By now it&#8217;s clear that the original video clip of the Covington Catholic high school boys on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was intended to incite a visceral reaction. The disseminators of that video tried to create a narrative that the boys were vindictive and hateful. That narrative was utterly false. The thorough disproof of that narrative came from the most unlikely of places. The designated <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2008/racist-black-hebrew-israelites-becoming-more-militant">hate group</a> (as designated by the Left&#8217;s own Southern Poverty Law Center), the &#8220;Black Hebrew Israelites,&#8221; posted a <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t3EC1_gcr34">video</a> that captured the entire course of events that led up to that moment.
Thank G-d they posted that video. I mean that literally.
An unbiased person watching that video would see that the group of boys acted in a way consistent with what one would expect of a group of teenage boys. One could actually see that a large number of boys in the group acted with an impressive level of restraint and tolerance. At one point in the video, when the boys were being told that they were &#8220;incest babies,&#8221; and were called fake Christians because Jesus was black, some boys responded that it didn&#8217;t matter what color skin Jesus had. What&#8217;s also clear is that the boys&#8217; chants and cheers only started as a means to drown out the hateful rhetoric that was being hurled at them. While chanting at the Lincoln Memorial might not be appropriate under normal circumstances, this was not a normal circumstance.
One could argue that the best course of action at that point would have been for the boys to ignore the hate and walk away. In hindsight, that&#8217;s an easy argument to make. I&#8217;ve been a Rabbi in an all-boys orthodox Jewish high school for the past fourteen years. If I were chaperoning a group under those circumstances, I would have likely tried to get the boys to ignore the insanity going on around them. But that&#8217;s not as easy to do as it sounds. It&#8217;s very hard to control all the actions of a group of boys that are gathering at a set meeting point.
Whenever I&#8217;m part of a school-wide trip, one of my biggest concerns is that we might cause what&#8217;s called in Hebrew a &#8220;Chillul Hashem,&#8221; a desecration of G-d. If we, as a large group of Jewish people, do something inappropriate, then it might reflect negatively on Jewish people and religion in general. My students often object that they should be allowed to act like any normal group of teenagers would. I respond by telling them that we are judged by a different standard. Groups of religious people aren&#8217;t looked at as individuals; they&#8217;re looked at as a representation of the values of their religion. I&#8217;ll now have this episode of the Covington boys in front of the Lincoln Memorial as an example of this reality.
The boys in front of the Lincoln Memorial were viewed as a representation of Catholics and Catholic education. They weren&#8217;t viewed as individuals. Unfortunately, if the only video released from that day had been the one that most people originally saw, then I believe the students&#8217; explanation of events would mostly have fallen on deaf ears. Unfortunately, the truth would have been drowned out by the optics of that fallacious video clip. If the &#8220;Black Hebrew Israelites&#8221; had not posted their video on YouTube, the boys would have faced an uphill battle explaining that they were not the aggressors. Would that have been fair? No! But that would have been the reality.
Religious people, fair or not, have to accept the fact that we are held to a different standard. We can&#8217;t expect that there will be exculpatory video evidence proving our side of the story. And, unfortunately, we certainly can&#8217;t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt. Is that the way it should be? No! But we&#8217;ll take the hit. We&#8217;ll wear it as a badge of honor that our actions reflect something beyond our individual selves.

SAMUELS: Is There A Different Standard For Religious People?

