Rabbi Susan Grossman: June 2006 Archives

Former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir was once asked if she could ever forgive the Arabs for seeking Israel’s destruction. She replied by saying that she could forgive them for killing her sons, but she couldn’t forgive them for forcing her to kill their sons.

I like this quote because it reflects the pain a moral individual feels about the human cost of self-defense. This is part of the Jewish psyche. It is why we dip our fingers to withdraw some wine from our glasses at the recitation of each plague at the Passover seder, for we should not rejoice at the death even of enemies who seek our destruction.

Israel always finds itself in a moral dilemma when faced with how to respond to terrorist attacks. Jewish law requires that we defend ourselves and others, for we are not to stand idly by the blood of our brothers. To not respond at all invites more attacks.

The issue is not one of proving that Jewish life is no longer cheap (though it was treated as such throughout centuries of anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic violence when Jews were powerless to protect themselves) but of defending oneself and others against a rodef (literally a pursuer, someone presenting a threat to life or limb). This requires even preventive measures if a threat seems imminent. Nevertheless, Jewish law also requires that we use the least amount of force necessary to immobilize or eliminate the threat.

That is why I am confused by the timing of Israel’s incursion into Gaza and about why the government did not give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a few more days to try to find the two young Israeli men who were kidnapped by Hamas militants.

It is true that more than 500 Qassam rocket attacks have struck towns within Israel, particularly Sderot, killing 15 Israeli citizens and foreign workers. No sovereign nation would stand passively by under such an attack. Israel has responded with targeted strikes. The most recent took out a car carrying Islamic Jihad terrorists transporting a Katyusha rocket that has an even longer delivery range than a Qassam. Some Palestinians were killed in these counter-attacks.

Does that mean Israel should not defend itself?

On one hand, we should be proud of the efforts the Israeli army takes to minimize danger to civilians, often at great cost of danger to Israeli soldiers. Where the army makes mistakes or makes decisions that protect Israeli soldiers at the expense of Palestinian civilians, we should be proud of Israel’s independent Supreme Court and Israeli Jewish human rights groups, which serve as watchdogs in this area. (If the Palestinians showed as much concern for Jewish life, they would have had a viable, thriving state decades ago.)

However, even with the best of efforts and intentions, even when the army may not mean to take life, innocents are killed. In military parlance, such loss of life is chalked up to “collateral damage.”

For Jews, every life, even of our enemies, is precious. That is why Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently expressed his regret over the death of Palestinian civilians even as he explained why the Army had to do what it was doing to stop the rocket attacks that were being launched from inside Gaza against Israel.

One could argue that for the mourning family, any death is a tragedy, regardless of its cause. However, I would suggest that if the Palestinians were as dismayed about taking innocent Jewish lives as the Israelis are of taking Palestinians’ lives, the conflict between our two peoples would have been resolved decades ago.

Now two young Israelis have been kidnapped.

Self-defense is a moral obligation. Israel is in the unenviable position of trying to defend itself from enemies who intentionally hide among civilians. Perhaps it is up to those civilians to say they no longer want rockets being shot from their front yards into ours.

Is Israel’s overwhelming show of force counterproductive? I don’t know. This is the dilemma Israel faces: how to be strong and wise in the face of an intractable enemy dedicated to its destruction. What worries me is that force alone cannot win this battle.

I took my seventh graders to the U.S. Holocaust Museum the other day. We stopped in front of the crematorium door as the students took in what it meant: that the Nazis burned the bodies of their mostly Jewish victims like we might burn garbage.

Jewish mourning practices have always prohibited cremation. Jewish tradition believes that ultimately at some end of days, our soul will be reunited with its body, miraculously, resurrected. Even if we may not believe in the physicality of resurrection of the dead, we can appreciate the metaphorical message inherent in it: that our embodied life in this world is inherently worthwhile.

The Greeks, and by extension Christian theologians, saw the soul as good and pure and the flesh as weak and evil. According to the Jewish philosopher Will Herberg, the Jewish belief in resurrection (the reunification of our soul with its body at the end of days) is the antithesis of Greek/Christian belief. Judaism says that the body God created for us is good and holy in its own right, not something to be merely sloughed off and eliminated when our soul is ready to continue on to the next world. The body is thus inherently good, and our bodily experiences in this world have such wholeness and holiness that there is a place for our bodies in a future perfect world.

This is one of the reasons Judaism prohibits cremation.

A number of religious traditions practice cremation, and it is not my place to judge them. However, we can condemn where some traditions used cremation to take innocent life. Just think of the Moloch worshippers burning children in the fires of Geihinnom, the valley of Hinnom, below Jerusalem’s walls (one possible source for the idea of a fiery hell), or the Hindu communities who, until recently, may have forced widows to commit sati, "voluntarily" accepting cremation with their deceased husbands. In such scenarios, cremation has certainly been used to devalue life. (Hindu cremation traditions thankfully continue now without sati. The last documented case of sati occurred in 1987.)

Our sages understood that those who burn bodies may all too readily devalue human life. The Holocaust made that all too clear.

Some consider cremation an inexpensive alternative to burial. To that, I reply that a graveside funeral and simple pine casket is certainly preferable Jewishly and need not be much more expensive. Others are concerned about the ecological waste of land required for burial. I think about the trees and open spaces cemeteries protect and remember that burial is part of God’s recycling plan: from dust we are formed and to dust we return, as the soul returns to God who gave it.

