Meir Soloveichik on Redefining Religious Activity

In testimony yesterday before the House

Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of New York’s

Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, and Director

of the Straus Center for Torah and Western

Thought at Yeshiva University, said the recent HHS directive in Obamacare treats some religious organizations as

entitled to First Amendment protection and

others—those that serve other faiths—as not

meriting protection. This distinction is alien

not only to Christianity, but quintessentially to

Judaism, whose essence lies not only in “wrapping

oneself in the blatant trappings of religious

observance such as phylacteries” but in morally

engaging with the world, Jewish or not.

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/docLib/20120223_JIWEEKLY0224p3.pdf