(RNS) — Last week, Rabbi Steven Burg, who heads the Orthodox Jewish educational organization Aish, claimed in a Jewish News Service column that last month’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, which killed two students and injured 17, led to a “coordinated assault on the very concept of prayer.” The assault, he wrote, went as follows.
Within hours of the tragedy, prominent politicians and media figures launched vitriolic attacks against those offering “thoughts and prayers.” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) used profanity to dismiss prayer entirely. MSNBC’s Jen Psaki called it “nonsense” and “a lie.” CNN’s Dana Bash echoed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s rage against prayer, while other Democratic lawmakers uniformly dismissed the role of faith in responding to tragedy.
The attack on “thoughts and prayers” by liberal leaders in our country seems to reflect a deeper crisis plaguing Western society: The systematic attempt to remove God from public life. Mocking prayer is rejecting the very foundation of moral society itself and the bedrock that the United States was founded upon.
OMG. But let’s take a moment to fill in the backstory.
Over the past few years, Democratic politicians (who generally support gun control) have made a practice of criticizing Republicans (who generally don’t) for responding to mass shootings by saying that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims. Sure enough, immediately after the shooting on the morning of Aug. 27, two Republican members of the Minnesota congressional delegation, Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad, posted on Facebook, “My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this horrific situation” and “Keeping the students, teachers, and all of Minnesota in my prayers in the wake of today’s horrific violence” respectively.
Then, at an emotional press conference that afternoon, Mayor Frey said the following, “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying.”
As for Rep. Frost, he posted on X, “These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at catholic school. Don’t give us your f—ing thoughts and prayers. Trump got rid of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Trump gutted the resources that were in place to keep our communities safe.”
But this time around, as CNN’s Aaron Blake noted, Trumpland decided to push back with its own familiar criticism of the left for irreligiosity. Attack dog JD Vance led the way with a post on X: “Of all the weird left wing culture wars in the last few years, this is by far the most bizarre. ‘How dare you pray for innocent people in the midst of tragedy?!’ What are you even talking about?”
Fox quickly picked up the ball with a midday roundup of “thoughts and prayers” criticism headlined, “Liberal figures lambast ‘prayers’ in wake of Minnesota church shooting.” From Frey’s comment, “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers,” it removed the word “just.”
Minnesota Catholic Bishop Robert Barron, who had earlier posted an invitation to pray for the victims, quickly joined the fray, telling Fox News Digital that Frey’s comment was “completely asinine.” The drumbeat continued across the right-wing media. You might even call it a coordinated assault.
Not that anyone I’ve seen went as far as Rabbi Burg in casting the criticism as part of an effort to get God out of public life. I guess that when you’re late to the party, you’ve got to ratchet up the fun. Be that as it may, what Mayor Frey (Burg’s co-religionist) and the other liberal figures were clearly doing was of a piece with what God famously says through the Prophet Isaiah:
Is such the fast that I have chosen? The day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Is God assailing the very concept of fasting here? By no means. God is assailing religious display by those who fail to live up to injunctions to take action in the world. God is saying that prayer and repentance aren’t enough.
The rabbis have us read that passage on Yom Kippur, the day on which we fast and atone for our sins. Among the most prominent biblical injunctions against sin is the ninth of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
With Yom Kippur just around the corner, I suggest Rabbi Burg ponder it.
