All in a Name

Discussing the controversy over the trampling of religious rights under Obamacare touched upon here last week Conservative clergyman Irving Kula is quoted in the Jewish Week as noting that “Jewish hospitals have gotten over” what Catholic hospitals are now protesting vehemently. “We don’t freak out at compromising in order to get government funds.”

According to the article Kula observed that in “Kiryas Joel … the Satmar leadership long ago agreed that there wouldn’t be any mezuzos in a Kiryas Joel public school for severely disabled children — all of whom are Jewish — in order to maintain the school’s legitimacy as a public school for children with special needs that the village couldn’t afford on its own. ‘Think about that’ says Rabbi Kula. ‘No mezuzos. Satmar leadership doesn’t experience that as an imposition. We’re better at understanding the quid pro quo of taking government money. We’re less worried about that.’ ”

Whether the clergyman has his facts straight about the Kiryas Joel mezuzos or whether even if so there are other reasons for their absence such as perhaps the public school being government-owned property — I simply don’t know. This much however is clear: Agreeing not to affix a mezuzah is not quite analogous to being compelled to facilitate the snuffing out of nascent life. By the clergyman’s lights what Pharaoh of old failed to realize was that all he needed to do to get Shifrah and Puah to do his bidding was offer them some government funding for their birthing clinic. Then again perhaps back then the Jews hadn’t yet “gotten over” the quaint notion that the Divine will principle trumps compromising for monetary gain with which those stubborn Catholics are apparently still struggling.

In any event I’m glad that just as Chodesh Adar makes its appearance I can write about a clergyman named Kula holding forth on how we Jews have “gotten over” the need to compromise for money’s sake. Although the saying goes “You can’t make this stuff up” I could have made this one up in the Purim spirit. But thanks to the Jewish Week I didn’t have to.