Tom Schweich's suicide and the "shame" of being Jewish

I’m confused.

Missouri State Auditor and candidate for governor, Tom Schweich, tragically commits suicide. He’s apparently pushed over the edge, convinced he’s the object of a “whisper campaign” accusing him of being Jewish as though that’s something dark and shameful.

Whether or not there actually was a whisper campaign, the concern was apparently that some outstate “Christian” voters would reject Schweich for his Jewishness.

I have something in common with Schweich who, though actually an Episcopalian, had a Jewish grandfather. I am pastor of a nondenominational Christian church and am gratified to say my grandfather, like Schweich’s, was Jewish.

A consideration of the monumental Jewish influence on Western culture leaves one wondering why Jewishness should be a political negative. The Western mind, after all, largely perceives the world with a Jewish-fostered perspective, particularly as it relates to human value and its implications for democracy.

It was a Hebrew writer, one of the Old Testament prophets, which long ago asserted, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female.” This transcendent declaration was in vivid contrast to all other ancient cosmologies.

“Democracy… grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals, subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique and personal destiny,” wrote Thomas Cahill in The Gifts of the Jews, one of six volumes in his bestselling “Hinges of History” series. “There is no way that it could have been ‘self-evident that all men are created equal’ without the intervention of the Jews.”

From the view that man is made in the image of God there arose a unique and powerful Western dynamic—holding governmental authority accountable.

Throughout the ancient world the power of kings and potentates was everywhere absolute and arbitrary. For their subjects to openly confront that power was unthinkable. In contrast, the Jewish Old Testament prophets consistently called their rulers to account.

When the great Hebrew king, David, plunged himself into moral and political corruption, Nathan the prophet boldly confronted him as the guilty party, declaring to his face, “Thou art the man”. This indictment, fortified with a deep sense of divine authority, brought one of the most celebrated governmental power brokers of the ancient world literally to his knees.

The dynamic of speaking truth to power set the template for Western political accountability and cultural reform. “The Hebrew prophets gave voice to a skeptical, often mocking spirit that has long since pervaded the intellectual life of the Western world,” observed University of California Professor Herbert Schneidau, in his book Divine Discontent. “In what other cultural tradition is so much stress laid on such self-analysis? Who else spends so much time uprooting vulgar errors?”

Opponents of slavery, defenders of individual rights and reformers of every stripe have all stood in the tradition of the great Jewish prophets, holding culture and human authority accountable to a higher law. As noted Indian philosopher, Vishal Mangalwadi, said with the unbiased perspective of an outside observer, “The Old Testament helped the West to become a self-critical culture in a healthy way.”

It may well be when Irish eyes are smiling “‘tis like the morning spring”. But when modern, Western eyes are assessing the value of humanity and the consequent limits of government, they’re looking through distinctly Jewish eyes. “The Jews gave us … our outlook and our inner life,” wrote Cahill. “Humanity’s most extravagant dreams are articulated by the Jewish prophets.”

Centuries before the coming of Christ, the prophet Isaiah declared the Jewish people would be a “light to the nations”. Believers in Jesus, of course, see the highest fulfillment of this multifaceted promise in the figure of Jesus, himself Jewish.

For those, whether of Jewish or Christian heritage, who don’t believe in divine inspiration of the prophets, their lofty vision and progressive impact on culture must be attributed to the genius of the Jewish people themselves.

For believers in divine inspiration, including authentic followers of Jesus, the Jewish people are to be understood as God’s human agency through whom his transformative wisdom was conveyed to the world. Either way it is a remarkable legacy that ought to elicit profound admiration from all who love freedom and democracy.

Jewishness is a political liability subject to being maligned through a supposed “whisper campaign”? What a confused state of affairs. It seems more fitting that it be gladly proclaimed from the rooftop.

Genesis 1:27; II Samuel 12:1-9; Isaiah 49:6

Bob Levin can be reached at bob_levin@sbcglobal.net