COMPROMISING ON “PRINCIPLE”
Rabbi Avi Shafran
“Those are my principles!” famously declared Groucho Marx. “And if you don’t like them, well… I have others.”
Principles are important, to be sure. But Groucho wasn’t entirely wrong. There are principles… and there are principles.
For a believing Jew, of course, religious principles are sacrosanct. And there are high principles, many in fact derived from Judaism, that have come to be embraced by much of humanity.
But there are also things that people, including religious Jews, may call principles but which are really just preferences, inclinations or stances. And it is important to keep that distinction, well, distinct.
What musters that thought is the language that flowed forth after the agreement between President Obama and Congressional leaders on a budget deal.
