Joseph the Survivor

 I have always had an affinity for my namesake, the biblical Yoseif/ Joseph. But it’s hard to know what to make of this character, since we rarely know what he’s thinking. An exception is his response to the birth of his sons (Genesis 41:50-52):

Joseph had two sons before the famine years came, borne to him by Asenath, daughter of Poti Phera, priest of On. Joseph named the first-born Manasseh (Me-nasheh) – ‘because God has made me forget (nasheh) all my travail and all of my father’s house.’ He named his second son Ephraim – ‘Because God has made me fruitful (p’ri) in the land of my suffering.’

At first glance, Joseph’s declarations seem contradictory. If Manasseh’s name indicates how relieved he is to forget his past, that would seem to indicate that Joseph views Egypt as his home. But in the next line, we hear that Joseph, even as he rules over the land of the pharaohs, sees it as hostile territory.

So let’s take a second look, particularly at Manasseh. Using the term “nasheh” to denote forgetting is profoundly bizarre, as the usual term is “shakhach.” Indeed, Joseph himself uses this term just a few verses earlier (v. 30), “All the satiety in Egypt will be forgotten (nishkach).” It’s also the final word of the previous chapter, in which the cup-bearer “forgets” Joseph after he gets out of prison, and so Joseph languishes in the dungeon for two more years.

Where does the term nasheh come from then? It only appears one other time in Genesis, 32:32:

The Israelites therefore do not eat the gid ha-nasheh on the hip joint to this very day. This is because [the stranger] touched Jacob’s thigh on the gid ha-nasheh.

This verse is the first time the term “Israelite” is used, and it describes the first dietary law: not to eat the sciatic nerve (gid) of an animal, where Jacob was injured when he wrestled a mysterious assailant. Thus, Joseph gives his firstborn a name which recalls the first rule of keeping kosher.

What about Ephraim? That name recalls the earliest mitzva in the Torah, “Be fruitful (p’ru) and multiply” (Genesis 1:28), which the School of Shammai interprets as having two boys (Mishna, Yevamot 6:6).

Thus, Joseph picks names which remind him of the commandments given to his forebears. Even in exile, in the land of his suffering, these are the “road signs” (as in Jeremiah 31:21, see Sifrei Ekev 43) which connect him to the land he identifies with, to the culture he claims, to the territory he will return to, even if only in death. This is the same Joseph who declares to the cup-bearer in jail (Genesis 40:15): “For I have surely been stolen from the land of the Hebrews.”

If we think about it, there is no contradiction between the naming of Manasseh and the naming of Ephraim. After the severe trauma Joseph undergoes at the hands of his brothers, he indeed wants to put the experience of his father’s house behind him. At the same time, Egypt remains not his home, but the land of his suffering. Joseph identifies as an Israelite, but not a son of Jacob. He keeps the traditions of his faith, but he cannot forgive his family.

We know that Joseph’s story has a happy ending, but we must not elide the decades of suffering which he undergoes. As a survivor of abuse, he has to forge a new identity. Eventually, this allows him to reconcile with his brothers and with his father. But the trauma never goes away. It is Manasseh and Ephraim who become tribes alongside their uncles, but Joseph himself never returns to the status of his youth, as another son of Jacob.

Flattery will get you

 Flattery will get you some bad places, the Talmud states, listing no fewer than seven calamities to befall an individual or community that engages in flattery/ hypocrisy/ cover-ups.

R. Eleazar said: Anyone in whom is flattery brings anger upon the world: as it is said: “But they that are flatterers at heart lay up anger.” Not only that, but their prayer remains unheard; as it continues, “They cannot cry for help when He chastens them.”

R. Eleazar also said: Anyone in whom is flattery, even the embryos in their mothers’ wombs curse him…

R. Eleazar also said: Anyone in whom is flattery will fall into Gehenna, as it said “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil etc.”  What is written after that? “Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame”…

R. Eleazar also said: Any community in which is flattery will finally go into exile. It is written here, “For the community of flatterers is solitary,” and elsewhere it is written: “Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has gotten me these, seeing I have been bereaved of my children, and am solitary, an exile wandering to and fro,'” etc. (BT Sota 41b-42a)

You get the point. Some of the medieval mitzvah-counters even list “Do not flatter” among the 613 biblical commandments, based on a verse we read this past Shabbat, although the context there is not flattering a human being, but the very ground we live on.

