Newsletter:
Vol. 3. Iss. 1
25 October 2001
Judaism and Non-violence
Rabbi. Jeremy Milgrom
Major rabbinic texts from late antiquity eloquently declare: Gadol Hashalom --- peace is the highest of values. On the interpersonal level, while the Hebrew Bible doesn't explicitly demand or expect a totally non-violent lifestyle, it commands the love of one's neighbor, and sees love as the proper response to situations of conflict that breed hatred and vengeance: "Do not hate your brother in your heart; reprove him, and be sinless. Do not take revenge or harbor a grudge, rather love your neighbor as yourself; I am YHWH" Leviticus 19:17-18.
Relating to this passage, the medieval French exegete, Yosef Bechor Shor, asks, “How does God expect one who has been wronged to the point of wanting to take revenge to love one’s neighbor?” One thus sees the wisdom in the way Hillel of the 1st century paraphrased this verse from Leviticus as, “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your comrade” and declared it to be the central principle of Judaism. Bechor Shor finds the answer in the last, overlooked phrase of the passage: I am YHWH: “Let your love for Me overcome your hatred for him, and keep you from taking revenge; in this way love vanquishes hatred, and peace will come between you. This is the way of Torah, “whose ways are pleasant, and all of whose paths are peace (Proverbs 3:17)”.
The Bible's desire to limit vengeance is concretized in the institution of Cities of Refuge. These places were created to protect the accidental murderer from being hunted down by avenging relatives. Capital punishment, so prevalent in the Bible's penal system, is virtually eliminated in the first major post-Biblical code of Jewish law, the Mishnah (2nd century CE). The Rabbis who compiled it insisted on unrealistically severe laws of evidence in capital cases, indicating that they were not willing to allow human courts to take human life and risk irreversible miscarriages of justice. The result of their judicial caution is remarkably in line with the suggestion that the Ten Commandments' “Do not kill” prohibits manslaughter and not only murder.
Judaism's longstanding rejection of militarism predominates in Jewish texts of every age. The book of Deuteronomy warns Israel against taking pride in its military successes and of imagining them to be independently achieved (Dt. 8: 11-18); it sees this as the height of human pride and folly, and dangerously close to idolatry. This anti-militarist attitude is reflected in the downplaying of the role of the Hasmoneans in the Tana'itic explanations of the origins of Hanukkah; the prophetic reading chosen by the rabbis for the Sabbath that falls during Hanukkah includes the famous verse from Zachariah: Not by force or by might, but with My spirit, says the Lord (4:6), which is at the core of the 19th century universalist, pre-Zionist understanding of Hanukkah. Similarly we find statements against Bar Kochva, whose unsuccessful revolt against the Romans in 132-135 CE brought even more devastation to the Jews of Palestine than the Great Revolt of 70 CE, in which the Second Temple, and Jerusalem were destroyed. Until recent years, the military profession was so antithetical to the heart and experience of the Jew that the Passover Haggadah found in his home was likely to portray the wicked son as a soldier. By contrast, a Haggadah published by the Israeli Ministry of Defence Publishing House, c. 1970, shows glossy pictures of the devastation of the Egyptian army in Sinai during the 1967 war as a modern update of the 10 plagues of antiquity.
One could hardly begin to outline the expressions of the ideal of peace, and the age of peace, better than citing the book named for the late 8th Century Prophet, Isaiah of Jerusalem, which famously reads, “He will adjudicate among the peoples, and discipline many nations; they will break down their swords into shovels, their spears into pruning hooks: nations will not raise swords against each other, not train for war any more.” Isa 2:2-4
How does one draw practical guidance from such reflection? Note that Justice and Peace, according to Isaiah 2, are integrally connected. The order of these two elements is critical: first, justice is established, and only afterwards does peace become a reality. The aggrieved party is not expected to give up its claim and be pacified; on the contrary, it has the right and the obligation to demand justice. Peace without justice is surrender, which, when achieved under the guise of peace, is built on the flimsy foundations of falsehood; it only plants the seeds of future oppression. Attempts at reconciliation initiated before injustice is redressed can theoretically still lead to non-violent conflict resolution, but they force the disadvantaged party to rely on the goodwill of the oppressor to yield not to pressure but rather through persuasion, an assumption which goes against the very experience of oppression.
For contemporary Judaism, the question inevitably is asked: In what way can this passage be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Justice is a simple concept that is well understood instinctively: the assurance of equal treatment. In situations of dispute, attaining justice depends on distilling the truth in front of an objective judge who has the confidence of both parties, and whose judgment results in the restoration of peace. However, what works for individuals or groups within a society with an implied or explicit social contract may be hard to apply internationally. It is very hard for the different countries to agree on, and give authority to, any outside power.
