Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall who escorted Obama on the visit has condemned the paper for publishing the prayer, basically saying that the prayers are between the authors and God and that it’s “forbidden” to read other people’s prayers or publish them.
On the one hand, I do think the rabbi has a point. These are very private expressions and if there is a tradition at the Wall that the privacy of the prayers is respected, then I think that Obama had a right to expect that same privacy. On the other hand, the prayer itself is pretty simple and humble and does not do anything to make him look bad. It might even help him in that it offers a glimpse into his private religious feelings. I don’t think here’s anything profound in the prayer. I suspect it looks like the vast majority of the prayers that are placed there – protect my family, forgive my sins, give me wisdom, help me to be a good person – but its very ordinariness might actually help him. There’s nothing radical there, no “God damn America,” no pledges of jihad. He prays like everybody else. I can see how that might put some people’s minds to rest about him.
Still, I don’t think i like the precedent of rooting around for the prayers of public persons at the Wall. As far as I know, nobody did that to Bush or Clinton when they put prayers there. I think people should have a kind of “confessional” privilege when they put prayers in that wall to expect that they will only be read by God.
So what does everyone think? Should this paper have done this? I will confess that I am somewhat hypocritical about this since I was curious enough to read the prayer. It’s kind of like how I think it would be wrong to take naked pictures of Scarlett Johannsen through a peephole, but I would still totally look at them.
Yeah, it’s definitely an invasion of his privacy. I won’t lie, I was curious about what he’d written as soon as I heard about it- but personally and journalistically I don’t think it’s ethical. It doesn’t harm him in any way, but it’s very crass and distasteful.
I agree it is exceptionally bad form. While not against any law (near as I can tell) it definitely crosses some religious taboos and in a country where they are particularly sensitive to such things.
As for Obama I’d bet dollars to dimes when he wrote that he did so with the expectation it would be lifted and read and quite possibly published. That is not to say he did not mean what he wrote, he probably did and as you noted it is a pretty standard type of prayer overall. But he is a politician and a savvy one and it had to have occurred to him so no way would he put to paper some skeevy confession and stick it in a wall and walk away.
I’m not so sure about this. There has not been a precedent for doing that to other public figures. If it wasn’t done to Clinton or Bush or McCain, why should he have expected it would be done to him?
Also, I think if he was expecting it to get lifted and published, he would have punched it up a little bit.
How low class. I’ve got to wonder if the seminary student considered it okay to do to a goy. It wouldn’t be the first time that kind of attitude came from some of the more conservative sem types.
He’d be a fool if it didn’t. I don’t mean he should have expected it, or that he did it intentionally, but he has to know that every single move of his is being watched by somebody. I hope he plans accordingly.
Invasion of privacy.
The seminary student was 100% wrong to have dug it out. That would be like a Catholic seminarian eavesdropping on someone’s confession and then going to the press with it.
The paper on the other hand, as a presumably secular institution, and I can’t blame them for printing it.
The Jewish student needs to be disciplined withing his faith. If I were the journalist he’d come to with the note, I hope I’d have enough integrity to take the note & return it to Obama or the student’s rabbi, and not publish it.
I agree. Even I would have thought that this paper could be retrieved and would have taken that risk into account when writing it. And I’m not a politician with years of experience. And even if he hadn’t thought about it, one of his advisers would have.
And yes, it’s definitely an invasion of privacy. And I not only fault the student. The paper shouldn’t have printed it, either. Actually, I would blame much more the paper than a random kid for this stunt.
All the accounts of this that I’ve read which address this issue state that twice a year a rabbi removes all the prayer slips and buries them, unread, on the Temple Mount.
That should give you an idea of just how sacrilegious this is.
Invasion of privacy.
We live in a youtube world.
Obama should have expected it.
So, not an invasion of privacy because that kind o privacy doesn’t exist anymore.
Obama is a savvy enough politician to know that whatever he wrote might be found and published, in this day and age, but it’s a shame that even something as sacred, private and inviolate as a note left at the Wailing Wall is now fair game for the media. A line has been crossed that should clearly not have been crossed. And for a seminary student, of all people, to have done this just sticks in my craw.
FWIW, it does look like Obama’s handwriting. I’ve seen several examples of it in campaign lit.
I would be surprised if Obama did not expect it to be revealed, and wrote it accordingly. The composition is perfect for this purpose; humble, straightforward, an everyman’s prayer that maintains plausible deniability. If he had punched it up, it would seem like obvious manipulation. Another masterful move by the campaign.
