Clergy Counseling Clinton

Gerald L. Zelizer

President Clinton is seeking the assistance and advice of clergy, and apparently not only the three summoned to the White House for weekly prayer repair. Many of us when preparing sermons for this week's Jewish High Holidays opened our e-mails and fax machines and found the president's remarks from the recent prayer breakfast forwarded to us from the White House.

So here is my spiritual counsel to the president:

In the White House prayer breakfast Clinton talks of a "broken spirit and strong heart." That is an appropriate reference to Psalm 51, where King David was challenged by the prophet Nathan after David's infatuation with the young Bethsheba, encouraged him to send her husband Uriah into battle where he was killed. The psalm's words can be transformative to one who is seeking forgiveness. "Wash me thoroughly of my inequity, and purify me of my sins; for I recognize my transgressions….fashion a pure heart for me, oh God create in me a steadfast spirit. True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God, you do not despise a contrite and crushed heart." But the further story behind that psalm is that even though King David expressed genuine contrition, he was nevertheless not allowed to complete his most important work because of his moral turpitude. He had secured land in Jerusalem for the building of a House of God and moved the Ark of the Covenant there. But the completion of building the Temple was taken out of his hands by God and to by his son King Solomon.

Early in Clinton's presidency he forged a special friendship with Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. Many were moved by Clinton's powerful eulogy which bid farewell to Rabin in the words "Shalom Haver" - "peace friend", still glued to bumper stickers throughout Israel. Yithak Rabin was prime minister of Israel twice. His second term is highly regarded and even lionized. What is less remembered is that during his first term, Mr. Rabin was forced to resign from his post in 1977 because of a scandal which seems a pittance when compared to President Clinton his admirer. Mr. Rabin's wife opened a bank account in New York, with him as co-signator, a violation of Israeli law for citizens residing in the State. The total sum of her infraction was somewhere around two thousand dollars. Yet Mr. Rabin resigned because he concluded, in part, that the notoriety and preoccupation with his wife's violation, and his compliance, would so occupy his administration that he could not carry on his most critical work. At that time he was carrying on Middle East peace negotiations through President Carter.

Frequently during the reconciliation of marital strife a spouse who asks forgiveness will plead with the other: "I have apologized. Isn't that enough?" Well, regret and apology are not enough in the viewpoint of most western religions. My own requires that repentance is not complete until the offender is faced with the same temptation again but does not succumb. The Scriptural readings which provide the primary authority of Protestantism include in the book of Luke the passage of the man Zaccheus of Jericho, a wealthy sinner. In confessional repentance he says :"Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken away anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold," to which Jesus responds "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham." The Catholic Encyclopedia instructs that the priestly confessor to whom a worshipper regularly opens his conscience, in confession, is then in a position "to correct, give advice, give consolation and inspiration and impose profitable penances and demands."

President Clinton also quoted at the prayer breakfast from the Yom Kippur repentance liturgy. Its subject was that of turning. Also part of that liturgy is a Biblical reading which speaks of the ancient Israelites piling their sins on the heads of a goat which was cast into the wilderness, bearing all their sins. Will our country be the scapegoat for Mr. Clinton's confessed sins because he is simply too preoccupied with this matter to execute properly the business of government?

Deborah Tannen writes that prisons used to be called "penitentiaries" because they combined both repentance and bearing the consequences of one's crimes. In religion too, it is bearing the consequences of one's sins which completes genuine repentance.

Rev. Tony Campolo, one of the pastoral accountability team that will counsel the president says that "we will pray with him, study Scripture together and do our best as he searches his heart and soul." I hope that they will also remind him of the religious rationale that precluded the King David from completing his work, and the practical reasons that convinced Prime Minister Rabin to resign from his first term.