Catholicism

Covington Catholic High School

Judaism

On May 2nd, Tesla released its <a href="http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/6239658125x0x979026/44C49236-1FC2-4FD9-80B1-495ED74E4194/TSLA_Update_Letter_2018-1Q.pdf">earnings report</a> for the first quarter of 2018. It beat street estimates, but still reported a loss of $3.04 per share. As conservatives, we can point to the company&#8217;s losses as a sign that Tesla can&#8217;t survive in the free market. Some might argue that electric cars can&#8217;t compete with the internal combustion engine, and that they&#8217;ve only had limited success as a result of government subsidies. That may all be true. Nonetheless, as conservatives, we should all be rooting for Tesla.
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh often used to play a parody song called &#8220;<a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&amp;v=tZzKUt4OtE8">In a Yugo</a>.&#8221; The song mocks &#8220;a liberal guy and a liberal gal&#8221; who are so dedicated to saving the environment that they buy a small fuel-efficient car from a used car lot. Predictably, the couple ends up in a collision with a truck, and their sad little car gets flattened.
While ironic, if not slightly morbid, the song represents a point of view that conservatives feel isn&#8217;t being addressed by advocates of climate change regulation. Does the government have the right to put our safety at risk? Do we need to drive cars that are cramped and have no horse power? Does the government have the right to establish policies that will create economic instability? If climate change modeling is inherently speculative, and inaccuracies should be expected, should we really take steps that assume those models are infallible?
Unfortunately, the counter-argument that&#8217;s made by many&#8212;that people who are against regulation just don&#8217;t care about our children&#8217;s future&#8212;exacerbates the polarization. As with many issues, if people are characterized as not caring about children, they&#8217;ll likely become more entrenched in their position.
Over the past ten years, Tesla has objectively made &#8220;In a Yugo&#8221; irrelevant. It&#8217;s created cars that are safe&#8212;perhaps the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15791740/tesla-model-x-crash-test-nhtsa-5-star-rating">safest</a> on the road. It&#8217;s created cars that are both comfortable and <a href="https://www.zeroto60times.com/vehicle-make/tesla-0-60-mph-times/">ridiculously fast</a>. Teslas are not Yugos. Not remotely.
In his <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me">mission statement</a> for the company, Elon Musk stated that Tesla&#8217;s goal was to make &#8220;an electric car without compromises&#8221; in order to &#8220;help expedite the move&#8230; towards a solar electric economy.&#8221; The phrase &#8220;without compromises&#8221; should inspire conservatives to get up and cheer. If that isn&#8217;t enough, try sitting in a Tesla Model S P100D while going from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds!
None of this is to claim that Tesla and Elon Musk are free of criticism. Recently, long-time Tesla fans have been justifiably <a href="https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threadloom/search">disappointed</a> in the rollout of the new Model 3 sedan. As a reservation holder myself, I was pretty shocked when I got an email saying there would be a &#8220;slight delay&#8221; in my delivery date, and found out that it would be almost another year before I could hope to see my base level Model 3. The company&#8217;s stated goal&#8212;to make an &#8220;affordable&#8221; mass market electric car&#8212;has yet to be achieved. One couldn&#8217;t be faulted for being skeptical of whether that goal will ever be achieved.
As advocates for limited government, we also have the right to question the role of government in providing subsidies for electric vehicles. If Tesla can&#8217;t succeed in producing cars that will compete in the free market, particularly without subsidies, conservatives would be right to raise objections. In fact, Elon Musk has <a href="https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-says-model-3-will-cost-35-000-before-incent-1679351127">stated</a> that his intention is for Tesla to sell cars at a price point that&#8217;s affordable to the mass market before any government subsidies.
All that being said, there&#8217;s a compelling moral argument for us to hope that Tesla is wildly successful. If Tesla can prove that electric cars are just as good as, if not better than, gasoline powered cars, then a large portion of the climate change debate becomes moot.
After writing his first <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html">opinion column</a> for The New York Times, Bret Stephens faced intense criticism for presenting what most conservatives would feel was an open-minded and innocuous critique of advocates for climate change regulations. While trying to find a middle ground, Stephens was branded as a radical. At the same time, many on the right have <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tesla-ceo-becomes-target-after-trump-election">attacked</a> Elon Musk as being a card-carrying leftist, despite <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/12943/liberal-fave-elon-musk-offers-reasonable-take-joseph-curl">examples</a> of him similarly trying to find a middle ground. In the climate change debate, common ground has been hard to find. If a solution became available through the free market, that would be optimal.
Conservatives understand that lack of certainty alone doesn&#8217;t justify inaction. If there&#8217;s a possibility that the climate is being affected by human activity, and there&#8217;s a very compelling solution that could help solve the problem, we should all be open to exploring the solution. When that solution includes innovation, potential economic growth, and good old fashioned American ingenuity, we should be inspired to give it our moral support.

