Today marks the beginning of Hanukkah, the festival of lights commemorating the rededication of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem following its desecration in the second century BCE.
Although I am not Jewish, I have long admired the traditions surrounding Hanukkah. And I am especially moved by the holiday’s core theme of rebuilding and rededication — not just for a physical structure, but in our individual lives, our families, our communities and our society.
I am in my second full term as governor of the great state of Utah. But far more importantly, I am a husband, a father and a grandfather. Out of concern for my posterity, I worry many of the values that made my life’s improbable journey possible — values such as self-discipline, civility, and inclusion — are in poor repair. It is out of that concern that I ask us to consider the message of Hanukkah to reclaim, repair, rebuild and rededicate those aspects of our society that have become, for lack of a better word, desecrated.
We all fall short of our ideals. But when it comes to America, I am an idealist. I honor the ideal of freedom of conscience that brought so many to our shores. I embrace the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence. I love the ideals of self-governance and inclusiveness bequeathed to us in the Constitution. I cherish the ideal reinforced by Dr. Martin Luther King that we should “not be judged by the color of [our] skin, but by the content of [our] character.”
To borrow the words of our 43rd president, George W. Bush, this American idealism means “that people of every race, religion, and ethnicity can be fully and equally American. It means that bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.” It is what our 44th president, Barack Obama called “our enduring spirit” and “our better history,” namely “the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
I have a pretty good sense of what bigotry against my faith smells like, and it’s stench was pretty strong last week when Steve Bannon personally attacked the honor and integrity of Mitt Romney and his family because of their choice to serve as Mormon missionaries instead of enlisting in military service.
Obviously, I don’t appreciate attacks on my faith. So, in social media and on the airwaves I spoke out against what I identified as good old-fashioned anti-Mormon bigotry. I am equally disturbed by the re-emergence of anti-Semitism. Surely, as Americans, we cannot give credence to such vile, corrosive rhetoric and hatred.
But the real issue is not animus against a particular religion. The real issue is the deliberate erosion of American ideals for political advantage and power. Bannon and his ilk have discovered that there are short-term gains to be made through divisiveness. Exploiting our natural desire for order and stability, they have made a career of ridiculing the different, deriding the marginalized, manufacturing hatred and attacking the very pluralism that is the backbone of our nation. They have bullied and belittled women, religious and ethnic minorities, and the refugees seeking sacred shelter on our shores. No political ends can justify this ugliness.
The 17th century English writer John Milton lived at a time when powerful forces sought to restore order by limiting speech and forcing religious uniformity. Milton pushed back against such despotism by reminding his biblically literate countrymen about the construction of the first temple in Jerusalem. As tens of thousands of workers brought together their different approaches to woodcutting and carpentry, stone cutting and masonry, Milton argued that it would have been impossible for every element of temple construction to be uniform. But the very beauty and perfection of the temple, wrote Milton, “consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes ... arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure.”
Tonight, Jews around the world will gather and light menorahs to commemorate the ancient rededication of their temple. I would hope that we could join with them to think about our own project of rededication to the ideals that have built “a goodly and graceful” nation, not because of uniformity, but because of differences. And as together we rebuild our society, may we reject the corrosive politics of personal destruction that threaten our foundational principles that all are created equal, with inalienable rights and infinite human dignity.
Gary R. Herbert is the governor of Utah.