These you may eat from all
that is in the sea; every one that has fins and scales, you may eat.  (Devarim
14:9)

“These are the living
creatures that you may eat” – This teaches us that Moshe would hold the
creature for Israel to see, saying “This you may eat and this you may not eat.
This you may eat from all that is in the water, and this you may not eat. These
you are to detest from fowl . . . it is a detestable thing for you, and these
are not detestable for you. This is tamei for you, and this is not tamei.  (Sifra, Shmini, Parasha 2)

“You are not to eat any
abominable thing” – Is Abomination “Royal Decree” Or Is It  “Human Nature”?

“Any abominable thing” – Any
thing which is abominable to the pure soul, such as that which crawls upon the
earth. (Ibn Ezra,
Devarim 14:3)

The meaning of ‘abomination’ is
that which human nature finds
repulsive. But the term ‘any abominable thing’ means “everything which I have
made abominable to you”  — it is
proper that the Jewish soul should consider these abominable, as in  “You
are to consider it abominable, yes, abominable.”            One
should train himself to distance himself from forbidden foods until his soul is
actually disgusted by them. The Sifrei includes in the term ‘all abominable
things’ all that the Torah designates as ‘abomination’, such as blemished
sacrificial offerings, which are called “abomination to God.”  (Haamek
Davar, Devarim 14:3)

Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria says:
From where do we know that one should not say:  “I am unable to wear sha’atnez”, “I am unable to eat
pork,” “I cannot conduct an incestual relationship.” Rather he should say: “I
am able! But what can I do? My father in heaven has decreed [prohibitions].”
This is the teaching: “I have separated you from the people to be mine!” – one
leaves sin and accepts upon himself the kingdom of Heaven.                                                      (Sifra, Kedoshim, Parasha 10)

***

“AND SHOW COMPASSION TO YOU”

Pinhas Leiser

The context is which these words appear (Devarim 13:18) is – at first blush – odd and
unanticipated.  Only a few passages
earlier, the Torah charges us to treat the inhabitants of the ir hanidachat (a
condemned city) with the full severity of the law: “Strike down, strike down
the settlers of that town with the edge of the sword, consign it to
destruction, it and all that is in it, and its animals, with the edge of the
word..” Regarding this, the poet would question “They say there is mercy in
the world – where is mercy here?”

Many
commentators, beginning with Chazal, dealt with this difficult issue of
collective punishment. In the mishna we find  a marked tendency to limit possibilities of practical
application of the law of ir nidachat — “A Condemned City”. {A
similar  inclination may be found
regarding a ben sorer u’more — “A Rebellious Son”).  The Mishna in Sanhedrin (10:4) states: “The inhabitants of a condemned
city have no portion in the World to Come, as is written, ‘Men, base men, have
gone out from among you and have subverted  the settlers of their town . . .”  They are not to be killed until they
have been subverted from that city and from that tribe, and until the majority
have been subverted and until they have been subverted by males.  If women and/or minors were
subverted, or if only a minority was subverted, or they subverted settlers from
outside the town – all these are considered individuals [who have sinned]. And
there must have been two witnesses who
forewarned each of the sinners. In this respect, individual are punished more
severely than communities, for 
individual sinners are executed by stoning [the harshest form of
court-imposed execution] – and therefore their property is spared. Communities
are punished by the sword, and therefore their property is destroyed.”

An additional  tendency towards limitation of
possibilities of application is to be found in the Tosefta (Sanhedrin 14:1)

“Minors of a
condemned town who were subverted with the rest are not to be executed”;  Rabbi Eliezer says, “They are to be
executed.” Rabbi Akiva said, “What is the practical application of the text ‘And
show compassion to you, having compassion on you and making you many’ ? If
to have mercy for the adults, it is already stated ‘Strike down, strike
down’; if to have pity upon their livestock, it is already stated ‘and
its animals with the edge of the sword”. What then, is the application of ‘and
show compassion to you”?  It
refers to the minors in it.

Rabbi
Eliezer says: “Even adults are not executed, unless there are witnesses and
forewarning. What is the practical application of  ‘And show compassion to you etc.’?

Lest the Bet
Din say, ‘If we make this an ir nidachat, a condemned city, tomorrow
their brothers and relatives will conspire in hatred against us,’  says the Omnipresent: ‘I will show
compassion to you, and I will fill their hearts with love, that they say ‘We
harbor no ill feelings against you, your verdict was just.”