Do not flatter the land”– this is the source for the prohibition against flattery. (Sifrei, Numbers 35:33)

This should not be that shocking, as the severity of the parallel prohibition to speak falsely in order to smear the innocent is also derived from the Land of Israel, as described in this week’s Torah portion (Deut. 1):

It was taught: R. Eleazar b. Perata said, Come and see how great the power of an evil tongue is! Whence do we know [its power]? From the spies: for if it happens thus to those who bring up an evil report against wood and stones, how much more will it happen to him who brings up an evil report against his neighbor! (BT Arakhin 15a)

The curious thing is that I have no doubt that many, many sermons will be given this week about the danger of slandering the Land of Israel. It is the original sin of the Fast of Tisha B’Av, which falls out this Saturday, but is pushed off until the conclusion of Shabbat.

But no less serious a sin than flattering the land: denying corruption, crime and complicity which contaminates our society. Dissembling in the face of evil because we don’t want to air our dirty laundry — because “It’s inappropriate,” or because “What will the goyim think?” is indefensible and self-defeating. We can and must do better.

“An evil tongue” kept us out of the land for a generation, but a lying tongue has the power to exile us for millennia. We did not return home to repeat those fatal errors.

The Sword of Moses

 The Bible’s most hideous war crime. The most jaw-dropping line in the Torah. Precedent for genocide in the modern era.

All of these have been used to describe Numbers 31, a passage which we read last Shabbat in Israel, but Diaspora communities will read this Shabbat. It describes the divinely-mandated war with Midian, in which every adult male Midianite is killed on the battlefield by the Israelite forces. When the latter return to the camp with (hundreds of) thousands of women and children and millions of animals, Moses grows furious at the commanders and orders (vv. 17-18):

And now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that has known man by lying of a male; but all the women children, that have not known lying of a male, keep alive for yourselves.

This directive is arguably the most disturbing thing Moses ever says. Let us remember that his biography begins with the following pharaonic decree (Exodus 1:22):

Cast every newborn boy into the Nile, but keep alive every daughter.

So how are we to relate to this? In the Sifrei, the original compendium of halakhic midrash, Rabbi Elazar explains that this is one of three instances in which “our master Moshe, because he was consumed by anger, made a critical mistake.”

But what, precisely, is the mistake? Let us consider the fact that although Moses gives the command to execute every boy and every woman, we do not find this carried out in practice. The chapter goes on to describe, in excruciating detail, the fate of every girl, sheep, bracelet, etc. — but not the boys and women. Is it possible that they were not subject to such a cruel fate?

In the Talmud (BT Yevamot 60b), the Rabbis expound “‘Keep alive for yourselves’–for male and female slaves.” Of course, if only the girls were spared, there could be no male slaves from Midian. However, if we combine the view of the Rabbis with that of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai ibid. (though they argue about the precise reading of the text), we may say that the girls were married off, while their mothers and brothers entered servitude. Essentially, these are two levels of conversion: the girls would become full Jewesses, eventually marrying Israelites; while their mothers and brothers would be obligated in certain commandments, having indentured status within the community. Considering that the reason Israel wages war on Midian is the role the Midianites play at Shittim in seducing Israelites into idolatry and adultery, resulting in a plague that kills 24,000, it is not inconceivable for 32,000 Midianite girls to marry into the people, while their brothers and mothers serve the nation.

Moses’ mistake, then, is that it is not necessary to kill these Midianites. Indeed, he may be referring to them when he talks about “the convert who is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water” (Deuteronomy 29:10), perhaps akin to Joshua 9:27’s “hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the Lord’s altar” (see BT Yevamot 79a).

But why was Moses so angry in the first place? Because this is personal. He found refuge in Midian, he married a Midianite woman, he honored his Midianite in-laws, he offered them a share in God’s inheritance. The fact that at least one faction of the Midianites betray him is something which drives him to a horrific mistake, a lapse in judgment.

