Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you well during these challenging times.
Dr. Virginia Foxx is an outstanding elected official, a person of faith, genuine humility, moral clarity, and courage, who has recently and deservedly become a household name in the Jewish community. In her role as Chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Congresswoman Foxx of North Carolina has held the public hearings that have shined a bright spotlight on the rotten core of the rise in antisemitism in educational institutions. It was in her committee that the presidents of Harvard, Yale, and MIT embarrassed the United States of America by their inability to unequivocally condemn demonstrators calling for genocide of the Jews, and – in her words – recharacterized their institutions from elite universities to expensive ones. Our own Nathan Diament, Executive Director for the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, has worked closely with Dr. Foxx for years and has played a meaningful role in advising the committee on these hearings.
Last night, Nathan and I, along with Robin Tare of OUA, had the privilege to join in an event expressing gratitude to Dr. Foxx hosted by Jerry and Sora Wolasky of the OU Executive Committee. The Congresswoman is overwhelmed by the warmth and genuine affection she is receiving from the Jewish community, as she could not fully appreciate how much her leadership and friendship have meant to us during these exceptionally lonely times for the nation that dwells alone.
I shared with her the story of Pinchas, the unlikely hero we read of in this week’s parsha. The Jewish people at the time were facing a crisis of faith and morality and were spiraling towards anarchy, yet Moshe seemed incapable of responding. Pinchas – the grandson of Moshe’s brother Aaron – was some distance from the highest ranks of leadership, yet he could not sit by and watch their society crumble. Guided by the Torah he had learned from Moshe, Pinchas knew what he had to do and did it, stepping forward into the void and pursuing justice with moral clarity, focus, and courage.
I – like many of you – did not know of Dr. Foxx a year ago, but now we all know her because of her determination to pursue justice. Where too many of those in more prominent positions seemed incapable of responding to the crisis gripping our society, she knew what she had to do and did it, guided by the values of her faith and her country.
I often repeat the following story at our family seder. Years ago, an AIPAC D.C. policy conference was being held shortly before Pesach. At the keynote session of the big roll call event, a Jewish congressional leader invoked what we would all be saying at our seders in the coming days, “for in each and every generation they rise against us to destroy us,” in speaking of the growing threat of a terrorist and nuclear Iran. He was followed by another leader in Congress, this one of the Christian faith, who went to the same source but added something. “My colleague,” he said, “cited the words you will say at the seder, that ‘in each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us,’ but he neglected to complete the sentence, ‘and the Holy One, blessed be He, He shall redeem us from their hands.’”
As proud people of faith, we must and always will recognize God as the source of our deliverance from every crisis. But we do not believe that deliverance needs to arrive via the splitting of the sea or accompanied by dramatic thunder and lightning. God rescues us from the hands of our enemies when those that believe in Him, when people of faith and goodness like Dr. Virginia Foxx, are moved by that faith to act with moral clarity, focus, and courage, to pursue justice and do what is right, making our country and our world a place that reflects the highest values of justice and peace.
God bless her.
If you can, please take another few minutes to read this linked article about this week’s unusual events in Washington:
Have a wonderful Shabbos and may we blessed with good news, besoros tovos.
Moshe Hauer