out of piety, out of a heartfelt wish to be closer to God. In not<\/em> voting for certain people and voting for others, I could be acting for<\/em> the good of the Republican Party. I could be acting for the good of North Carolina. I could be acting for the good of America \u2013 of all the world, in fact. I could have voted against the Golden Bull, which is everywhere this year.\u00a0 \"Golden<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, I went back to the table and explained that I had been given the wrong ballot. Utter consternation ensued, apologies were given thrice over, and I went back to my voting altar. I fed in my ballot, got my sticker, and went home.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeviticus,\u201d according to one of my commentaries, \u201cis a difficult book for a modern person to read with reverence and appreciation\u2026 The modern temper tends to discount prescribed ritual in favor of spontaneous religious expression.\u201d But, the writer maintained, this book teaches us that at critical times we need to know that we are \u201cdoing it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My choices for president included Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich.I stared at the ballot. I hadn\u2019t had much sleep the night before, so it took me a moment. Then another. By the time the third moment arrived to tap me on the wrist, I had figured it out. Despite asking me my party affiliation (I confess: lifelong Democrat), my neighbors had handed me the opposition\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[361,34,362],"class_list":["post-1416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-golden-bull","tag-leviticus","tag-voter-fraud"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}