If one wonders, how did it happen? How did the world lose its moral compass? How did major American universities become fan clubs of the most brutal murderers on Earth? How did the International Criminal Court become the Court for International Criminals? How could the world stand by for fifteen months as hostages are mercilessly kept captive, and then not blink an eye when the release of mass murderers is demanded in exchange for the freedom of innocent women, children, and elderly men?
So much of it can be traced to one premise: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. This statement is utterly false, and a moral disaster.
Terrorism is a complete abandonment of the foundations of morality, an offense of method and of deed, whose evil is completely distinct from whatever cause it purports to support, noble or otherwise. To claim that the rejection of the terrorist is only because he represents an unfavored side is a denial of all decency, and a profound insult to the genuine heroes of historical quests for freedom and justice.
The night the Jews were granted their freedom from their slavers, they were commanded, as we read this week, “none of you shall go out from the door of your house until the morning (Exodus 12:22)“. The twentieth century giant of Jewish law and philosophy, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, explained the intent: throughout history, oppressed peoples, when liberated, often turned on their tormentors, running riot and committing massacres. This must not be the behavior of the nascent Jewish nation, that would soon become defined by commandment, morality, and order. When that nation was liberated from centuries of slavery and oppression in Egypt, restraint and discipline remained a priority.
For the rest of time, the Jews would be told to commemorate and celebrate that moment of liberation. And yet, restraint once again; gestures would be incorporated into the annual Passover Seder, and into the thanksgiving prayers later in the festival, to acknowledge the deaths of the Egyptians who pursued them until the last moment. The glory is only in the freedom itself, not in the revolution. Even when necessary and just, all death is loss; life is precious, and morality would be constructed upon that principle.
Once upon a time, even the UN understood the massive evil inherent in terrorism, and the difference between it and a just war, even if it has struggled to define it in legal terminology. Then-Secretary General Kofi Anan, in a statement following the attacks of September 11, 2001, avowed, “in the post 11 September era, no one can dispute the nature of the terrorist threat, nor the need to meet it with a global response…let me say frankly that there is also a need for moral clarity. There can be no acceptance of those who would seek to justify the deliberate taking of innocent life, regardless of cause or grievance. If there is one universal principle that all peoples can agree on, surely it is this.”
It is clear why this is the case. The moral foundations required for civilization to exist and flourish demand a system that can be objectively applied to all, with accountability, and the possibility of order in the world through the Rule of Law.
Those who have sought to accuse the State of Israel of genocide in recent months, straining to find evidence of such intent, have pointed to the occasional invoking of “Amalek”. the ancient nation Israel was commanded to destroy. However, these references are actually making an opposite point.
The nation of Amalek no longer exists in an identifiable group, and there is no active commandment to destroy anyone. The historic Amalek, nonetheless, as a concept remains to teach a model of behavior that God Himself declares He will battle. This behavior, essentially, is terrorism. The Bible (Deut 25:18) describes a group that launched a sneak attack, targeting those in the rear who were exhausted. They showed no respect for the rules of war, and are described as being at war with God Himself, meaning with the very concept of functional morality. Terrorists contradict the message of a just God in His world.
This week we read of the first commandment given to the Jewish people, regarding the establishment of the Jewish calendar (Ex. 12:2). Why not start the Torah from there, asks Rashi in the first comment of his biblical commentary, addressing the story of Creation. It is a surprising question: who needs that story? How, after all is said and done, does knowing about the Earth’s origin inform the daily life of the Jew, who seeks to live a life of nobility and service? What inspiration or guidance comes from this remote and esoteric tale?
His answer is equally surprising, at once prescient and seemingly narrow. There will come a day, he wrote, almost a thousand years ago, when the nations of the world will claim that the Jews are thieves; that their presence in the Land of Israel is established on “stolen land”, perhaps an act of “colonization”. To that, a response is provided: the entire world was created by God; He is entitled to set the rules, and to declare the righteousness of the Jews’ presence in their tiny corner of it.
Is that all? The entire story of Creation to justify the territorial needs of a miniscule sliver of humanity? And how, pray tell, has it even helped? Has Rashi’s statement, at any point in the past millennium, ever been used to settle the perennial Mideast conflict? Could it have? Are we awaiting a better translation into English, or Arabic, or whatever language is spoken at the time by the UN Secretary General?
Great masters of Jewish ethical thought explained that Rashi never intended for his statement to be used as a debate tool. Rather, its message is internal. It is crucial that the Jews be aware, whether or not the rest of the world appreciates the point, that they function based on a strong ethical and moral foundation.
The lesson is far broader than the point regarding Jewish claim to the land of Israel. It is the fundamental declaration that God created the world so that His morality will be expressed through its inhabitants. There is right and there is wrong, and his Chosen people must know this, even if their adversaries deny their morality. Moral behavior is by definition upon the actor, regardless of the acknowledgement of others.
This is the message of starting the Torah with the story that indicates both the fact and purpose of God’s creation of the world, the verses that were read on that horrible day in October, which was also Simchat Torah, when the annual cycle of the Torah reading is completed, and then immediately restarted, from Genesis, and when the forces of chaotic evil were unleashed upon the nation tasked with bearing God’s vision for humanity.
The forefather Abraham, ancestor of the Jewish and Islamic faiths, was a freedom fighter who rejected the possibility of terrorism. Called upon to liberate his captive nephew Lot (Genesis ch. 14) he nonetheless, Rabbinic sources indicate, recognized that this mission did not legitimate the killing of innocents. When the endeavor became defined as a military conflict rather than a personal rescue mission, this activated the Laws of War, which do recognize the reality of collateral civilian casualties, but here too there remains a recognition of both the need for legitimate means, and acknowledging the human loss incurred even when necessary. This is a sensitivity, the Rabbinic sources declare, that was present in both Abraham and his grandson Jacob, forced into possible military conflict with the army of his rival brother Esau.
Accordingly, the appellation “Abraham Accords” given to recent successful peace efforts in the Middle East can refer not only to the shared ancestry of the involved parties, but also to the rejection of terrorism modeled by Abraham himself.
The freedom fighter cannot be a terrorist because “there is no free man but he who involves himself in Torah” (mishnah, Avot 6:2); liberty, unrestrained by discipline and law, is an illusion, even a contradiction.
No terrorist can be a freedom fighter, because the two are as far from each other as good and evil. Confusing the two has led to a confused generation, deaf to the call of the most basic principles of morality and civilization. It falls upon those who retain the moral clarity of Abraham to teach the truth, both through modeling and persuasion; it is why the world was created, and in that lies the hope of humanity.
R' Feldman
