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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Feb. 9, 2007 / 21 Shevat, 5767

On Lincoln's Birthday, 2007

By Paul Greenberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | An Italian exchange student once asked me what he should know in order to understand America. The best I could come up with on the spot was the U.S. Constitution, jazz and baseball.


Later it would come to me that to study each of those only in the abstract, as just a blueprint or rule book or a series of notes on a page, would be less than useful to someone trying to understand America. It might even mislead. The notes would be there, but not the music. The map isn't the road. The letter cannot capture the spirit.


That spirit cannot be appreciated apart from the history that gave rise to it, and which it shapes in return. Abraham Lincoln delivered his second Inaugural Address as president of the United States on Saturday, March 4, 1865. What must it have been like to be there that day? Picture it:


The country's new vice-president had just celebrated his swearing-in by delivering a drunken rant about his modest beginnings and little else. All around the capital lay the evidence of a great civil war that had consumed almost four long years, and left the land covered in blood and ruin, and was only now grinding to an uncertain close. That was the dispiriting context in which the once and future president rose to address those assembled there, and a shattered nation.


Even now, and certainly then, learned scholars would debate the question of what had caused the war. As if standing on the heights of history, Mr. Lincoln would come as close as anyone has to answering that question. His would not be the partisan answer one might have expected from the leader of one side on the cusp of victory in a terrible war:


"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."


And the war came. Like an impartial act of justice from on high, as if to expiate the terrible sin of centuries of slavery:


"These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. … Neither party expected for the war the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. … The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."


The Almighty has His own purposes.


There is something almost biblical in those words. The victor would assign no blame that all did not share. If he had been defiant in war, Abraham Lincoln would be more than magnanimous in victory. He would be humble, as his nation, North and South, had been humbled.


The Almighty has His own purposes. Yet man must do what he can, without thought of vengeance or vainglory: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as G-d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in…."


Abraham Lincoln understood that the crisis he had faced, and still faced, was too great for smallness on his part, or on his country's. He would look beyond mere victory and defeat, beyond grief and vengeance, toward understanding, forgiveness, healing, hope. And a new birth of freedom. Toward not just a renewed but an ever-new Union.


What a strange picture of this same Union now is set before the world: not just a great power but the world's only superpower; an impersonal place in which no one really cares for another; a society driven only by material ambition; a nation so self-righteous in conflict, so proud and unreflecting, so uncharitable and unfeeling that its malice is almost unpremeditated….


That is not the America of Mr. Lincoln, and it is not the real America behind the caricature so often presented to and by the world.


The defining American challenge, said de Tocquevlle in his unmatched study of Democracy in America, is to find the right balance between liberty and equality.


In his Second Inaugural, Abraham Lincoln did not choose one or the other, or even portray them as opposing forces. He presented liberty and equality as one, each bracing the other, like the timbers of a great ship, as inseparable as the Union itself.


The good ship Union would sail on long after its captain had departed, and it still heads, as always, in the direction of Freedom. And freedom not just for this ever-new nation. For such a vessel cannot but help roil the waters all around, sending out ripples who knows how far, lifting the hopes of others just at the sight of its tall masts, its billowing sails, as it proceeds on its own way undeterrable. Despite the wreckage and debris on the surface of events, despite all that is arrayed against it, it still heads out for the open sea of freedom. Undeterrable.


I now realize that, when my young Italian friend asked for the key to understanding America, I should just have handed him a copy of Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and said: "Here it is. Now go and study."

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JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

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