Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Summit?

“Once upon a time,” the Biblical story reads, Jacob returned home to his parents, only to discover that his brother Eisav, who had years before sworn to kill Jacob in revenge for what he saw as the theft of his blessing, was coming with a force of 400 men. Such a large contingent suggested that the passage of time had not alleviated the resentment. Eisav’s intent must be violence. So Jacob prepared himself for war, while he prayed to G-d and sent gifts. One sentence in particular caught the attention of the Sages. “Jacob was very afraid and distressed.” (32: 8)

“Thousands of years later,” the media headlines read, Jacob’s descendant, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is returning to his political “Mommy and Daddy,” Condoleezza Rice & George Bush amid reports that Washington invited, “more than 40 countries, including the European Union, most Arab and Muslim nations, Russia, Japan, China, etc. to participate in the Israeli-Palestinian talks.” There is one sentiment in particular that captures the attention of all the political pundits. “Olmert acts unafraid and not distressed.”

Let me explain. The Biblical phrase “afraid and distressed,” seems repetitive? After all, is there a difference between fear and distress? Rashi’s answer is profound. “Jacob was afraid - lest he be killed. He was distressed - lest he kill.” In other words, Jacob’s fear was physical - the fear of death. His distress, however, was moral - the anxiety that he himself might be forced to kill. It is one thing to fear one’s own death, quite another to contemplate being the cause of someone else’s.

But, as the commentators note, this itself is puzzling. There is a rule in Jewish law: if someone comes to kill you, kill him first. (Sanhedrin 72a) Indeed, this is a basic principle of self defense. Why then was Jacob distressed lest he kill? If Eisav attempted murder, Jacob would be justified in fighting back, even at the cost of Eisav’s life. Why then should this possibility raise moral qualms?

Rabbi Shabbatai Bass (1641-1718), who authored the Sifsei Chachamim, a commentary on Rashi, clarifies that the right of self-defense is not an open-ended permission to kill. The Talmudic statement that, “If one comes to kill you, forestall it by killing him,” contains a caveat: if one could save himself by merely wounding the would-be-murderer, than killing is prohibited. Hence Jacob was distressed that in the confusion of battle he might kill some of Eisav’s men, when he might have restrained them by merely inflicting injury.
(This principle of using a minimum of force is quite similar to the concept we now call collateral damage. In truth, this idea may be current, but it is hardly new. Indeed, this issue is already discussed after Abraham’s victorious war against the four kings, undertaken to rescue his nephew Lot: The word of G-d came to Abram, “Do not be afraid.” (Genesis 15: 1) And why would Abraham be afraid? After all, he had just been victorious in battle. On this, the Midrash comments: Abram worried, “Perhaps I violated the Divine commandment, ‘He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Yet see how many I have killed.”)

Sadly enough, our present-day Jewish leaders have not borrowed this page from their Biblical counterparts. Consequently, Olmert is neither afraid, nor distressed. Number one, he is not worried about his own Israeli family being killed. How else can one account for Olmert’s latest plan, “to issue 25-50 armored cars with mounted machine guns to the Palestinian Authority” This is in spite of Israeli military opposition, lest the vehicles end up being used by terrorists, as has previously occurred with similar ‘gifts’. Number two, Olmert is surely not troubled over the possibility of harming a hair on Abbas’s head or any of his crew, much less targeting (killing) them, though they all have Jewish blood on their hands. 

Why do the Patriarch and the Simple Son (I refuse to categorize Olmert as the Wicked Son of the Haggada) have such differing perspectives? For this we need to analyze the concept of a moral dilemma. This phrase is often used, imprecisely, to describe a difficult ethical decision. In fact it means something more specific. Moral problems ask: what is the right thing to do in these circumstances? These questions have answers. There is a right course of action and a wrong one. A moral dilemma however is a situation in which there is no right answer. These are conflicts between right and right, or between wrong and wrong - where, whatever we do, we are doing something that in other circumstances we ought not to do.
To put it more precisely, there may be situations in which doing the right thing is not the end of the matter. The conflict may be inherently tragic. The fact that one principle (self-defense) overrides another (the prohibition against killing) does not mean that, faced with such a choice, I am without qualms. Sometimes being moral means that I experience distress at having to make such a choice: I am not guilty for doing the right thing, but I feel guilty.

The Talmud Yerushalmi (Terumos 8) describes one such case, where the Romans surround a town and declare an ultimatum: Hand over a particular fugitive from justice or we will kill you all. Though Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, in accordance with Jewish law, persuades the fugitive to give himself up, we all recognize that there were no good choices. This prompts Elijah the prophet to query Rabbi Yehosuha, “Is this the way of the pious?”

For those in leadership positions, there may be many such dilemmas, and despite the all-encompassing nature of Jewish law which dictates which duty takes priority, we will still feel distress. That was Abraham’s and Jacob’s greatness. They were capable of carrying out distasteful, even morally repugnant actions that truly caused them distress (like killing their enemy), lest their fear (of having their own family harmed) be realized.  Lesser mortals, not steeped in the Biblical tradition follow two other paths: The Wicked Sons (the Eisav and Abbas variety) experience no dilemma, they kill the innocent, those who present no threat; the Simple Sons (which includes most of the Israeli Prime Ministers of recent vintage) can only speak of morality, but in fact they are incapable of acting morally since their distress (of killing the enemy) permits our greatest fear to happen, we are killed.