Timeless Torah

Classic: Yeshiva student drafted into army become top shot.
Goal: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares…”Laws of carrying ornamental weapons on Shabbos. However: Joel declared, “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears.” Torah mandates cruelty. We have to wipe out Amalek, the Canaanites. We advocate capital punishment. Some argue that religion is the cause of most wars. The wisest of all men, King Solomon: Everything has an appointed season…A time to kill and a time to heal…A time for war and a time for peace.

Without religion we would find other things to fight about, like parking spots and noise from the neighbors. Fighting is natural. It existed long before religion. Indeed, society has always romanticized aggression. But without religion (Biblical prophets), world peace would not have entered the human vocabulary. Peace is not natural to the human condition. It had to be taught and learned.

True, religion has been used by some as a pretext for violence. But this does not invalidate all religion, just as brawls do not invalidate professional sports. Ridding the world of all religion would not end war any more than abolishing football would end fights.

If you can’t blame religion, what is the source for the nature of violence? Who is to blame? Torah shares only three incidents in Moses’ life prior to G-d choosing him: 1) Moses strikes down Egyptian taskmaster. 2) He attempts pacify two fighting Hebrews. 3) In Midian, he defends a group of girls from the local bullies. A Jew must have the courage to battle injustice wherever it exists (non-Jew vs. Jew, when two Jews fight, and between two non-Jews). When it is sufficient, he rebukes; when necessary, he fights; given no choice, he kills. Moses is politically incorrect. He does not lecture the Egyptian about the cycle of violence or give him a lesson on anger management. Prohibiting moral killing guarantees immoral killing.

Many chose not to emulate Moses. Gandhi (“An eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind.”) offered the British the following advice: “Lay down the arms…invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want.” To the Jews of Germany, Gandhi offered a similar message: “The stoniest German heart will melt [if only the Jews] adopt non-violence.” What would have happened under Gandhi. Sometimes, fighting back is the most moral thing to do.

Chamberlain: “Peace in our time.” Churchill: “You were given a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Inference: Responsibility lies with the good guys. Torah: In war, one must first warn population, but if innocent people then die, who killed them? In Hamburg, Hitler; in Tokyo, the Emperor. In fact: Responsibility lies with the bad guys.

In truth, violence pre-existed even the bad guys. So who is to blame? Any Jewish discussion of violence must begin with pacifism. Peace is Judaism’s highest aspiration.

Entire Torah is based on the value of peace (Gittin 59b). To maintain peaceful relations, we are allowed to lie (Yevamos 65b). A section of the Torah may be erased to preserve marital peace (Rambam). Peace is paramount.

Two major arguments for pacifism: A) Violence, even in self-defense, perpetuates more violence. (This approach had limitations: two Jews about to be executed by a firing squad.) B) Moral pacifism: immoral to use violence, even in self-defense. In Judaism, self defense is a moral obligation. Thus Torah allows people to kill a thief if there is reason to assume that the thief will use lethal force (Sanhedrin 72a). A) Refusing to fight evil is to be party to evil. B) Torah challenges the moral assumption of nonviolence that equates the life of the aggressor with the victim. These two lives are not equal. (Rashi to Exodus 22:1). Murderer who rejects the image of G-d in another, also rejects the image of G-d in himself. You are not killing him, he is already ‘dead’.

Jacob is a complex personality. He is a scholar, conniver, dreamer, romantic, rancher, entrepreneur, and warrior. Jacobs’s antagonist was his brother Eisav. Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria (Ari): Esau’s spiritual source was the primordial world of Tohu (chaos). The world of Tohu contains spiritual energy that is too potent to be channeled productively.

Jacob’s spiritual antecedent is from the world of Tikkun (order). Tikkun is a world in which the energy fuses with its recipient ‘vessel’ so that together they are able to be positively productive. Jacob triumphs. Jacob confronted Eisav’s extremism with calmness, his chaos with moderation, and realism.

The first direct quotation from Moses is his protest. “Why do you strike your fellow?” What do the tefillin symbolize? The straps are wrapped around the arms. As a result, the arm loses its freedom of movement; He can act only in ways that are in consonance with the spirit of the Sh’ma.

The tefillin worn next to the heart teach us not only to do what is right, but also to remain in control of our emotions. That common excuse, “I wanted to,” is not acceptable.

Tefillin is also placed upon the head, the seat of the mind which governs the emotions and actions.

Today’s violent world is not a contest between rival ideologies. It’s a struggle between two types of force - one that thrives on order and another that flourishes on chaos.

Can order defeat chaos? Absolutely! Torah guarantees it.

Laws of war: Oxymoronic and futile. In Judaism, law is not merely a convention or convenience, but a G-dly imposed order. War, warriors were all seen as glorious, in contrast to Judaism that sees each person as an entire universe.

A Jew’s love for peace will affect his wartime behavior. Saying: “All’s fair in love and war,” but the Jewish view is to avoid collateral damage. 1. Abraham’s pleading with G-d to avoid killing any righteous citizens of Sodom. 2. Torah even prohibits the unnecessary destruction of trees in wartime (Deuteronomy 20:19).

Sages: “Peace is equivalent to all other blessings.” Indeed, Shalom is one of the names of G-d. “Oseh Shalom Bimromov – He makes peace in the heights.” Upstairs, in the soul’s heavenly environment, peace is a given. However when the soul “goes out” and descends to our material world, it is confronted by challenges that require it to engage in battle. This is the origin of all war, the struggle to transform even the lowest elements of existence into a dwelling for G-d. Ultimately, Mashiach will “vanquish all the nations…and perfect the entire world,” initiating the era when “there will be neither famine nor war, neither envy nor competition.”

Ultimately Torah is not filled with violence. Torah is order trying to impose order on chaos which is the true spiritual cause for violence.

Ideals do not live in bubbles. Like people, they need parents to give birth to them and a home environment to sustain them. Peace without religion is homeless. It was Judaism that gave birth to this vision and still provides the best framework to implement that dream.

In fact, religion provides the only real argument for peace between people: we were all created by the same G-d. Without this belief, is there anything else that really unites us?