Mayoral Candidate Preaches the Tenth Commandment

 

CANDIDATE DAN GELBER PLAYS THE ETHNIC CARD

A Yeshiva lesson from on high

UPDATE June 6, 2017

MIAMI HERALD FURTHER IMPLICATES MICHAEL GRIECO


June 5, 2017

By David Arthur Walters

PRESS INDEPENDENT

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his ass, nor anything that is his. Exodus 20:17

Dan Gelber, candidate for the coveted position of mayor of the City of Miami Beach, after casting the first stone against his opponent, Michael Grieco, who in return called him “Dishonest Dan,” prompting Gelber to allege three more political sins besides the political prostitution he first alleged, has now, upon the occasion of Shavuot, resorted to a profession of Judaism to support his campaign.

Shavuot, as a diminishing number of Jewish voters in the city well know, is an harvest festival of old during which Jews found occasion to discuss the Torah and the Ten Commandments therein, and perhaps to read the Book of Ruth, a charming narrative about how a widow who virtuously clung to her mother-in-law found a new husband and bore the grandfather of King David.

To wit: On May 29, Dan@gelberformayor.com, upon the occasion of the great Jewish holiday Shavuot, declared in an email blast that:

“As a Jew and a lawyer, and as a former federal prosecutor and the son of a prosecutor and judge, I am tremendously proud of my ancestors’ contributions to law, order, justice and jurisprudence that have effected unparalleled change for good throughout Western civilization. You do not have to be religious to appreciate the importance of edicts such as ‘thou shalt not covet.’ Those who don’t, sadly, may be prone to the type of corruption and malfeasance that has become all too common in our politics today. It is this corruption and impropriety that I have dedicated my life to fighting, whether as a federal corruption prosecutor or Florida State Senator.”

The key Hebrew word in the last of the ten commandments of the Decalogue is chamad, an ambiguous term meaning ‘strong desire,’ ambiguous because both good and bad things can be strongly desired. Chamad is usually translated into ‘covet,’ a word derived from the Latin, associated in the derogatory sense with concupiscence or cupidity. The desire to want more than one needs, especially the desire for a woman owned by another man, must be religiously curbed lest the thought lead to deeds. Ibn Ezra taught that a person can control his desires by training his heart to be content with that God has allotted to him. Thus the sin is in the thought itself. For Judeo-Christians, covetousness, interpreted as Greed, is one of the notorious Seven Deadly Sins, and Lust is given its own category, along with Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Envy, Wrath, and Sloth.

Jews as everyone knows are unfairly accused of excelling in greed as a result of being confined in the old days to the lucrative profession of exchanging filthy lucre for Christian hypocrites. In fact, at least from my personal experience over fifty years, Jews are the most charitable of all ethnic groups.

Now it just so happens that the southern district of Miami Beach, or South Beach, where Dan Gelber’s opponent Michael Grieco lives, is well known for all seven of the deadly sins, particularly covetousness.

Jewish immigrants eventually managed to overcome Christian discrimination and preside over much of the prime Miami Beach real estate as well as the city commission, which is located in South Beach, occasionally yielding the majority on the commission to the rising influence of Cuban Americans. South Pointe, the southernmost point of South Beach, once a poor man’s ghetto where Jews and other outcasts were once confined by discriminatory legislation, has now become a glass ghetto sporting multimillion dollar condos for the ultra-wealthy jet set and money launderers. Many Jews moved to the northern reach South Beach or to an enclave in mid beach, or they left for better haunts elsewhere, some retaining large real estate interests on the beach.

The current mayor, Philip Levine, who originally sponsored Michael Grieco for a seat on his “purchased” commission majority, happens to be a Jewish media mogul and real estate developer who came to South Beach and got his start hawking tours on cruise ships.

