Dear President Trump,

As your former neighbor in zip code 10022, I have a suggestion for improving the performance and credibility of your administration. Please consider becoming Shomer Shabbat, Sabbath-observant, like your daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. That would entail not writing or signing anything during the period between sundown on Friday night and the appearance of three stars on Saturday night.

The reason for my suggestion is that when the Kushners are observing the Sabbath and are not available to advise you to offset some of the other elements of your team, you make bad moves. The first time was when you attempted to block entry to the US by people from seven Islamic countries including ones already holding visas, which occurred on a Sabbath. Now apart from unblocking the arrival here of people with visas, you opted to remove Iraqis from the list of people banned from entering the US, after someone pointed out to you that the ones with the visas were probably helping US forces there and at some risk to their lives.

The second time was last Saturday when very early in the morning you posted a series of Twitter feeds accusing former President Obama of arranging wiretaps of your home and office in Trump Tower during the US election period. It turns out that everyone who would have been involved in this has issued a strong denial of these charges, and that there is no evidence.

So take a day of rest on Saturdays, and don’t write or sign anything. (By the way, if there is a national emergency with life or death consequences, you can do what Orthodox Jewish doctors on duty in hospitals do: write on a pad which only keeps the message for a short time, but long enough to trigger US defenses or the record-keepers or the pharmacy.) The only excuse for Orthodox Jews violating the Sabbath is to save a life or lives. I am not Orthodox myself, but I do try to observe a day of rest on Saturdays.

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