Faith: Want to cherish God-given rights, Lt. Gov. McGeachin? Accept call to care for others

I offer this column as an open letter to Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin.

Dear Lt. Gov. McGeachin:

After viewing a recent video from the Idaho Freedom Foundation in which you feature prominently, I would like to invite you to study Torah — or, if you prefer, the Bible — with me. Let me explain.

In that video, you and other elected officials inveigh against all measures enacted to battle a pandemic that “may or may not be occurring.” You pledge to defend the rights of Idahoans against any public health policy that would mandate masks and social distancing, and impose even the most modest of restrictions on businesses such as bars and restaurants. It seems that you view any basic epidemiological safeguards as infringements on individual liberties.

As you spoke, you prominently displayed your Bible, presumably offering it as grounding for your position. Then, in what seemed to me a threat, you backed up your words by brandishing a gun. Was it your intent to intimidate? I certainly felt deep fear for my safety and freedom, and that of my Jewish community.

Lt. Gov. McGeachin, I would like to discuss Scripture with you, because I truly want to know where, exactly, you see God espousing a notion of freedom that so heavily privileges individual rights over communal responsibilities.

In my Jewish tradition’s understanding, that balance looks very different. Long before Earl Riney posited that “freedom without obligation is anarchy,” and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that “the right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” the Torah envisioned a community grounded in the brit, a sacred covenant in which we are called to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

How can we fulfill the foundational obligation to love our neighbors as ourselves when we are unwilling to take even the most minimally burdensome measures (masking and social distancing) in order to protect them? What kind of love includes the right to intentionally expose our neighbors to a deadly virus? The philosopher Thomas Hobbes describes a world of individual rights run amok over communal responsibilities as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

The book of Judges offers a concrete picture of that brutal state, filled with rape and murder, because in those anarchic days, in the absence of laws to protect the populace, “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” In my reading of Scripture, the goal is not the childish concept of freedom as “you’re not the boss of me,” but an adult model of liberty that calls us to cherish our God-given rights by accepting our equally God-given responsibilities to care for one another.

But perhaps I am missing something. That is why I sincerely invite you to respond by coming to study with me at the synagogue. I’d like to learn more about your understanding of freedom. We will have to meet outside, in our courtyard, because our building is currently closed for the protection of our community. And I’ll insist on masks, because I don’t want to infect you.

Please bring your Bible, but I respectfully request that you leave your gun at home, because in keeping with Isaiah, who taught us to beat our swords into plowshares, I believe our sacred synagogue space should always be gun-free.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Rabbi Dan Fink

This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 5:19 PM.