Grieco, who has now distanced himself from Levine to some extent, also immigrated to South Beach, where he now lives in South Pointe. He lived in humble quarters for awhile in an old “crackhood,’ serving the State Attorney as a prosecutor before going into business as a celebrity criminal defense lawyer. He has from time to time rued the takeover of the once poor man’s paradise by greedy developers. Hypocrisis, or the difference between reality and the ideal professedly longed for, is the underlying crisis of humankind. The largest contributor to his campaign as of the latest report appears to be Adam Walker, a mysterious realtor front man for investors who snapped up apartment buildings in South Beach, where he expects to raise rents by fifty percent and drive working people and elderly people on fixed incomes out in favor of people who drive “Porches” and do not want to live in condos.

Grieco did not respond to my question as to how I can quickly raise enough money to buy a Porsche and pay high rent to his contributor. I pay less than the market rate now inasmuch as I do not ask my landlord to fix or replace appliances, or the central air conditioning system although the temperature in my studio runs over a hundred degrees at times. Several landlords in the neighborhood have “No Maintenance” policies now, other than maintaining electric and water facilities required by state law, in the expectation of selling into escalating real estate values exacerbated by the regional boom and the local policies of an administration controlled by Mayor Levine’s de facto strong-mayor commission.

Gelber declares that he is "very observant of the most important transcendental moral messages embedded in the Torah. In particular, my life and profession have been inspired by the Torah edicts, 'Justice, Justice, Thou Shalt Pursue,' and “Love thy neighbor as you love yourself.' I was first introduced to the motto, ‘Justice, Justice, thou shalt pursue,’ as an aspiring lawyer. I did not know why the term ‘Justice’ is repeated until it was explained to me by an orthodox rabbi who was friendly with my family: he explained, the repetition is God’s way of admonishing us that we must be just not only in our goals, but also in the methods and means with which we pursue those goals. In other words, if my goal were to end corruption in City Hall, I could not take an unethical route to advance the goal…. Not only will I not tolerate bribes and quid-pro-quos, but I will vigorously pursue and hold accountable any politician or public employee who dares to engage in such behavior. ‘Love thy neighbor as thy love thyself’ has inspired me to be a good fellow...." (sic)

The people of Miami Beach, not to mention untold billions of people around the globe, are waiting on justice, the same justice humanity has been hoping for from cradle to grave. Indeed, if we dared, at the risk of being struck down for blasphemy, to name the “unknown” or “ineffable” god, i.e. the absolute power that people worship in hope of salvation from the inequitable political distribution of that power in the covetous war of all against all, we might with good reason call that god JUSTICE instead of, for example, YHWH. It is for good reason that Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah, and that Judeo-Christians expect Jesus to return so that Justice will be inevitably done at some unpredictable time. Theodicy vainly attempts to reconcile good and evil in one god until the Last Hour of the Final Day.

The conception named Justice was so overarching to the Greeks, for whom the just state was the individual written large, that they had Zeus say that a sane adult without a natural sense of justice should be executed or banished. We read in Plato’s Republic about a slain man named UR whose body did not decay on the funeral pyre so that he could tell of the rewards and punishments due to people after death: someone who is not punished in this life is likely to covet being a tyrant in the next one, and there be fated to unspeakable horrors such as eating his own children.

Well, we are aware of the purport of “justice” long before we can even pronounce the word, especially if we have siblings or others who seem to get more than their just deserts, for which even communism would be preferable.

