Obama's True Religion (Nice Story About Barack Helping Girl at Easter Egg Hunt)

[JPZenger]

http://www.mcall.com/features/religion/all-faith_gerard.6868042apr25,0,3069997.story


'Obama showed his true religion over the course of the Easter holiday weekend...But on Monday morning a spontaneous act that history will not record illustrates that our president embodies the highest values of all three monotheistic religious traditions. It happened at the annual Easter egg roll on the White House lawn. TV commentators wondered if the president would root for his own children who, lacking competitive fire, quickly failed to take the lead.

Obama's eyes, however, were not on his own girls, who anyway soon began to gain some ground initially lost. Rather, the president's attention was drawn to a younger and less skilled girl who had fallen way behind. He ran to her and, bending over so as to make eye contact, encouraged her to press on, even seeming to coach her in how to get more distance from each push of her spoon. Emboldened by his advice and encouragement, she found the ability to make up for some lost ground and catch up to the others.

...a rabbinic teaching goes further. It points out that the weak and vulnerable are always the ones most easily left behind -- at the rear of our march. The Israelites themselves, according to this view, were significantly guilty, because they had failed to help the weakest among them to keep up.

Obama may not be a theologian. But he is what Jews call a ''mentsch.'' His intuitive and instinctive impulse not just to root for the underdog in this Easter egg roll, but to strengthen her in her struggle, illustrates a profound truth about what is at the core of this remarkable leader. His policies and his goals seek to assure that no child really be left behind, and no grownup either."

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Jonathan Gerard is a family therapist in Easton, a past president of the Delaware Valley Association of Reform Rabbis, and a part-time chaplain at Pa.'s largest maximum security prison in Graterford.

Printed in the Allentown PA Morning Call