Tuesday, May 20, 2008


Rabbi Berel Wein is against it.

Rabbi Wein titled a op ed "Hypocrisy". It was published May 16, 2008 in the Jerusalem Post.

He criticizes leaders who either argue for morality and don't practice it or leaders who overpromise (I can't tell which).

Here is a sample of each:

Morality -
"Hypocrisy is the greatest enemy of religious leaders. Fallen clergy are the stuff of legend already, let alone popular literature and investigative media.
They are especially vulnerable because of their usual posture of moral self-righteousness and their penchant for criticizing sharply those whom they feel to be derelict in their behavior, policies or thoughts and attitudes.
Thus when their faults are exposed it is not only they that fall but they take down the faith that they represent as well. The tendency in certain religious circles and society to glorify its leadership to the extent that these people become superhuman only exacerbates the vulnerability to the accusation of hypocrisy."

Leadership overpromising - "
I have always felt that part of Winston Churchill’s greatness in the leadership of Great Britain in World War II lay in his refusal to make sweeping promises or proclaim easy solutions.
He promised the English people “sweat, blood and tears” with the hope that eventually victory would come their way.

This promise in all of its forms was eventually completely fulfilled . There were no promises of settling ancient disputes in a matter of months, no brazen commitments for immediate victories and no hiding from the evident facts of the situation. This enabled him to escape from the plague of hypocrisy that has hounded so many of our leaders on the social, military and diplomatic fronts."

I personally can't tell what he defines as hypocrisy. If preachers preach good behavior but admit that people are frail, I don't see what the hypocrisy is when the preacher is frail. If leaders believe (mistakenly or because of ego) their own promises and can't deliver, they are simply mistaken or egomaniacs but not necessarily hypocrites.

Bottom line: Rabbi Wein didn't define hypocrisy and I can't backward engineer his definition from his article.