The very least we can learn from Moses, it would seem, is not to let anger drive us to forget who we are.

King Smotey I

 You gotta hand it to Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich. Four years ago, he was the junior member of the junior Tkuma faction of the Jewish Home, eighth of eight. He was mostly known for being the guy people downplayed. Pay no attention to his declaration that he’s a “proud homophobe.” Ignore his proposal that Jews and Arabs have separate maternity wards. He’s a backbencher, gadfly, firebrand.

But then he won the chairmanship of Tkuma, and as Jewish Home splintered and reformed (now with Kahanists!), Smotrich was suddenly number one, until the new Knesset could be elected. He’s number two in our current post-election pre-election surreality, but he has no intention of going back to the back benches. Before the April elections, he wanted to become education minister. Now he wants to become justice minister. And looky here, Prime Minister Netanyahu just fired the holders of both offices! All this and he’s not even forty.

But why does Smotey the Bear (which I affectionately call him because, of course, when someone is really hairy and really into the sex lives of gay men, “bear” is the proper term) want this office specifically?

We want the justice portfolio because we want to restore the Torah justice system…

When we talk about Torah laws there are many things. I think the Torah’s monetary laws are much better [than ours]. We need to grant the rabbinical courts a higher status.

Our country will return to the way it was in the days of King David and King Solomon, run by the laws of the Torah.

I suppose it’s appropriate to do this the week before Shavuot, since that holiday celebrates both the Giving of the Torah and the life of King David. However, they represent two very different systems of justice: the rabbinic and the monarchic are, ultimately, not on the same page. Consider what Maimonides writes in the Laws of Kings (Ch. 3):

Anyone who rebels against a king of Israel may be executed by the king. Even if the king orders one of the people to go to a particular place and the latter refuses, or he orders him not to leave his house and he goes out, the offender is liable to be put to death… Similarly, anyone who embarrasses or shames the king may be executed by the king…

The king may only execute people by decapitation. He may also imprison offenders and have them beaten with rods to protect his honor…

A killer whose incriminating evidence is inconclusive, or who was not warned, or who was observed by only one witness, or who inadvertently killed someone he hated–the king is granted license to execute them and to improve society according to the needs of the time…

The rabbinic tradition is one developed over millennia, but the monarchic tradition is the classic “Off with his head.” Many in Israel, including not only secular or traditional people but Religious Zionist and even Haredi Jews–not to speak of the Arabs, because you really don’t want to know what life would be like for them–fear a “halakhic state,” since the Chief Rabbinate has done such a fine job bungling what it controls now: kosher supervision, marriage and divorce, conversion, burial.

But a halakhic state is not what he’s proposing. Smotrich thinks Israel should “go back to conducting itself the way it did in the days of King David, while adjusting that for life in 2019.” No one knows what that would mean, but at least the halakhic tradition has been developed over the course of the past three thousand years, unlike Davidic monarchy.

The most curious aspect is his cryptic statement: “Nothing happens instantly and it doesn’t happen with coercion.” Coercion is exactly what we’re talking about. Brooking no dissent is a rabbinical standard as well (Maimonides, Laws of Rebels 3:4).

However, the “rebellious elder” mentioned in the Torah… has a difference of opinion in one of the Torah’s laws with the Great Sanhedrin and does not accept their views, but instead issues a ruling to act in a different manner. The Torah decreed that he should be executed… Even though he analyzes and they analyze; he received the tradition and they received the tradition, the Torah grants them deference. Even if the court desires to forgo their honor and allow him to live, they are not allowed so that arguments will not increase within Israel.

Our tradition is a complex one; we have been struggling with it ever since we received it at Sinai. The least we can do as we approach Shavuot is recognize the challenges. And cancel the coronation of King Smotey, First of His Name.

Four Daughters

 The penultimate song of the Passover Seder counts four mothers, but many feel that what the Haggadah, the seder’s “bible,” really needs is four daughters.