SAMUELS: The Moral Case For Tesla

Elon Musk

Tesla

The problem isn&#8217;t Trump, it&#8217;s us.
In the immediate aftermath of the Trump press conference on February 16, the Orthodox Jewish community began the process of trying to make sense out of the President&#8217;s scolding of Jake Turx of Ami magazine. It&#8217;s no secret that Donald Trump received overwhelming support from Orthodox Jews in the ballot box; the fact that a Chassidic Jew was in the White House press core would have been a clear indication that their support was well-justified. No one would have expected that a journalist who had been a friendly face to Trump and his campaign for months would have been the recipient of a Presidential tongue lashing. 
Turx, as has been widely reported, began his question by noting that despite what many of his colleagues in the media report, he and the community he represents do not believe the the President is an anti-Semite, and they recognize that he&#8217;s the &#8220;Zayde&#8221; to his Jewish grandchildren. That preamble, however, didn&#8217;t stop the President from being offended when Turx went on to express that he and the community he represents were concerned about an uptick in anti-Semitism that hasn&#8217;t really been addressed. The President&#8217;s response was heated. He said that he understood the rest of the question, that he found the charge repulsive, and that Turx should heed what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had said the day earlier about Trump&#8217;s support of the Jewish people instead of &#8220;having to get up and ask a very insulting question like that.&#8221;
The immediate response of many people focused on how Jake Turx personally felt about the President&#8217;s response. That night, after the presser, Turx appeared on Tucker Carlson&#8217;s show on Fox and defended Trump&#8217;s reaction. In fact, when Breitbart reported on Turx&#8217;s appearance on the show with a headline saying that Turx was &#8220;with Trump,&#8221; Turx tweeted his appreciation to the writer for his great reporting. The logic of this approach is; if Turx was fine with what had happened, then we should be fine with it too. Don&#8217;t be upset with the President.
Some in the community and on social media expressed that Turx shouldn&#8217;t have been asking a question that could be potentially offensive to the President. Others even suggested that Turx got what he deserved, or any reported uptick in anti-Semitism, or bomb threats to Jewish community centers, were concocted by Trump&#8217;s enemies to drum up fear and sow doubt against him. Others surmised Trump had correctly observed that Turx&#8217;s underlying motivation was to participate in scapegoating Trump for causing the anti-Semitism. The logic of these approach was; Turx did something wrong. Don&#8217;t be upset with the President.
As an Orthodox Jew and a Rabbi, I am alarmed. What&#8217;s missing from the conversation is that Jake Turx was serving in the capacity of a journalist. A journalist, by definition, isn&#8217;t just representing himself. He is representing the public. Turx correctly stated that people in his community are concerned about an uptick in anti-Semitism. While some in the Orthodox Jewish community may not have that concern, his question did represent a concern of many. The President should care that citizens, many of whom supported him, are concerned. Whether Jake Turx understands and is sympathetic to the President&#8217;s frustrations is irrelevant. A question was asked of the President, and he refused to answer it on the basis that the question inherently was repulsive and insulting.
Without a doubt, Jake Turx and Ami magazine are in uncharted territory. Their response to this difficult situation, and their future standing and access to the White House, should have no bearing on how we as a public interpret events. Looking through Turx&#8217;s twitter feed, one can see that he is quite conflicted by what happened. If he forgives the President for his reaction during the press conference, that&#8217;s a right that he has as a citizen.
The issue of anti-Semitism, however, is a relevant issue that any President should address when there&#8217;s a perceived uptick. If President Trump feels frustrated by the issue to the point where he&#8217;s insulted when a journalist asks about it, then we as citizens have a right to be concerned. If we aren&#8217;t concerned, or if we criticize the journalists that bring it up, then that&#8217;s on us.

Menu

Rabbi Moshe Samuels

SAMUELS: Is There A Different Standard For Religious People?

SAMUELS: The Moral Case For Tesla

An Orthodox Rabbi Responds To Trump’s Press Conference Answer On Anti-Semitism