{"id":185,"date":"2009-07-31T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-31T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/07\/can-you-trust-a-guy-who-doesnt-drink.html"},"modified":"2009-07-31T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-31T06:30:00","slug":"can-you-trust-a-guy-who-doesnt-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/07\/can-you-trust-a-guy-who-doesnt-drink.html","title":{"rendered":"Can You Trust a Guy Who Doesn’t Drink?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/span>The Hebrew Bible includes both praise for and warnings about alcohol. Even a Nazirite has to bring a sacrifice at the end of his vow period (which includes a prohibition against wine) to atone for having given up a legitimate worldly pleasure. In Jewish observance, you really can’t be fully part of the program if you abstain. Maimonides includes drinking wine as a required feature of festival observance, for men, not only on Passover with its required four cups. Chabad Chasidic custom leans toward vodka, as do I.<\/div>\n
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I thought of this in light of yesterday’s beer summit at the White House. As I was driving home from work, a caller to the Michael Savage show (which I find myself increasingly enjoying, to my surprise) noted that at the Obama-sponsored meeting between Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley, only Crowley appeared to be drinking his beer. Obama and Gates each sipped delicately or not at all from a light beer. Biden had a low-alcohol brew, and appeared to disdain even that. At least this is how things went before the press was escorted away.<\/div>\n
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I obviously understand if someone, like President Bush, had a drinking problem and overcame it by giving up the stuff entirely. But a man who just never enjoyed it at all? To me, frankly, that raises questions. Just questions, that’s all. Especially if he goes around with a bit of a sour lemon look on his face. Psychologists including William James and Carl Jung saw a link between alcohol and spirituality. Booze can be a cheap substitute. It can also be an enhancer. It takes the edge off a world that is objectively harsh. If you don’t see that the world is that way, or if it doesn’t affect you, well I find that curious.<\/div>\n
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To a small extent, this may even apply to women. When I was single and took a girl out for dinner, I always knew it wasn’t going anywhere if she ordered a water to drink. Or am I unfairly prejudiced?<\/div>\n
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The Hebrew Bible includes both praise for and warnings about alcohol. Even a Nazirite has to bring a sacrifice at the end of his vow period (which includes a prohibition against wine) to atone for having given up a legitimate worldly pleasure. In Jewish observance, you really can’t be fully part of the program if you abstain.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nCan You Trust a Guy Who Doesn't Drink? - Kingdom of Priests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/07\/can-you-trust-a-guy-who-doesnt-drink.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can You Trust a Guy Who Doesn't Drink? 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