            Rabbi
Akiva, peerless interpreter, discerned in “And show compassion to you” a
practical Halakhic order not to punish minors. But Rabbi Eliezer does not
recognize any possibility of punishment unless it has been preceded by a valid
judicial process (witnesses and forewarning).  At the same time, he read the phrase “And show compassion
to you” as a promise that the execution of true justice will not result in
social enmity, for all will understand that that what was done was necessary.
Perhaps Rabbi Eliezer’s words can be read as condition and criterion, and
not just as promise; only post facto can one be certain whether the
punishment, brutal in itself, was justified; if the brothers and relatives of
those executed in the ir hanidachat are able to say  “‘We harbor no ill feelings against
you, your verdict was just” –  we
will know that there has been an act justice accompanied by compassion.  If there is hatred in their hearts,
then there was neither justice nor compassion; there is the danger that the
hatred will develop and lead to vengeance, to a cycle of violence which may be
difficult to break.

Sapient
Chazal, in line with the hallowed traditions of the Oral Law, knew how to
discern between principle and practical application. They well understood that
“Inhabitants of an ir hanidachat have no share in the world to come”,
that they have no right to exist in the world – they knew that everything said
regarding them in the Written Torah is declarative truth, similar to “eye
for an eye”, which comes to point out the severity of the act; but in
practical application extreme caution must be exercised, taking into
consideration a totality  of
complex factors.

            Commentators
of later times relate to the psychological damage which may be experienced by
one who executes cruel punishment. 
Rabbi Hayyim ibn Attar, 18^th century author of “Ohr
HaHayim,”   writes:

“And
show compassion to you” – The meaning of this passage is as follows:
Inasmuch as He commanded that, in the ir hanidachat,’ they put the
entire city to death, including the livestock, such action can produce a
cruel nature in man’s heart, as the Ishmaelites tell us of a band of
murderers subservient to the king, who murder with great passion; compassion
has been uprooted from them, and they have become cruel. This characteristic
can be rooted in those who annihilate the ir hanidachat. Therefore, they
are promised that God will give them “rachamim” – compassion; even
though they will have developed a cruel nature, their fountain of mercy
will  shower them anew with the
“power of compassion” to nullify the force of cruelty engendered by their
actions.  “And show compassion
for you” – Whenever man Possesses a cruel nature, so will God relate to
him, for God has compassion only for the compassionate.  (Shabbat, 151b)

Rav Chayim
ben Attar explains that cruel behavior can transform any person into a brutal
person; only the ‘source of compassion’ can immunize one against cruelty. The
author of the Ohr HaHayyim interprets “and show compassion to you”
as a qualification of the promise; the promise is given only to the
compassionate and not to the cruel. The gift of compassion is dependent upon
the ‘source of compassion’ and upon the person himself.

The Netziv
of Volozhin, one of the Torah giants of an earlier generation, elaborates upon
the damage (‘evils’ in his terminology) which may affect the individual and
society as a result of imposing the prescribed sentence upon the inhabitants of
the ir hanidachat:

1st.       One who
kills develops a cruel personality. 
When an individual is executed by a proper court, the punishment is
administered by a chosen appointee of the court; when an entire city is to be
wiped out, of necessity we must train many people to kill and become cruel.

2nd.          
Every inhabitant of the ir nidachat must have relatives
elsewhere; hatred will increase in Israel.

3rd.           
Israel’s population will decrease, creating “bald spots” on
the population map. Scripture promised that if we execute the commandment
without any personal benefit from spoils, God’s wrath will subside.

The Netziv,
then, strictly adhering to the plain reading of the text, discerns a connection
between the beginning of the passage “No part of the banned property may
adhere to your hand” –  and its
continuation “so that God will turn back from his burning wrath, and
He will show you compassion.”

The ethical
message emerging from a careful reading of Chazal and later commentators is
unambiguous.

On occasion,
one is called upon to perform acts which are necessary, which serve noble
causes. Cruel acts, involving bloodshed, are never noble; in any case, even
when done for a noble and necessary cause, they have a deleterious effect upon
the soul.  The only possibility for
minimizing the damage is dependent upon God’s grace. Decreasing such damage
depends upon the purity of intent and upon absence of any personal involvement
and pleasure in performing the cruel acts.  This, too, is dependent upon God’s grace. The justice of a
cruel, but necessary, act must be observed and measured by the result –  acceptance of the sentence by the
relatives of the punished.

Ben Gurion
labeled the cannon that he ordered to fire upon the Altelena “the holy
cannon”.  He was wrong.  There are no ‘holy cannons.’

