Judging By the Company We Keep?

When I stand trembling before G-d on Erev Yom Kippur, as I judge myself and submit to a higher judgment, what will the criteria of judgment be? What will count for me and against me? Which are more important my sins of commission or omission? I am pretty confident that the decree of either heaven or self will not be based primarily on the company I've kept.

Yet this seems to be an important issue during this increasingly nasty presidential campaign. Republicans want to judge Obama by his former minister and a former radical. Democrats want to judge McCain on his lobbyist friends and the Keating Five.
If I apply this standard to my self, I quake indeed. I will confess to you, Dear Reader, my own sins of friendships and social intercourse. Let me know what you think before I have to share this with G-d.

I had lunch with the Rev Jesse Jackson. But I also had dinner with Ehud Olmert. I was friends with Richard Perle of the Reagan Administration and the Carlyle Group. Somewhere there is a picture of me with OJ--our arms on each other shoulders. I was president of a large fundraising organization that supports Israel, and I was buddies with Richard Dreyfus who attended a Peace Now rally 18 years ago. A good friend from USC was indicted in Water Gate.

While in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, I studied Islam with the Imam of Nabeul, and I'm afraid that some of my former students may have turned into radical Islamists. In Berkeley in the 60s I knew people who did lots of drugs and plotted the overthrow of the government--but were mostly too stoned to get up off their beanbag chairs or roll out of their waterbeds to do any harm. I studied at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley with an Episcopal priest who was part of the G-d is dead movement, I hang with a rabbi who said to an atheist that he probably didn't believe in the same G-d the atheist didn't believe in.

In my own family I have to live with the fact that one uncle (at least) was a card-carrying communist, my mother was married to an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for congress and a cousin was married to a Chinese communist-- a real one and not an American of Chinese origins who was a communist, but a member of Mao's government. Another cousin is married to a Muslim. More critically, I must also confess that I have a dear cousin or two who will vote the Republican party-line.

Oh G-d, please forgive me my sins of association and my inability to lead all to the straight path. Please look kindly upon me for not overly judging others. Oh whoops, that's from the Christian Scriptures. It's okay if I reference that, isn't it? Actually, if I remember correctly didn't Jesus hang out with sinners, with tax collectors and publicans? (Note: Publican is not a shortened form of Republican. It refers to people who hang out in pubs) I'm sure this was done with Your approval. I seek the same. Let me be judged by my actions and inaction, by my sins and not those of others. Most of all give me the strength during this coming month of sleight of hand, misdirection and mudslinging to believe, to believe in democracy, the wisdom of the people and the fairness of our elections.