Luther spoke of the natural development of the innate covetousness common to our kind:

For we are so inclined by nature that no one desires to see another have as much as himself, and each one acquires as much as he can; the other may fare as best he can. And yet we pretend to be godly, know how to adorn ourselves most finely and conceal our rascality, resort to and invent adroit devices and deceitful artifices (such as now are daily most ingeniously contrived) as though they were derived from the law codes; yea, we even dare impertinently to refer to it, and boast of it, and will not have it called rascality, but shrewdness and caution. In this lawyers and jurists assist, who twist and stretch the law to suit it to their cause, stress words and use them for a subterfuge, irrespective of equity or their neighbor's necessity. And, in short, whoever is the most expert and cunning in these affairs finds most help in law, as they themselves say: Vigilantibus iura subveniunt (The laws favor the watchful). Martin Luther, The Large Catechism

Both candidates for mayor of Miami Beach are former prosecutors. In ancient Rome and Greece, common informers called delators or sycophants, respectively, could prosecute others and each other without professional licenses. To delate was to accuse, and the reward of a delator was called a delatura, which they shared with the state. These common informers fell into disrepute and were mocked by comedians for coveting fame and fortune, the goods of the persons they accused.

The professional sycophant and delator swore that he acted altruistically and according to high conscience when he accused someone of an offense. Today paid prosecutors, who must be licensed lawyers, swear on their salaries that they act on behalf of the public, yet many are those who secretly abuse their prosecutorial discretion, a vestige of the discretion of kings of yore considered to be the font of the law hence above it.

Politicians are wont to flatter the public as well. They prosecute one another or opposing parties, accusing them of all sorts of misdeeds to gain power and property for themselves while promising the public the Promised Land; that is, the so-called Common Good. The trouble with the so-called Common Good on this planet is that Good wants definition by people who are inherently selfish and thus differ in their definitions. If the will of a faction small or large is uniformly imposed on all, their version of the Common Good could constitute the worst state of affairs, either chaos at one extreme, or a totalitarian police state at the other.

Aristophanes took the subject to task in his comedy named after the god of wealth, Plutus, in a dialogue between Just Man and Informer. Plutus was blinded by Zeus because he threatened to bestow wealth on just men; most if not all wealth at the time went to dishonest men, rascals and knaves. “PLUTUS When I was a youth I threatened that I would go to the just and wise and orderly alone; but he made me blind that I might not distinguish anyone of these. He is so jealous of the good.”

Now Dan Gelber plays the Good Man as well as the God Man; “good” and “god” are not rooted in the same term, yet we would like the Just Man to identical with the Good Man, and Gelber classically coalesces the nomenclature in the name of Justice, a concept with as many definitions as there are coveters for good and bad things. He poses as fighter against corruption on an alleged record of purity as he thumps the Torah via the email address of his political campaign.

Why, even Michael Grieco said Gelber is “a good man” until the first stone, according to him, was cast at him, alleging via a push poll that Grieco was using a dirty political action committee. (1)

Alas that the proverbial Good Man does not get very far in politics, especially when he plays an ethnic card, in this instance the Judaic one. This Good Man is up against a man whose name is a Roman variant of Greco, no doubt with roots in ancient Greece, even if he has forgotten his Machiavelli. Grieco naturally fought back in accord with the primitive Law of Retaliation, although he should have let the stone cast fly harmlessly overhead. First of all, he was quick to smack down “Dishonest Dan” for the fake polling that planted the seed that he was corrupt.

So Dan just had to bring up some old dirt that had been raised with no negative effect during Grieco’s campaign for commissioner. There was his violation of the State Attorney’s email policy back in 2002. Oh, let us not forget that he referenced his prosecution of a celebrity football player on a website promoting his disc jockey career; the State Attorney was angered by the accusation that he was seeking personal business instead of justice in the case, but he was pulled off the case for sake of the appearance of propriety that attorneys are supposed to covet.

Worst of all was the reminder that Grieco got a wrist slap from the Bar Association nine years ago for helping a friend, yet a voter familiar with the disciplinary action might wish he was Grieco friend.