King David,
sweet singer of Israel, servant of God, was not allowed to erect the
temple:   

“But the
word of the Lord came to me, saying: You have shed blood abundantly, and have
made great wars; you shall not build a house unto My name, because you have
shed much blood upon the earth in My name.” (Chronicles
I, 22:8)

War and
bloodshed are often unnecessary and must be prevented. Occasionally there are
situations of ‘ayn berayra’ – ‘no alternative’ – and we must fight,
kill, and be killed. It is essential to differentiate between the two
situations. In any case, bloodshed and the building of the temple are not
compatible; bloodshed makes the Land tamei (impure), drives away
the Shekhina, and causes spiritual and psychological damage.

Today, there
seems to be a dangerous tendency to forget this simple moral truth. Therefore,
we must remember, remind, and repeat – there are unnecessary wars, and there
are wars which are ‘necessary evils’ 
–  there are no holy
wars.

                                                                                                Pinchas Leiser is a psychologist

READERS WRITE

            As
one who religiously reads – and greatly enjoys –  your publication, I cannot refrain from reacting to Prof.
Elimelech Horowitz’s article in the Parashat Devarim issue. I have no argument
with his conclusion that greater attention must be paid to social wrongs. I do
have serious reservations about the means he employs to support his
conclusions.  Prof. Horowitz
compares Chazal and Ramban’s attitude to social transgression with their
attitude to rape (gang and individual – the difference is unimportant to me) –
even rape resulting in homicide. 
No doubt, Prof. Horowitz accurately reflects the attitudes of Chazal and
Ramban. I only wonder . . . are these the supports upon which he wishes to base
his conclusion?  Today, as violence
against women is on the rise, one wonders whether the quoted opinions are the
most suitable argument for proving his point.   I did not overlook the qualifier “as if” towards the
end of his article, but it seem to me, as a woman and as a human being, that it
is certainly possible – and even essential – to at least equate the wounding of woman in body and
soul with social transgression.

                                                            Respectfully,

Toby Ne’eman

                                                                        Kibbutz
Tirat Zvi

PROFESSOR ELIMELECH
HOROWITZ REPLIES

If Mrs.
Ne’eman agrees that my article accurately reflects the position of Chazal and
Ramban, I am satisfied. If she is offended,  “as a woman and as a human being”, at my usage of their
positions in order to stress the severity of social iniquity (as compared with
sexual depravity) in the eyes of the molders of Jewish values, I ask her
forgiveness. God forbid that I intend to detract from the gravity of such
abominations as gang rape (which has seen a disturbing increase in recent
years); I sought to clarify that in Jewish tradition, the connotations  ‘ma’aseh Sdom’  –– an act of Sodom – are not
sexual, but social.  Only in later
Latin usage, under the influence of the fathers of the church, did the words ‘sodomia’
and ‘sodomita’ describe ‘irregular’ sexual activity.  This usage has, unfortunately, crossed
over into the Hebrew employed by the media (and perhaps even by the courts)
thereby weakening the connection between ‘Sodomism’ and social evil.

I should
like to point out that in the days before Tisha B’Av, the representatives
of  Shas in the Knesset tightened
ranks “in prayer and supplication” to limit pornographic broadcasts on Cable
TV.  Shortly after  Tisha B’Av, the heads of the hesder
yeshivot and the preparatory yeshivot exhibited similar zeal against the
integration of female soldiers into combat units. There is no question that
these subjects are deserving of consideration by the religious leadership. But
two days after Tisha B’Av, a conference was held near Yerushalayim, dealing
with “Trade in Human Beings for Purposes of Prostitution” – probably in light
of the U.S. State Department report which indicates that the situation in
Israel is among the most serious in the world (see article by Baruch Kra –
Haaretz 1/08). The voices of the above-mentioned leaders were not heard.
Perhaps they forgot that there are more ‘massage parlors’ (which depend on
trade in women) in Israel than there are hesder soldiers in the regular army!
They pose no less a serious threat to the purity of Jewish youth than do female
combatants. Fortunately, there is to be found one man who preserves the honor
of Israel, the Legal Adviser to the Government, who did not hesitate to
announce that dealing with this problem is “the test of our passage from a
jungle to an enlightened society.” Mr. Rubenstein suggested a daring proposal
to establish “a center for prostitutes in which they will be provided with
protection against pimps and will receive legal assistance.”  If this proposal is not accepted, I
suspect that acts of Sodom (in the Jewish connotation) will continue to make
our land tamei, and to blacken our face in the world.

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal
and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation:
Kadish Goldberg

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