[Part one of this article can be read at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=4726.]
[Reflections in connection with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, January 27, 1945-2005.]
Religious Evil
There has been another major attempt in history to cut the cord between commandments No. 1 and No. 6, between faith in a moral creator and respect toward human life. While the Enlightenment abandoned No. 1 in favor of No. 6, many religions over the ages abandoned No. 6 in favor of No. 1. This, too, has brought about untold suffering to millions of innocent people. It still does on a daily basis.
This is the atrocious belief once embraced by the Church and held dear today by millions of Muslims - that as long as you believe in the Lord, or in Allah, you can kill and maim whomever you believe to be an infidel. Whether it is a business executive in New York or a teenager eating a slice of pizza in Jerusalem, a child on the first day of school in Beslan, a commuter in Madrid or a tourist in Bali, if the person is not a member of your faith and tradition, G-d wants him or her to die. For them, "I am the Lord your G-d" has nothing to do with "You shall not murder." You can pray five times a day and fast for a full month, but you can blow up a bus filled with civilians in the name of Allah.
This is the greatest perversion of faith. Faith that does not inculcate its followers with the sanctity of every single human life desecrates and erodes the very purpose of faith, which is to elevate the human person to a state beyond personal instinct and prejudice. If you delete "You shall not murder" from religion, you have detached yourself from "I am the Lord your G-d." To believe in G-d means to honor the life of every person created in the image of G-d. What the juxtaposition of the two commandments is telling us is that you can't believe in G-d and murder.(3*)
Conversely, if you truly believe that taking the life of another human is wrong - not just because you lack the means or motive to do so, or are afraid of ending up in jail, but because you recognize the transcendent, inviolable value of life - that's just another way of saying you believe in G-d. For what confers upon human life its radical grace, its transcendent sanctity and its absolute value if not the living presence of G-d imprinted on the face of the human person?
More than 3,300 years ago, Judaism, in the most ennobling attempt to create a society based on justice and peace, established its principle code in the sequence of the two commandments ? "I am the Lord your G-d/You shall not murder." A society without G-d can become monstrous; a society that abandons the eternal and absolute commandment "You shall not murder" is equally evil. Both are capable of burning children alive during the day and then retiring to sleep with a clear conscience.
The Mountain
The Talmud captures this notion in a rather strange, but intriguing, fashion.(4)
The Talmud cites a tradition that when Israel approached Sinai, G-d lifted up the mountain, held it over the people's heads and declared: "Either you accept the Torah, or be crushed beneath the mountain." The Talmud bases this tradition on the verse: "And they stood beneath the mountain."(5)
This seems ludicrous. What worth is there to a relationship and a covenant accepted through coercion?(6)
The answer is profoundly simple. What G-d was telling the Jewish people is that the creation of societies that honor life and shun cruelty is dependant on education and on the value system inculcated within the children of the society. The system of Torah, G-d was suggesting, was the guarantor for life and liberty. If you reject the morality of Torah, if you will lack the courage and conviction to teach the world that "I am the Lord your G-d" and that I have stated unequivocally "You shall not murder," the result will be humanity crushed under a mountain of tyrants.
Sixty years since Auschwitz, and after one decade of incessant Islamic terrorism, the mountain is hanging over our heads once again. Shall we embrace the path of divine-based morality? Shall we never forget that religion must always be defined by "You shall not murder"?(7)
[Part 2 of 2]
Footnotes:
3*) The Midrash (Mechilta, ibid.), in discussing the connection between the first and sixth commandments, presents the following parable to explain the evil behind murder:
"There was a king who entered a country and put up portraits of himself, and made statues of himself, and minted coins with his image. After a while, the people of the country overturned his portraits, broke his statues and invalidated his coins, thereby reducing the image of the king. So, too, one who sheds blood reduces the image of the King, as it is written (Genesis 9:6): 'One who spills a man's blood... for in the image of G-d He made man.'
4) Talmud, Shabbas 88a.
5) Exodus 19:17.
6) This question is raised among many of the Talmudic commentators. Many answers have been offered. See Tosfos, Eitz Yosef, Pnei Yehoshua, Shabbos Shel Mi and Ben Yehoyada to Talmud Shabbos, ibid.Midrash Tanchumah, Noach section 3. Daas Zekeinim, Mibbalei Hatosafos on Exodus 19:17. Maharal, Tiferes Yisroel, ch. 32, Gur Aryeh on Exodus, ibid., and Or Chodash, p. 45. Sources noted in Pardas Yosef to Exodus, ibid., Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Pulnah in Ben Poras Yosef, parshas Vayeishev. Torah Or, Megilas Esther, p. 96c; 118c.
7) This essay is based on a long 1956 letter from the Lubavitcher Rebbe addressed to Dr. Elie Wiesel (published in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 33, pp.255-260) and on one of a 1962 public address of the Rebbe (published in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 3, pp. 887-895).
