The integration of religion fully into our lives, including the need to use it to address the great moral issues of our time, is something to which Jews can strongly relate. So as Pope Benedict used this quote in this speech, I fully concur. However, while keeping religion as purely a private matter endangers it soul, so too does a response that makes religion a government matter. Such a relation was not what the Pope suggested in his speech, yet out of context, the quote in the question might have inadvertently lent itself to that interpretation.

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Arun Gandhi’s statement this week on Jewish identity, the firestorm of controversy it evoked, and his inadequate apology, requires a response.

There is a magnificent sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi in a little park off Dupont Circle in Washington. It is inspiring, capturing the moral energy of this frail but towering figure of justice. It sits just a few yards from my desk and every time I look up, it reminds me of the moral underpinnings of the work I do — a source of optimism for the world of justice and peace that, together, we may yet achieve.

Yet it reminds me vividly as well of another part of my task. For one of the several moral blind spots that Mahatma Gandhi had concerning anti-Semitism, particularly in the context of Nazi depredation and use of violence to destroy the Jews.

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One can list about 20 basic dos and don’ts regarding the appropriate use of religion in our elections. Governor Romney got a number right – but disturbingly, three crucial ones wrong.

What he got right was his affirmation that there should be no religious test for office, that no religious authority would control his actions as president, that the oath of office he would take as President to preserve the Constitution would be his relevant promise to God, that the separation of church and state has been indispensable to the strength of religion in American culture, that America’s religious pluralism has been indispensable to our success and that electoral candidates should, inclusively, focus on the moral values that America’s religions share: equality; liberty, commitment to help each other . This could be a primer for electoral candidates to study in getting the use of religion in our elections right.

So what did he get wrong?

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How can anyone doubt the positive impact that the religious community has in addressing these issues? Let me deal with very real ways that day in and day out religion, religious groups, and religious individuals play vital roles in the fields of international relations and humanitarian assistance.

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There are differing strands in traditional Jewish thought. One major strand focuses on the resurrection and judgment. A second focuses on the belief that there is an immortal part of us, our souls, that return to the Divine after we die.

Personally, I take an agnostic view. I believe that it is unknowable and therefore, asking what comes next is simply the wrong question. The right question is what we do with our lives here. The reward for good deeds is not (or not alone) what is received in the world to come but for its own sake in this life because this is what God has called us to do. And the focus of our religious actions should be for what they mean in this world, in this life... not the next.

Fifty years from now, most religious communities will look back with astonishment on the controversy over same sex relations the way we do today on yesterday’s bans on miscegenation.

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“It is that command to be holy that calls us to a partnership with the Divine to make God’s vision of justice and peace real here on Earth, to create a better and more hopeful future for all God’s children. You shall be Holy for the Eternal your God is Holy.”

There is to me no more exalted formulation of the human condition and our role in the universe than these words of Lev.19:2 and the evocative rules exemplifying the implementation of that idea described in the ensuing verses.

We are reminded that we are created in the image of God, capable of being holy through the way we live our lives, just as the Eternal is holy. Infusing a sense of God’s presence into every aspect of our lives remains at the core of our religious values and identity."

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Jesus’ call to prioritize the poor, the sick, the prisoner, the hungry speaks to a radical alteration of the social order.

During the 2000 primaries, the Republican candidates were asked to name their most influential political philosopher. While others named Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson, John Locke, George W. Bush created a minor controversy by stating “Jesus; because he changed my heart.” Some Christians objected because of the suggestion that Jesus was political. Some non-Christians, including, many in my own community, objected to his “Christianizing” the debate.

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Does the power of Jesus’ message of ethics and love change one iota if it is determined that these are his bones?

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No family or religion should feel threatened by giving equal religious rights to gays and lesbians.

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To deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is anti-Semitic; to be critical of Israeli policy is not.

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Protecting God’s creation is, I have found in my travels, perhaps the most intuitively religious social issue of our day. Because it is shared by so many faiths, a genuinely interfaith effort on this issue could forge a powerful religious response whose potential would be staggering.

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Drawing the line correctly between appropriate and inappropriate religious rhetoric and activity in American elections and political life could significantly ease tensions in America’s culture war. "Appropriate," rather than “lawful” because religious candidates have the same constitutional rights as others to say and do what they please. But exercising that right does not make what they do good for either democracy or religion.

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The expansion of the rights of women was one of the great revolutions of the 20th century. Completing the march toward full and equal rights for women, I believe, will be viewed by future historians as the greatest achievement of the 21st century. Religion, paradoxically, will be a great impediment and catalyst in this enterprise.

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Just because you have a right to do something does not make what you do right – or wise. Hence while there may have been just cause to remove Saddam in the abstract, it does not make the decision to go to war or the way we fought the war right.

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My most formative religious experience was not contained in a single moment, but stretched over many years: it was the influence and model of my father.

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There is a distinction to be drawn between the cultural expressions of the American people and the formal role of government.

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Implicit in "On Faith's" latest question is a broader one affecting the interests not just of all religions, but the geopolitical interests of democratic nations as well: To what extent can “outsiders” influence the struggle for moderation within religious communities?

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Of course Thanksgiving, focused as it is on assessing our lives, creating common rituals, and generally thanking and supplicating the Divine is a religious holiday. The beauty of Thanksgiving is that most everyone has something for which to be thankful.

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