Dear Friends,
“An eye for an eye…” (Exodus 21:12)
Few Torah commandments have stirred such controversy, or been adhered to adamantly or rejected equally forcefully as this charge to fulfill lex talionis – the law of retribution, found in this week’s Torah portion, and also found in each one of the Five Books of Moses.
How many mothers have admonished their children, “Just because Joey down the street hit you, you shouldn’t hit him back!”
Whereas how many fathers have charged their children, “If he hits you, you hit him back harder!”
The first example has been exalted as a core of our neighboring Christian ethic, to turn the other cheek, while the latter example surely describes the position of America’s military and defense policy, especially in Iraq and Syria, of late.
Yet, neither reflect the normative Jewish position as it evolved from the Talmudic, rabbinic period to today. Previously, in the biblical epoch, it was more likely that this command may have been followed literally. Torah describes the establishment of both designated avengers who would chase and down and ring corporal or capital punishment upon a perpetrator. As well, Torah indicates towns to which a
manslayer could flee the avenger and either await trial or legal release from culpability for an unintentional killing. But, those are biblical, Torah practices.
Once the Torah was redacted and edited, and its implementation was consigned to human hands – those of the rabbinic sages in the first millennium, CE – those rabbis indicated that they would no longer perform this law as written. Instead, they argued that the law did not mean to physically punish every offender, but that it meant that a fair monetary value must be exacted from the perpetrator, as no two
people’s eyes were equal, nor their limbs or their lives. Moreover, they argued against the simple veracity of a witness’ observation; what happens when witnesses differ, or the perpetrator did not understand the import of his act, or had changed his mind as he or she was about to harm another?
Hence, the rabbis dissolved vengeance and retribution as legal behavior, and inscribed into law the values of equality and fairness, and sought to craft a just society.
Today, we have the same challenge. Do we want to live in a world of absolute punishments, or in one of measured mercy? Should we live in fear of retribution, or in hope of decency?
These are the values Torah urges us to consider!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
“An eye for an eye…” (Exodus 21:12)
Few Torah commandments have stirred such controversy, or been adhered to adamantly or rejected equally forcefully as this charge to fulfill lex talionis – the law of retribution, found in this week’s Torah portion, and also found in each one of the Five Books of Moses.
How many mothers have admonished their children, “Just because Joey down the street hit you, you shouldn’t hit him back!”
Whereas how many fathers have charged their children, “If he hits you, you hit him back harder!”
The first example has been exalted as a core of our neighboring Christian ethic, to turn the other cheek, while the latter example surely describes the position of America’s military and defense policy, especially in Iraq and Syria, of late.
Yet, neither reflect the normative Jewish position as it evolved from the Talmudic, rabbinic period to today. Previously, in the biblical epoch, it was more likely that this command may have been followed literally. Torah describes the establishment of both designated avengers who would chase and down and ring corporal or capital punishment upon a perpetrator. As well, Torah indicates towns to which a
manslayer could flee the avenger and either await trial or legal release from culpability for an unintentional killing. But, those are biblical, Torah practices.
Once the Torah was redacted and edited, and its implementation was consigned to human hands – those of the rabbinic sages in the first millennium, CE – those rabbis indicated that they would no longer perform this law as written. Instead, they argued that the law did not mean to physically punish every offender, but that it meant that a fair monetary value must be exacted from the perpetrator, as no two
people’s eyes were equal, nor their limbs or their lives. Moreover, they argued against the simple veracity of a witness’ observation; what happens when witnesses differ, or the perpetrator did not understand the import of his act, or had changed his mind as he or she was about to harm another?
Hence, the rabbis dissolved vengeance and retribution as legal behavior, and inscribed into law the values of equality and fairness, and sought to craft a just society.
Today, we have the same challenge. Do we want to live in a world of absolute punishments, or in one of measured mercy? Should we live in fear of retribution, or in hope of decency?
These are the values Torah urges us to consider!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