We have, famously, four sons, based on the Midrash (Mechilta 125). But is that the proper translation? The term “ben” is used, but that is somewhat ambiguous. Take the phrase “and he has no ben,” which appears twice in the Torah. In Numbers 27:8, it clearly means a son: “When a man dies and he has no ben, you shall pass his inheritance to his daughter.” In Deuteronomy 25:5, “When brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and he has no ben,” it is taken as “child” or “offspring,” as the Talmud states (Bava Batra 109a): “For levirate marriage, a son and a daughter are equal.”

Thus, it is fair to translate the Four Sons as Four Children, and indeed Rav Ovadia Yosef rules (Hazon Ovadia 21) that the mitzva of recounting the Exodus applies equally to daughters. Perhaps we have the illustrators to blame for erasing women from the Haggadah.

Still, it is interesting to think about how we can actively bring more women’s voices into the Haggadah — and although they may not appear in the Five Books of Moses, the rest of Scripture does give us wise, wicked, mild and “unknowing” women.

The wise one, what does she say? “We are the peaceful and faithful in Israel. You are trying to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the Lord’s inheritance?” (II Samuel 20:19)

This anonymous woman is a daughter of the city of Avel Beit Maacha (Maacha is a name used by both men and women in the Bible). David’s general Joab comes to the town on the trail of a rebel, and the wise woman (ibid. 16) convinces him to spare her town and avoid needless bloodshed.

The wicked one, what does she say? “She looked, and there was the king, standing by his pillar at the entrance. The officers and the trumpeters were beside the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets, and musicians with their instruments were leading the praises. Then Athaliah tore her robes and shouted, “Treason! Treason!” (II Chronicles 23:13)

This “wicked woman” (ibid. 24:7) is Athaliah, daughter of the House of Omri, King of Israel. You may have heard of Omri’s son Ahab and daughter-in-law Jezebel. Athaliah marries into the Davidic dynasty, but when her son is killed, she eradicates the House of David and seizes the throne for herself. Six years later, she discovers that her grandson Joash survived the purge. Things do not end well for her.

The mild one, what does she say? “I slept but my heart was awake.
    Listen! My beloved is knocking:
“Open to me, my sister, my darling,
    my dove, my mild one.
My head is drenched with dew,
    my hair with the dampness of the night.” (Song of Songs 5:2)

The Song of Songs is often taken as a metaphor for the love between God and Israel. It is read publicly during Passover, and some read it after the Seder as well.

The one who does not know to ask, what does she say? “But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” (Joshua 2:4-5)

This is Rahab the Harlot, who plays an integral role in the conquest of Jericho, saving her family from destruction while helping the Israelites win their first major battle in Canaan. Her professed ignorance saves the lives of the Joshua’s spies.

These themes of royalty and redemption, of passion and compassion, would be at home in any seder. Which women’s voices will be heard at yours?

God is an SJW

 The NCYI Gala on Sunday, an event to celebrate an organization of Orthodox synagogues across the United States, was an exercise in grotesquerie.

The most prominent speaker was House Minority Leader, Republican Kevin McCarthy, whose latest campaign called out three Jewish billionaires and warned “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election!” I could have sworn there was a hubbub recently about antisemitic tropes…

Of course, the sitting Republican president of the United States suffered no ill effects after telling Jewish Republicans: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians, that’s fine.”

Then, once he was in office, he told his guests at the White House Hanukkah Party about how much the Second Couple loves Israel: “And they go there and they love your country. They love your country. And they love this country. That’s a good combination, right?” Hm, dual loyalty much?

Then there was the Dinner Chairman, Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz, who declared that the worst antisemitic attack in American history was not the result of anti-immigrant hysteria fueled by white supremacy and encouraged by the president. No, it was the fault of Torah Trumps Hate, an organization of progressive Orthodox Jews. “The Pittsburgh shooting as horrifying as it was, was in my opinion a sad but direct result of their actions.” In fact, progressive Jews should be defined as moserim, collaborationist traitors marked for death, according to Moskowitz. (He later retracted that part of the accusation, as McCarthy deleted his tweet. Yay?)

Now, it shouldn’t shock me how quickly “All Antizionism is antisemitic” morphed into “Only Antizionism is antisemitic.” As an American-born Orthodox Jew, I have watched that pernicious idea bloom over the last four decades. But hey, that’s just politics, right?

