Shoftim
Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
Isaiah 51:12-52:12
When it was possible that Nazi Germany might overwhelm Britain, Mahatma Gandhi offered this shocking advice:
“I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions…If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman and child to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.”
Prior to the outbreak of the war, Gandhi had offered comparably misguided advice to the Jewish community:
“I am as certain…that the stoniest German heart will melt [if only the Jews] adopt active non-violence. Human nature…unfailingly responds to the advances of love. I do not despair of his [Hitler’s] responding to human suffering even though caused by him.”
Even in June 1946, after millions of Jews had been slaughtered in the Shoah, Gandhi was unswerving in this counsel of passive nonviolence:
“Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.”
Louis Fisher, Gandhi’s biographer asked him: “You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?”
Gandhi responded, “Yes, that would have been heroism.”
While Gandhi may have thought that he proved his point by sweeping the British out of India through passive nonviolence, he was dealing with the civilized British who were shocked by his people’s self-sacrifice. However, he was not considering Nazis as barbarians who would have relished the opportunity to defeat Gandhi through wholesale slaughter of Indian subjects, had they been the object of Nazi hatred.
Gandhi’s position is comparable to the Christian Scripture’s response to evil; both are antithetical to the Jewish response. The Sermon on the Mount teaches compliance with power:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, ‘Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well’ …You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you'” (Matthew 5:38-39).
In contrast to this position, the Talmud admonishes the use of pre-emptive action when necessary: “If someone comes to kill you, kill him first” (Sanhedrin 72a). Zionist essayist Ahad Ha’am commented on self-defense and the response toward evil individuals by stating that passive reaction only encourages further violence:
“If I practice love to the extent that when you smite me on the right cheek, I offer you the left also, I am thereby encouraging injustice. I, like you, am then guilty of the injustice that is practiced.”
While the Jewish response to physical threat may not seem to be as loving and self-effacing as the Hindu or Christian positions, it is born of a realism that recognizes that a sign of weakness by an enemy encourages, rather than discourages, further violence.
However, Judaism is not a bloodthirsty religion. It has its share of idealistic statements:
“If your enemy falls, do not exult; If he stumbles, let your heart not rejoice, Lest the Lord see it and be displeased.
“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; If he is thirsty, give him water to drink” (Proverbs 24:17-18, 25:21 and Pirke Avot IV:24).
These statements, not of the same variety as the New Testament’s “turn the other cheek” idealism, are based upon an understanding an enemy does not cease to be a human being. This tension is reflected in Avot de Rabbi Natan: “Who is a hero? One who turns an enemy into a friend” (Chapter 23).
This week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, describes realistic rules for fair play, a kind of biblical Geneva Convention, specifying under what circumstances individuals are exempt from battle, how to treat enemies who resist or who surrender and rules of decency under conditions of war. The text demands, “When you approach a town to attack it, you shall offer it terms of peace” (Deuteronomy 20:10). Shoftim reminds readers that while it may not be possible to turn all enemies into friends, we should not stop trying.