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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 26, 2009 / 4 Tamuz 5769

The Voice Claims Another Victim

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The first thing that should be acknowledged about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's admission to an extramarital affair is that it could happen to any of us. That is not an excuse (and no, it has not happened to me, or to my wife). Every married person has heard the voice; the one that says you deserve something "better."


Gov. Sanford should have been familiar with the voice because of the Bible studies he attended. The voice began seducing humanity a long time ago. It told our first parents that they needed more than the perfection of Eden. The voice told them that G-d knew that if they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they would be like G-d. But they already were like G-d, because they were made in His image.


Stick with me you secularists and non-literalists, because there is a point to be made for you, too.


Psychiatrists explain that married people tire of one another after 10 or 20 years (it used to be seven years, as in that Marilyn Monroe/Tom Ewell film "The Seven Year Itch." Must be inflation.). Good marriages are the result of hard work. Forsaking all others is more than a wedding promise. It is a daily denial of one's lower instincts. Temptation is everywhere. The key to overcoming it is to realize you are fighting an adversarial force that wants to destroy you, embarrass you and cause ridicule to be heaped on the G-d you claim to worship.


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One can make excuses about power and loneliness and starting out as a friendship that develops into something else, as Gov. Sanford rambled on about, but one can't explain adultery. It is what it is and the person who commits it should be calling on G-d for mercy, not the voters for understanding.


I once asked evangelist Billy Graham if he experienced temptations of the flesh when he was young. He said, "of course." How did he deal with them? With passion he responded, "I asked G-d to strike me dead before He ever allowed me to dishonor Him in that way." That is the kind of seriousness one needs to overcome the temptations of a corrupt culture in which shameful behavior is too often paraded in the streets.


There was a time when a divorce would disqualify someone from public office. Now people admit affairs and expect to stay in office. "It's just sex," said defenders of Bill Clinton. One might as well say, "it was just a gun" that killed my spouse. Adultery wounds in ways a bullet cannot. One can potentially heal from a bullet wound, but a shot to the soul and to the trust that must be central to any marriage is nearly impossible to repair. The wounded spouse always wonders, "Will he/she do it again?"


A relationship most promise to venerate "until death us do part" is damaged by adultery, whether it's a TV evangelist, a politician or a regular Joe who violates the marriage bed. In fact, we rarely even use the word "adultery" anymore because it sounds so, uh, biblical, and those teachings and commands long ago fell out of fashion, though they work for those who embrace them.


Any man who claims never to have had thoughts of straying is a liar. Any man who has sought the help of G-d and other men in helping him to honor his marriage promises to his wife and children is a hero, especially in today's morally exhausted culture.


I miss Paul Harvey and his acknowledgement of those who had been married 50, 60, even 70 years. Those people are my role models. I'm sure they heard the voice, too, but they told it to get lost and it did. Pushing against weights builds up the body, pushing against the voice builds up the soul and improves a marriage. You can never take a marriage — or the voice — for granted; it's always on the prowl looking for new people to destroy.

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Cal Thomas Archives

JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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