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Discrimination is not acceptable behavior.  Institutionalized state sponsored discrimination is not acceptable behavior -unless of course declaring our opposition gets in the way of our being entertained, making money or exploiting it for whatever personal gain we might accrue, like competing and getting medals.

So the Russian winter games are almost upon us.  But what do we do about the anti-gay laws that Russia intends to enforce? As best as I can tell, for right now, if you are a sponsor, you do nothing.  If you are the IOC you do nothing.  If you are an athlete, you do nothing- except for one guy who has vowed to wear a rainbow pin.  If you are a consumer, you do nothing.  This is the kind of unacceptable behavior that permits (turning the blind eye) the discrimination to continue unabated.   Everyone is compelled to stand against the injustice that is the Russian approach to sexuality and civil rights.

I won’t watch the Olympic games.  Sorry NBC, no advertising dollars will flow from me.  I won’t drink Coke- sorry Atlanta- no revenue from me. And I will not consume any McDonald’s products (arguably one healthy thing to come out of this). Sorry Ronald.  I will write to the IOC and USOC to express my outrage that they find the Russian stand acceptable.  And what about you?  Athletes should boycott and we all should demand that the laws are repealed.  Gays are victims of the law and also of vigilantes in Russia. Is this really acceptable?  How can we say we are against such maltreatment of others, except when it infringes on our ability to ski or skate or make money?  We may not be able to change Russia directly, but we certainly do not have to support and give glory to the place and people that find such behavior acceptable.

I just saw a movie about a Hasidic family and was quite taken with the style of dress.

Streimel, special topcoat, kittel, stockings (they were Bobovers*), women’s dress governed by principles of modesty, all served to create a complete sense of who they were, expressed by their distinct manner of dress.  One wonders if clothes make the man or if the man makes the clothes.  Phillip Roth asked this question in his short story “Eli the Fanatic.”  As Eli dons the religious garb of the man he planned to push from the community, the clothing begins the transformation of Eli into the very orthodoxy the modern community is rebelling against.

I think we liberal Jews need uniforms too.  Not that we do not have them.  We dress in the uniform of the greater society in which we live.  We have suits and ties, lab coats, cocktail gowns, jeans and t-shirts, flip-flops, side-ways baseball caps and the like.  And we adopt the actions of those conventions we wear.  So what if we wore things that reflected other aspirations?  What would happen if we surrounded ourselves in uniforms that proclaimed we belonged to tzedakah, grace, compassion and good deeds? Our more observant brothers and sisters wear tzitzit to remind them of the mitzvoth and sheitels for tzniut (modesty).  What happens when we start dressing a bit more Jewish?  What might it look like and how might we change?

 *The Bobovers are a Hasidic sect originating in Bobowa, Poland

Welcome to my blog that I affectionately call Sayings of the Radmal.  My name is David M Levin and I am a newly ordained rabbi (hence the name R-D-M-L).  I am what is called a “second career” rabbi, which means I had a career before deciding to embark on this one, and it also means I am a bit older than most freshly minted rabbis.  This blog will be a collection of “thoughts and musings” I want to share as I progress along the journey that is my rabbinate.  Hopefully these “thoughts and musings” will stimulate thought and conversation and possibly incite you to action.  And sometimes, they may even amuse.  I hope you find something meaningful here.