Jacob and Esau: Judaism on Violence
The great Jewish scholar, Isaiah Berlin, who taught at Oxford for many decades, argued that tragedy consists of situations in which one must choose to uphold a value (like freedom) with the knowledge that at least, at that moment, one may not uphold a conflicting different value (like equality). To choose is to lose something, in effect. This week's Torah portion reminded me of Berlin‘s teaching, because it focuses on the complicated somewhat tortured history between the sons of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and the question of when violence becomes justified.
Jacob is about to re-encounter his brother after many years apart. He’s afraid to see Esau. He feels guilty about their history which involved him gaining a birthright and blessing under shady circumstances that belonged to Esau. Jacob fears - with good reason - that Esau seeks revenge for how Jacob hurt him.
The Torah narrates how Esau and his army came toward Jacob, and the "fear" and "distress" Jacob felt at that moment. Why does the Torah invoke two fairly similar emotional reactions? The rabbis understood that each feeling signified a possible violent outcome: Jacob feared what Esau would do to him, the thought that he would have to hurt Esau distressed him.
Judaism takes a nuanced stance regarding violence, subtle enough that by no means should we see ourselves as principled pacifists. The talmud plainly states that if someone comes to kill you, kill him first. But Judaism cherishes life not death, and no death cult exists in Jewish life. Speaking of Esau the rabbis typecast him as a man of violence, of physicality rather than civility, and a forebear of Rome, the symbol of imperial power and violence. Jews obsess about acts of lovingkindness, by contrast.
So how did Jews birth a modern state complete with the most powerful army in the Middle East? In part by seeing Zionism as a revolution against traditional Jewish religious norms involving political and physical passivity (for more on that subject sign up for my forthcoming CMT course on the similarities and differences between American and Israeli Jewry). Israel recognized it needed an army and a good one to defend itself against its hostile neighbors.
Many years ago I read a short book titled The Seventh Day. The book consisted of interviews with young soldiers who fought in the June 1967 war. They talked about their experiences in combat and their feelings about violence and killing. None felt joy, only fatigue and relief. Satisfaction and even melancholy, certainly not happiness at killing. As Professor Berlin taught, war is tragic. We defend ourselves by taking the lives of others. What struck me then about what they said, and how they said it and what I still hear from soldiers today is that war is hell and it is tragic. It involves the taking of the life of one of God‘s creatures. As much as our blood is as red as anyone else's, as much as we have the right to defend our human dignity, it sometimes requires us to kill another of God's creatures.
That is the painful balance Judaism challenges us to strike. All the way back to the Jacob stories: we prepare for battle even as we lament what we may be forced to do to live. We try to treat everyone with human dignity until we cannot.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Starr