Unfortunately, it no longer is. Far more disturbing than Moskowitz, McCarthy or Messiah ben Fred, is the report that the term tikkun olam was booed at this event.

In this forum, I have explained that the Torah views social justice as a national imperative, and God is definitely called a warrior (Exodus 15:3). Abraham is chosen “Because I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness (tzedaka) and justice” (Genesis 18:19). But the term tikkun olam itself has been reduced to a laugh-line, some concept dreamed up by squishy “Reformim.” Or maybe it’s a line from our liturgy which is really about imposing a global theocracy. My response: Bro, do you even Mishna?

The phrase mippenei tikkun ha-olam, for the sake of the good order of the world, appears FIFTEEN times in the Mishna, the earliest part of the Talmud, compiled circa 200 CE. It is used to explain why the Sages instituted certain rules even thought there was no precedent in Torah law. Some examples:

• Banning a husband from invalidating a bill of divorce while in transit or changing his name to nullify it (Gittin 4:2)
• Instituting the prozbul, a mechanism to allow borrowing during a sabbatical year. (Gittin 4:3)
• Forcing a master to free a slave who is legally unable to marry. (Gittin 4:5)
• Prohibiting exorbitant ransom payments for Jewish captives (Gittin 4:6)

Tikkun olam, in all these cases, is the driving force: a concern for the disadvantaged, from the slave to the captive to the pauper to the woman trapped in an abusive marriage.

For those who claim to be “religious Jews” to be so dismissive, cruel and ignorant of their own tradition is a greater defamation of the Nation of Israel than any trope I could ever imagine.

Assemble!

 Hebrew, especially biblical Hebrew, is funny. For example, this week’s Torah portion starts (Exodus 35:1) with the word vayakhel, spelled ויקהל: “Moses assembled the whole Israelite congregation.” But those exact letters in last week’s portion (ibid. 32:1) were read vayikahel: “The nation massed upon Aaron and said, ‘Come, make us gods who will go before us.'” The shift from passive to causative (for all you grammar freaks) changes the tenor: from an amorphous mob demanding a new god to an orderly community united in purpose.

The word ויקהל appears only one more time in all of the Torah, in Numbers 16:19: “Korah assembled (vayakhel) the whole congregation upon them at the entrance to the tent of meeting.” Korah, cousin to Moses and Aaron, is leading a rebellion against them, ostensibly for religious purposes: “For all in the congregation are holy, and the Lord is in their midst, so why raise yourselves up over the assembly of the Lord?” Nevertheless, even though he is supposed to be standing with a firepan in order to have an incense-off with Aaron and prove this point, Korah is busy running around, riling up the crowd so he’ll have an audience. Presumably for this reason, the Sages point to him as the paragon of insincere divisiveness (Mishna, Avot 5:17).

In addition, he makes an alliance with Dathan and Abiram, whose criticism of Moses is purely about the land:

We will not come! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you poke our eyes out? No, we will not come!

Now, I have a soft spot for Dathan (probably because he’s played by the only Jewish actor in The Ten Commandments, Edward G. Robinson [though a Jewish actress, Olive Deering, plays Miriam]), but that sounds pretty nuts. In fact, D&A’s nationalist critique seems to have nothing to do with Korah and Company’s theological critique. And yet they form an alliance. In fact, they build a “tabernacle of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.” You might even call them a Technical Bloc (my nickname in the Army). D&A, true believers, put their families on the line; Korah, in the meantime, cannot convince his own sons to stick with him. Ultimately, the rebellion fails in a spectacular pyrotechnic (Korah’s men) and seismic (D&A) denouement.

That’s all I can think of as I consider the ill-advised union of the Jewish Home and Jewish Power parties. The former used to be the National Religious Party, which supposedly represented “my” sector, the Religious Zionists. The latter is the latest iteration of Kahanism. Some want to defend this merger of theocrats and ethnocrats by arguing that it’s no biggie. After all, Michael Ben-Ari, head of Jewish Power, banned from entering the US as a terrorist, was in Knesset as recently as 2013.  And what about those Arab parties?

