(RNS) — In a world that craves justice, we have witnessed a breathless flow of events.
- Israel eliminated Hamas’ leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
- Israel eliminated Hezbollah’s second in command, Fuad Shukr. His demonic CV had included a major role in the recent bombing that killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field in the Golan Heights, as well as countless terror attacks against Israel for the last four decades.
- Israel confirmed that last month, it eliminated Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif.
- There have been other assassinations as well.
My fellow Americans might be pleased. Shukr had a central role in the October 1983 bombing of the barracks in Beirut, with 307 people killed: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians and two attackers.
How should Jews think about, and process, these events? To get some insights, I turned to a small group of my friends and teachers:
Dr. Elana Stein Hain
Elana Stein Hain, Rosh Beit Midrash and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and author of “Circumventing the Law: Rabbinic Perspectives on Loopholes and Legal Integrity”: “While I fear our enemies’ reprisals, as ethical human beings, we must be willing to recognize and to fight evil as such. This is one way to do so. It is not the only way, but it is an important one. ‘The death of the wicked benefits… the world’ (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 8:5).”
Peter Himmelman. Courtesy: Riveting Riffs Magazine
Peter Himmelman, a Grammy- and Emmy-nominated songwriter and author of the soon-to-be-published book “Suspended by No String: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Faith, Aliveness, and Wonder“:“During Passover, ten drops of wine are spilled from each participant’s cup. As a child, I learned that this custom taught us not to rejoice over the deaths of our enemies. I later learned a variation on that teaching: our enemies were — and still are — so bent on our destruction that the removal of the wine symbolizes the spilling of their blood. Ismail Haniyeh’s ‘sudden passing’ is something I will surely reflect on next Passover, when the Ten Plagues are read.”
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, meeting with Lee Siegel, brother of hostage Keith Siegel
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism: “Israel has a moral right to hold accountable individuals responsible for mass terrorism – including via extra-judicial killing of Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr. The Jewish legal designation is ‘din rodef,’ the Talmudic obligation to stop a person from murdering innocent people. This applies especially amid a war where such actions could prevent further attacks, but if these killings prevent a hostage deal and an end to this war, will it be considered wise to have carried out these targeted killings?”
Rachel Korazim. Courtesy: Shalom Hartman Institute
Rachel Korazim, prominent Israeli adult educator. Learn more about her work here: “I am upset and disappointed because of the assassinations, as well as the reactions by mainstream as well as right wing Israel. We have been killing enemy leaders for years with no gain to show for it but more rage, anger, blood and fighting. The gloating and awful jokes as well as the so called learned analysis by TV talking heads are terrible. ‘If your enemy falls, do not exult; If he trips, let your heart not rejoice’ (Proverbs 24:17).”
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, president and dean, Valley Beit Midrash: A Global Center for Learning & Action: “In our Torah, Pinchas engaged in a bold assassination. On the one hand, this was a dangerous violent act of zealotry. On the other hand, God gives him a brit shalom (covenant of peace). The assassination of Haniyeh raises fears of retaliation and escalation in Israel and among the global Jewish community and yet it may be deemed a necessary act of justice. We should be humble in not having absolute clarity given our limited information and many complex considerations.”
I refer you to how my teachers and friends framed their responses — each one of them using Jewish texts and ideas.
What do I think?
Like on many things, I am of several minds.
On the one hand, I have no sympathy for these killers. Justice demands their deaths. I find the world’s hypocrisy to be simultaneously astounding and predictable: a relatively short mourning period for the victims of Oct. 7 and hand-wringing over the deaths of those responsible for terror. I will reiterate the words of the ancient sages: “Those who are kind to the cruel will wind up being cruel to the kind” (Midrash, Tanhuma, Metzorah 1).
On the other hand, I live with a tradition of compassion for one’s enemies.
- “When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back. When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless help raise it” (Exodus 23:4-5).
- When the angels saw the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea, they broke into song. God rebuked them, saying: “My children are drowning, and you are singing?” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 39b).
But, then, there is a third hand, a third path — a moral hybrid.
Yes, we have to vanquish evil. And when we do so, that act requires both humility and awe.
Two scenes play out in my mind.
The first: the moment that Osama bin Laden was assassinated. I need not remind my readers that the Taliban leader was the mastermind behind the horror of Sept. 11, 2001.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
I shall never forget the scene in the White House situation room, as the leaders of our nation, including President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton, watched the events unfold.
What gets me about that photo?
First, the sober expressions on the faces of our leaders.
But, second: Secretary Clinton’s hand over her mouth. With that one gesture, she was uttering a paragraph: Yes, this man was the quintessence of evil in our time. He has been killed. Nevertheless, I have just watched a man die.
The second scene.
I have always loved the movie “Patriot Games,” with Harrison Ford as CIA analyst Jack Ryan. Some years ago, I re-watched the movie with my (then, young) son.
A band of terrorists, a splinter group from the IRA, has targeted Ryan’s family.
In one of my favorite scenes, the CIA has traced the group to terrorist training camps in north Africa. Note as well: a variety of terrorist groups use those camps; they have no ideology in common, other than an ideology of death.
The CIA sends in a force that kills most of the terrorists, while Ryan and his former CIA superior, Vice Admiral James Greer (played by James Earl Jones), watch it happen on a satellite feed. It is swift and lethal. Ryan is transfixed by what he sees on the screen; his expression, solemn.
At the end of the operation, Greer takes a deep breath and says, quietly: “It’s over,” and leaves the room.
My young son asked me: “Why is that man so sad?”
This is how I answered him: “Because it is terrible to kill people, even in war, and there are times when you have to do it. But, even when you have to do it, it should make you sad.”
There was a necessity to those assassinations. Nevertheless, we do not rejoice.
I return to Rav Shmuly’s insights into the killings, and the story of Pinchas in the Book of Numbers. The text says that Pinchas was granted a brit shalom (a covenant of peace). But, in the Torah scroll, the Hebrew word shalom is written with a distorted letter vav.
That peace, that wholeness, is incomplete and broken.
We pray for that shalom of peace and wholeness, as we acknowledge with fear and trembling that which might lie ahead.
