The Audacity of Hopelessness

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As a Jew, growing up in New York, I participated in religious studies no different from my Christian friends. Although the books we read may have been different in context, the message was the same. Be a good person, believe in God, honor thy mother and father and cherish this great nation.

Like most of my friends, as I got older, in my case after my Bar Mitzvah, I drifted away from religious studies. Even though the message from my youth was still with me, I did not practice my religion by partaking in weekly services, nor did I belong to any organized congregation.

Years later after my marriage and the birth of our two daughters, both my wife and I, like many young couples in our position, found a need to return and search for a spiritual and religious leader whose views reflected our beliefs about life, religion and family values. We attended services at several synagogues listening to the sermons of different Rabbis. We made our decision and chose a congregation we believed would develop our daughters' spiritual beliefs based on the values with which we were raised.

This is usually the method most couples use to choose a house of worship. If we witnessed a clergyman sermonizing divisiveness or hatred, we would have left that congregation before the Amen. This would not be a message I would want my children to hear.

I can only believe that Senator Barrack Hussein Obama and his wife Michele would choose a congregation that reflected their views of religion and spirituality--a place where they would want their daughters to develop their spiritual beliefs and family values.

In reviewing what Reverend Jeremiah Wright has been preaching, I can only wonder why anyone would want their children exposed to the hateful rhetoric that spews from Rev. Wright's lips? The vile vitriolic statements about America, the hateful screams during his sermons about white Christians and Jews is something that anyone with any sense of values would renounce, especially a Presidential candidate.

Sen. Obama stated that he had been a member of the Trinity Church since 1991. Rev. Wright married him and his wife and he baptized their daughters. Obama also stated that although he was an active member of the church and attended services frequently, he did miss many Sunday services. Simple mathematics would tell you that if he missed 30-percent of his Sunday obligations he would still have been present for over 600 sermons.

He was also a member of the churches' advisory committee until March 14, 2008, when he stated he discontinued his affiliation with the church. Would he have resigned had he not been a candidate for President? Who was advising whom? [My questions]

It is difficult for me to comprehend when he stated, "I have never heard any hateful or anti-American statements while I was present in church."

If his statement is true, I can only think of two things that could have prevented him from hearing any vicious anti-American, anti-Semitic, or anti-white Christian statements. First, as some of us have been guilty of, sleeping during services or secondly he is deaf. You decide!

Obama's Church awarded the Minister Farrakhan a "Lifetime Achievement Award." Obama did not know?

Rev. Wright traveled to Libya with Farrakhan to meet with Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi. Obama did not know?

In the November/December issue of his church's magazine, Trumpet, Wright heaped praise on Farrakhan, whom he helped in organizing the Million Man March in Washington in 1995. Wright lauded Farrakhan as one of the giants of the African-American religious experience in the 20th and 21st centuries. Obama did not read it?

Obama said, he found religion through Wright in the 1980's and consulted him before deciding to run for President. He prayed privately with Wright before announcing his candidacy last year. Will he confer with him if he is elected President? That is a frightening thought.

In any event, why would someone, who is shouting in all of his speeches that we must come together for the sake of our children, want to subject his own daughters to Rev. Wright's vitriolic sermons? He should have denounced his pastor's vitriol years ago. It may have been good for America, Obama and his campaign. This may be the straw that breaks the back of Obama's campaign..

However, there may be another straw to consider. It is the title of Barack Hussein Obama's book, "Audacity Of Hope"- the title, which he claims, Reverend Wright helped him write. Have you looked up the word "audacity" in the dictionary?

Audacity (n) "Boldness or daring with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions."

To be Audacious (adj.) means "extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless: an audacious explorer. 2. Extremely original; without restriction to prior ideas; highly inventive: an audacious vision of the future 3. Recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety, law, or the like insolent; brazen. 4. Lively; unrestrained; uninhibited: an audacious interpretation of role."

Will he be bold or daring with confident or arrogant disregard for our personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions? Is not the U.S. Constitution the foundation for conventional thought and does it not set down certain restrictions? Will he disregard it? Will his disregard for our personal safety mean that, if elected, under his Presidency we will be fearful of additional terrorist attacks? Notice, I did not use the word leadership. [My italics] He has lead nothing in the past, why should I believe he could lead now.

All Obama keeps telling us is it is time for "hope and change." Do we want to change the fact that there have not been any terrorist attacks in America since 9/11? Do we want to change the fact that despite a setback, the economic growth in America has been strong? One-hundred-ten dollar oil certainly has had a great effect on the economy's strength. We should be drilling our own. (Let us not go there now.) Raising taxes and making it worse would certainly bring change.

The hope should be that he does not achieve the American dream. For if he does it may be the audacity of hopelessness.

Harold Stassen once said, "Whoever kindles the flames of intolerance is lighting a fire under his own home."

And, that is my opinion.

Michael Solomon

Author of 'Where Did My America Go?"

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