Ignoring the fact that “those Arab parties” represent a wide range of views, they at least raise the banner of democracy, not ethnic supremacy. Their members have endorsed or winked at violence against Israeli authorities, but unfortunately many right-wingers, far beyond Jewish Power, have done just that, in word and deed, against Israeli police, soldiers and the courts.

Far more important than that, though, is the active role that Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken: brokering the alliance, promising cabinet posts, guaranteeing a spot on the judicial appointments committee and signing a deal to share votes with this new alliance. Sure, why shouldn’t the new Education Minister be a “proud homophobe” who thinks his wife shouldn’t have to give birth in the same ward as Arab mothers? Why shouldn’t the new Housing and Construction Minister be the guy who threatened to bring a D9 bulldozer to raze the Supreme Court? I cannot stress enough that these statements were made not by the Jewish Power faction, but by those who now sit in Knesset representing the “moderate” Jewish Home!

So, here’s what we’re gonna do on Motzaei Shabbat Vayakhel: we are going to assemble, across from the PM’s Residence in Jerusalem, against Kahanism–not just one faction, Jewish Power, but the rot at the heart of Israeli politics which Netanyahu has decided not only to let fester, but to help foster.

I hope you’ll join us. Firestorm and earthquake not guaranteed.

Todah, Tzipi

 Twenty years ago, I made aliyah, just ten days after the elections for the Fifteenth Knesset. I was a newly-minted Israeli, and there was a whole crop of newly-minted Israeli legislators. Among them was a woman who would break many glass ceilings, Tzipi Livni. And her political career, it appears, ends today.

A lot of people are applauding that, most of them snidely, some of them misogynistically. They snicker as they note that she has held eight different cabinet positions and run with four different parties. After all, in Israeli society, there is nothing worse than being a freier, a sucker, the one left holding the bag. And that’s what has happened to Livni time after time.

Though the Likud’s 2005 Disengagement from Gaza was Ariel Sharon’s brainchild, and his #2, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voted for it four separate times, the blame for its missteps is laid at her feet. It was the Bush Administration that wanted Palestinian legislative elections to happen less than six months later, with the participation of Hamas, but sure, that was her fault too. Ehud Olmert’s corruption ended his own premiership, and he handed the party off to Tzipi, his foreign minister (arguably, the last real foreign minister Israel has had). She managed to win more seats than Netanyahu in the subsequent elections, but he had made prior arrangements with the ultra-Orthodox parties to deny her the PM’s seat. Then Shaul Mofaz took her party — all the way from having the most seats in Knesset to the fewest.

She built a new party, coming back to the position in which she’d first distinguished herself, as Minister of Justice. Eventually, she’d join forces with Labor’s Isaac Herzog, ceding him the leadership role in a last-ditch attempt to beat Netanyahu in the last election. Then, in the run-up to this election, Labor’s new leader, Avi Gabbay, unceremoniously dumped her on live television. (I wonder why he doesn’t get criticism for jumping parties…) And now, alone again, naturally, it doesn’t seem like her party can get over the electoral threshold.

That same year that Tzipi first made it into the Knesset, another woman with a famous last name was striking out on her own, as Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for the Senate in New York, winning the retiring Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s seat the next year.

At the same time, another strong woman, Angela Merkel, was assuming control of the Christian Democrats in Germany. She would assume the chancellorship in late 2005. She’s still in that position, but she no longer heads the party and is also at the sunset of her political career.

I think there is something that binds them, beyond gender, hair color and career choice. None of them were supposed to succeed. Livni was the daughter of an Irgun power couple (the first people to marry in the newborn State of Israel!), but that was not exactly the route to power in the State’s early years; Clinton took her promising law career to Arkansas, a seeming dead end; Merkel hailed from East Germany. But throughout their careers, they shared the conviction that democracy, diplomacy and capitalism work, even as Israel, America and Europe seem to be drifting away from that belief. They have earned enemies on the right and the left as they have evolved as politicians. They have absorbed all the slings and arrows of their critics with equanimity. And they have changed their societies forever. I hope that we have not seen the last of them.

In the meantime, let me just say: Thank you, for everything.