Thoughts about the certification of the Electoral College votes and the attempted overthrow of our democracy

In this week’s Torah portion, Shemot, God selects Moses to be the liberator and leader of the Jewish people. God chose Moses because he had many leadership qualities. He was a man of integrity and was scrupulously honest. After fundraising for the Tabernacle, Moses gave an account of everything that he collected and how it was used. “Why did Moses feel obligated to give this detailed account? Some Israelites knew that they would have taken advantage of handling all that gold and silver for their own enrichment. They suspected Moses of being no better than they were. Thus the midrash emphasizes that leaders of the community must be above any suspicion of personal aggrandizement.” (Etz Hayim commentary below the line, page 564) 

In the most recent volume of 30,000 days: a Journal for Purposeful Living I read the following article which resonated with me because attempted coup inside and outside the capital on Wednesday.

A Principle-Centered Life

 

“Is winning all that counts? Are you absolutely sure about that?

Last year, Spanish athlete Ivan Fernandez Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai from Kenya. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan runner-the certain winner of the race-mistakenly pull up about 10 meters before the finish line, thinking he had already crossed the line.

Fernandez Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai’s mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first.

“I didn’t deserve to win it,” says 24-year-old Fernandez Anaya. “I did what I had to do. He was the rightful winner. He created a gap that I couldn’t have closed if he hadn’t made a mistake.”

Today we are consistently exposed to a life way that could be entitled, The Ends Justify The Means. Anything goes, if it culminates in the outcome we want. A principal-center life is the opposite. Our commitment is to a set of values and virtues, even if the outcome is not in our best interests.” (page 14)

This time around we elected a decent human being as the president of the United States. But we can’t be assured this will always happen. We should take one of Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly’s words seriously every time we vote. He said, “We need to look infinitely harder at who we elect to any office in our land — at the office seeker’s character, at their morals, at their ethical record, their integrity, their honesty, their flaws, what they have said about women, and minorities, why they are seeking office in the first place, and only then consider the policies they espouse.” In other words we have to make sure that our representatives live up to the standard of a principled-centered life Moses has set before us.