Grieco's friend, Elie Parker, assaulted a man, and Grieco confessed that he misled detectives into thinking he was involved in his official capacity as Assistant State Attorney in the case, causing them to reveal information they would not have otherwise disclosed. Grieco told them there was a lack of probable cause to prosecute, and advised his friend to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege. He asked the prosecution to give special attention to the matter, and, when his friend was arraigned, misled people into believing he was acting as a state attorney instead of representing the accused. This being admitted, he was publicly reprimanded for violating the Bar rule against representing adverse interests. Stealing a client’s money is the most serious violation of the rules regulating lawyers. Merely coveting client money is not a prohibited irregularity. And the definition of coveting does not include paying for exorbitant fees with a few hours of service. At least in this case the disciplinary counsel for the Bar did not believe the violation was egregious enough to suspend or disbar him from practicing law. The judged ultimately dismissed the case against Grieco’s friend.

Some of us may secretly covet having a friend in office to do us special favors, like get us out of jail, or get us the zoning we want, although we would be better off denying it. In this case it appears that Grieco tried to use the wrong means to obtain a just end for his friend, given that a sitting justice dismissed the case. Wherefore Gelber separates means from ends to berate the use of wrong means from his religious-political pulpit.

That leads us to a final question as to what means Gelber would use, given his conduct thus far, to defeat his opponent, in the race for the coveted office of mayor of the City of Miami Beach? Is it to be no holds barred, take no prisoners, lay to waste Grieco’s campaign by all means, take all the spoils of office?

Since coveting is the cause of corruption, and Gelber has proven to be a sanctimonious candidate, we may reference here the use of the word ‘covet’ in 1 Kings XV 3 of the Holy Bible translated from the Latin Vulgate: diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editors, in diverse languages; the Old Testament, first publish by the English College, at Douay, A.D. 1609; and the New Testament, first published by the English College, at Rheims, AD 1582:

“Saul is sent to destroy Amalek, but he spared the king and the best of the cattle, so he is cast off for disobedience: "Now therefore go, and smite Amalek: spare him not, nor covet anything that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

We recall that Moses led his people from bondage, and those people were chosen by their god to occupy certain land inhabited by native peoples. The Amaleks flourished before the time of Abraham, and were said to be the first nation in the region, ancient “people of the valley,” perhaps Arabs called “blood-lickers,” the nomads of southern Canaan who attacked the Israelites invading Judea and Philistine during King Saul’s time; for that they become known as the archetypical enemy of Jews.

It has been told that Saul disobeyed the Lord, for Saul “took Agag the king of Amalec alive: but all the common people he slew with the edge of the sword. And Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the flocks of sheep and the herds, and the garments and the rams, and all that was beautiful, and would not destroy them; but everything that was vile and good for nothing, that they destroyed. (1 KINGS XV. 8-9)

An Amalek bragged to David that he killed Saul while Saul was leaning on his spear; another account has Saul falling on his spear. So David had the Amalek put to death for merely claiming he had killed the distinguished leader.

David, who had killed tens of thousands of enemies compared to the thousands killed by Saul, allegedly coveted Saul’s position as his just deserts. David was renowned for the dishonest means he employed to destroy Israel’s enemies, even feigning madness in their midst to that end.

So in the old bible stories we become familiar with the history of the primitive notion of Justice and its relation to covetousness; to wit, that justice must be pursued by all means available, for in the final analysis, might is right, and to the victor belong the coveted spoils.

But in this chapter, which is titled ‘Samuel’ in the King James Version wherein the English word “covet” does not appear, there is indeed a moral, that Justice should be pursued only for the glory of the absolute power to the utter destruction of the enemy and its things.

The females and other properties were desirable hence maintained, so the struggle for coveted things continues. Today peace is pursued in the Mideast. Dan Gelber is running for mayor of Miami Beach against Michael Grieco on a Holier Than Thou Platform. That pious approach is likely to lose him some votes given the alleged race-baiting in the historical contest between Michael Gongora and Philip Levine. Miami Beach Jews are pragmatic, and are unlikely to vote on ethnicity unless Israel is denounced, but they do take ethical issues seriously, particularly when examining the Tanakh. The political value of Dan Gelber’s Bible School Lesson remains to be seen.

xYx