Cardin: One Rabbi’s take
Del. Jon Cardin’s now well-known marriage proposal involving a Baltimore City Police marine unit and helicopter is now a teachable moment.
Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, senior rabbi at Beth Tfiloh in Pikesville used Cardin’s story in a sermon last week about forgiveness and redemption. The sermon also included anecdotes about Sen. Ted Kennedy, former Atlanta Falcons (now Philadelphia Eagles) quarterback Michael Vick, who was convicted in 2007 of his role in a dog fighting conspiracy and Abdel Beset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan terrorist convicted of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbee, Scotland.
Wohlberg posted his sermon on his blog and on Twitter last Thursday. (You can read the full sermon here.)
“Everything that could have gone wrong did, including the arrival of a helicopter that hadn’t been asked for!” Wohlberg wrote in his sermon. “Now right from the start, Jon did what Jewish tradition says one should do in making a mistake … he admitted to it! He said he was sorry and offered to pay for whatever costs were involved. But, of course, that didn’t put the story to rest. The Sunpaper and other media kept going back to it and what was perhaps most disturbing was reading some of the comments on blogs and some of the letters to the editor of the Sunpaper that made it seem as if Jon was one of those who had participated in the Lockerbie bombings! Now, it’s the right of every citizen to vote for whomever they want, but it’s not right to seek to besmirch and destroy a person for having made a mistake.”
“We all make mistakes, we all sin but there must be room for understanding and forgiveness,” Wohlberg wrote.
Cardin has issued several public apologies including an open letter to the editor published by Patuxent Publishing Co. and other news outlets. The two-term delegate has yet to fully explain how the incident occurred and, in an interview earlier this month, Cardin declined to comment much beyond saying that he was cooperating with Baltimore City Police and “the matter is under investigation.”
What do you think? Is it enough for a public official to apologize for using public resources for a private event? Has the media made too big a deal out of the Cardin matter?