'We are God's partners in matters of life and death'

A quote from Obama's phone visit with some Jewish rabbis ...

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A reader points out that President Obama's call with the rabbis today — as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline's and other clerics' Twitter feeds — freights health care reform with a great deal of religious meaning, and veers into the blend of policy and faith that outraged liberals in the last administration.

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die."

Does that help clear up the so-called "death panel" debate?

You're taking the entire conversation, extracting a single phrase, and then trying to claim you have any notion of what the phrase means. A twitter is 160 characters long. You're not going to be able to distill an entire conversation into 160 characters.

The Rosh Hashanah prayer that speaks of the decision about who shall live and who shall die, refers to *God's* decision about that, not ours. According to Jewish believe, the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (a period of ten days) is a time of reflection, seeing where you did well and where you did badly. On Yom Kippur you fast to atone for your wrongdoing, and the decision is made about who shall live and who shall die. But *GOD* makes that decision.

So what's the point of your whole post?

Originally posted by chiron613
You're taking the entire conversation, extracting a single phrase, and then trying to claim you have any notion of what the phrase means. A twitter is 160 characters long. You're not going to be able to distill an entire conversation into 160 characters.

The Rosh Hashanah prayer that speaks of the decision about who shall live and who shall die, refers to *God's* decision about that, not ours. According to Jewish believe, the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (a period of ten days) is a time of reflection, seeing where you did well and where you did badly. On Yom Kippur you fast to atone for your wrongdoing, and the decision is made about who shall live and who shall die. But *GOD* makes that decision.

So what's the point of your whole post?

Your only comments seem based on the tired, old "shoot the messenger" deflection.

You can only work with what you have. And that "single phrase" is rather key to this whole issue, don't you think?

Given the current debate, you'd think obama would have chosen his words a little differently and more carefully - unless either that's exactly what he meant, or his teleprompter was broken.

[edit on 8/20/2009 by centurion1211]

This was the logic of the pope when he exterminated protestants and Muslims, the logic of Muslims when they exterminated Catholics, and the logic of protestants when they exterminated native Americans.

Thanks OBAMA!