There is great wisdom in Jewish funeral practices. Wisdom to help the mourner walk the journey of loss and recover, wisdom to cherish and value the goodness of the entirety of human life and experience. These are lessons our world still needs to learn. So perhaps, more than ever, we should hold tightly to our traditional prohibition of cremation and let our loved ones rest gently in God’s green earth.

If someone wants to destroy you, are you obligated to help them? How humanitarian is aid when it supports hate?

This stopped being a theoretical question when Hamas was elected to lead the Palestinian people, because Hamas continues to be dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel.

The Torah teaches us we are our brother's keeper. An example is given: If the donkey of our enemy falls down, we are obligated to help raise up the donkey of our enemy even before the donkey of a friend. The goal here is that we should not even appear to be vindictive. The hope is that such an act of kindness would stimulate a cycle of rapproachment leading to reconciliation.

If only such a strategy would work in the world of Middle East realpolitik.

The Torah also teaches, however, that self-preservation is a mitzvah (a commandment). U’v’hai bahem, you should live by them (the mitzvot), the Torah reads. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, Rabbi Akiva explains, but not more than ourselves. In other words, we are not required to endanger ourselves so that our neighbors can live.

If we were to apply these moral lessons from our tradition, we could say that since Hamas is unrepentant in its commitment to destroy Israel, and if providing aide to Hamas shores up its support among the Palestinian people, there seems to be a very good reason why such support should be withheld.

However, what about the Palestinian people who are suffering because of their leaders’ decisions? Well, they are not really innocent, of course, having elected Hamas in the first place. Nevertheless, how can we just stand by and see individuals, particularly children, suffer?

We can’t, which is why Israel is providing humanitarian aid directly to the Palestinians by using the tax money Israel collects on behalf of the PA to pay Palestinian water and electric bills. (For the record, Israel offered to have the PA take over its own collections, and it preferred to have Israel continue to run the collections.) Israel is also shuttling medical supplies directly to Palestinian hospitals. America and our Western allies can follow suit.

What shouldn’t be overlooked is that Israel doesn’t need to provide the aid it is providing. If the situation were reversed, I have no doubt Hamas would revel in Jewish pain rather than seek to alleviate it. Too often overlooked is the fact that Israel is trying to help its neighbor, even when that neighbor is an enemy who wants to destroy it. In effect, Israel is trying to help individual Palestinians while trying to avoid contributing to a situation that strengthens Hamas.

What is happening in the West Bank and Gaza is a terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, it is a tragedy of the Palestinians’ own making. The majority of Israelis are willing to recognize a Palestinian State. If only the majority of Palestinians could feel the same about Israel, recognizing its right to exist, they would quickly have a secure and prosperous state of their own. It comes down to whether they love their children more than they hate Israel.

Should the Internet be used to publicize the names and alleged improprieties of alleged sexual predators? Is such use justified to protect victims and potential victims from sexual predators even if it runs roughshod over the requirement to protect innocent individuals from potentially false charges that can ruin their reputations and their careers?

According to Jewish tradition, a sexual predator is a rodef, a pursuer intending to harm another. As Jews we are obligated to not stand idly by, but to intervene to protect the victim. While we are not free to ignore the threat, nevertheless we are to use the minimum degree of force necessary to neutralize the threat posed by a perpetrator.

That is why I am uncomfortable with posting charges of sexual misconduct on Internet sites.

Jewish tradition teaches us that we are to protect the reputation of others: we are not to spread unconfirmed rumors (lashon hara, literally meaning evil talk), nor are we even to spread a bad name about others (motzi shem ra), even if true, to anyone who does not have a direct need to know for his or her own protection. In these ways, Judaism seeks to protect someone’s reputation and ability to support oneself.

The biblical story of Joseph (who winds up in jail for having spurned the advances of his boss’ wife) (Gen. 39:7-20) reminds us that mentally fragile or vindictive individuals can use a charge of sexual misconduct to get back at someone who is otherwise innocent. And sometimes one person’s kind act (for example, giving a congregant a hug in public) is inappropriately labeled by another as an act of sexual impropriety.

While I don’t agree with the use of the Internet to publicize unproven charges of sexual misconduct, I certainly understand why such postings happen: All too often victims find no support or redress in the organized Jewish world.

That is why it is our responsibility on every level of our community to establish protocols and procedures for dealing expeditiously and confidentially with charges of sexual misconduct, whether about rabbis, teachers, or other professionals and leaders, and in a way that is sensitive and fair to both parties.

In my synagogue we have a Personnel Committee staffed by volunteers with Equal Opportunity and human resource experience who regularly run training programs for all of our teachers and staff about sexual harassment and misconduct. Each of the major rabbinical organizations should have a similar procedure that ensures a fair hearing not just to the rabbi in question, but to the self-identified victim as well. I would also suggest that some of the national initiatives to train rabbis on issues of domestic violence could also include training in sexual harassment and impropriety so this growing number of concerned rabbis will know how to respond appropriately if someone comes to them for help.

Perhaps such steps, once in place, would vitiate the need for blogs that ultimately do more for the spread of lashon hara than the effective protection of potential victims of sexual misconduct.