[My gratitude to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance. All contents copyright © 2005 Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson]
[Reflections in connection with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, January 27, 1945-2005.]
Religious Evil
There has been another major attempt in history to cut the cord between commandments No. 1 and No. 6, between faith in a moral creator and respect toward human life. While the Enlightenment abandoned No. 1 in favor of No. 6, many religions over the ages abandoned No. 6 in favor of No. 1. This, too, has brought about untold suffering to millions of innocent people. It still does on a daily basis.
This is the atrocious belief once embraced by the Church and held dear today by millions of Muslims - that as long as you believe in the Lord, or in Allah, you can kill and maim whomever you believe to be an infidel. Whether it is a business executive in New York or a teenager eating a slice of pizza in Jerusalem, a child on the first day of school in Beslan, a commuter in Madrid or a tourist in Bali, if the person is not a member of your faith and tradition, G-d wants him or her to die. For them, "I am the Lord your G-d" has nothing to do with "You shall not murder." You can pray five times a day and fast for a full month, but you can blow up a bus filled with civilians in the name of Allah.
This is the greatest perversion of faith. Faith that does not inculcate its followers with the sanctity of every single human life desecrates and erodes the very purpose of faith, which is to elevate the human person to a state beyond personal instinct and prejudice. If you delete "You shall not murder" from religion, you have detached yourself from "I am the Lord your G-d." To believe in G-d means to honor the life of every person created in the image of G-d. What the juxtaposition of the two commandments is telling us is that you can't believe in G-d and murder.(3*)
Conversely, if you truly believe that taking the life of another human is wrong - not just because you lack the means or motive to do so, or are afraid of ending up in jail, but because you recognize the transcendent, inviolable value of life - that's just another way of saying you believe in G-d. For what confers upon human life its radical grace, its transcendent sanctity and its absolute value if not the living presence of G-d imprinted on the face of the human person?
More than 3,300 years ago, Judaism, in the most ennobling attempt to create a society based on justice and peace, established its principle code in the sequence of the two commandments ? "I am the Lord your G-d/You shall not murder." A society without G-d can become monstrous; a society that abandons the eternal and absolute commandment "You shall not murder" is equally evil. Both are capable of burning children alive during the day and then retiring to sleep with a clear conscience.
The Mountain
The Talmud captures this notion in a rather strange, but intriguing, fashion.(4)
The Talmud cites a tradition that when Israel approached Sinai, G-d lifted up the mountain, held it over the people's heads and declared: "Either you accept the Torah, or be crushed beneath the mountain." The Talmud bases this tradition on the verse: "And they stood beneath the mountain."(5)
This seems ludicrous. What worth is there to a relationship and a covenant accepted through coercion?(6)
The answer is profoundly simple. What G-d was telling the Jewish people is that the creation of societies that honor life and shun cruelty is dependant on education and on the value system inculcated within the children of the society. The system of Torah, G-d was suggesting, was the guarantor for life and liberty. If you reject the morality of Torah, if you will lack the courage and conviction to teach the world that "I am the Lord your G-d" and that I have stated unequivocally "You shall not murder," the result will be humanity crushed under a mountain of tyrants.
Sixty years since Auschwitz, and after one decade of incessant Islamic terrorism, the mountain is hanging over our heads once again. Shall we embrace the path of divine-based morality? Shall we never forget that religion must always be defined by "You shall not murder"?(7)
[Part 2 of 2]
Footnotes:
3*) The Midrash (Mechilta, ibid.), in discussing the connection between the first and sixth commandments, presents the following parable to explain the evil behind murder:
"There was a king who entered a country and put up portraits of himself, and made statues of himself, and minted coins with his image. After a while, the people of the country overturned his portraits, broke his statues and invalidated his coins, thereby reducing the image of the king. So, too, one who sheds blood reduces the image of the King, as it is written (Genesis 9:6): 'One who spills a man's blood... for in the image of G-d He made man.'
4) Talmud, Shabbas 88a.
5) Exodus 19:17.
6) This question is raised among many of the Talmudic commentators. Many answers have been offered. See Tosfos, Eitz Yosef, Pnei Yehoshua, Shabbos Shel Mi and Ben Yehoyada to Talmud Shabbos, ibid.Midrash Tanchumah, Noach section 3. Daas Zekeinim, Mibbalei Hatosafos on Exodus 19:17. Maharal, Tiferes Yisroel, ch. 32, Gur Aryeh on Exodus, ibid., and Or Chodash, p. 45. Sources noted in Pardas Yosef to Exodus, ibid., Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Pulnah in Ben Poras Yosef, parshas Vayeishev. Torah Or, Megilas Esther, p. 96c; 118c.
7) This essay is based on a long 1956 letter from the Lubavitcher Rebbe addressed to Dr. Elie Wiesel (published in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 33, pp.255-260) and on one of a 1962 public address of the Rebbe (published in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 3, pp. 887-895).
[My gratitude to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance. All contents copyright © 2005 Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson]