On Complex Thinking and the Conflation of Levels of Discussion: The Case of the Soldier Who Fired (Column 1)
With God’s help
On Complexity and Distinguishing Between Levels of Discussion
Over the past few weeks, the public debate over the case of the soldier who fired in Hebron has not let up. It has become almost a measure of tribal loyalty—Are you for us or for our adversaries? (are you with us or with our enemies). On this matter, as on many others, I find myself both with us and with our enemies. Beyond presenting a position regarding this particular case, it is important to me to criticize the way the public discussion about it has been conducted, because this is a typical failure of oversimplification. That is what I will do in the second part of this column.
In the incident under discussion, a terrorist came to stab soldiers, was neutralized, and lay on the ground. At that point a soldier came and, as has been alleged, shot him dead even though no danger to his life remained. The soldier and his defenders claim that he believed there was danger and therefore fired, but the factual question is not really important for our purposes. It is worth noting that statements on both sides were issued immediately, before the investigation had even begun. Everyone expressed firm views for or against. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon also rushed to declare that this was contrary to the values of the IDF, implicitly meaning that this was cold-blooded murder. The Left, of course, followed suit. By contrast, the Right supported the soldier’s actions, or at least asked to wait until the facts were clarified. Unsurprisingly, the distribution of opinions reflected political positions fairly well: the Right (apart from the responsible adults, the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister) supported the soldier’s actions almost instinctively, to one degree or another, while the Left, with the same level of instinctiveness, condemned him. Each side, of course, explained why the other side was fascist, racist, and murderous, or alternatively anti-Israel and treasonous. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers… (how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together…).
Almost whenever I encounter such a heated argument, I find myself in one of two situations: either I disagree with both sides, or I agree with both of them (because then there is no dispute). In this case too, my sense is that an overwhelming majority of the public, and also most of those arguing, would agree that this was procedurally wrong on the one hand, and on the other hand not morally objectionable. If so, there is no real dispute here. In fact, both sides are right, but both sides are mistaken in thinking that there is a real dispute.
On the one hand, it is hard to dispute the claim that an ordinary soldier should not decide army policy. Various complex considerations underlie the question whether neutralized terrorists should be eliminated. Those considerations require quite a bit of information, and above all an assessment of it (what will the effect be on the Palestinians, on the world, on the army and civilians, and so forth). Of course, there is also policy here, and a normative decision about how far to respond to, or yield to, positions expressed abroad or among the Palestinians. Therefore, it seems to me that few of us would disagree that this decision should be made by the government and/or the General Staff, and not by a simple soldier in the field. One may argue about what the correct decision ought to be, and there is no guarantee that these authorized bodies will indeed make the correct decision (in my view, it is almost certain that they will not), but sound and sensible administration still requires that such decisions be made in an orderly fashion by the authorized bodies. A soldier cannot take the matter into his own hands, whatever my view may be about what the right decision should be in such a situation. Moreover, there is also a slippery-slope argument here. Permission for a private individual to kill is dangerous, because people or soldiers may exploit it in order to eliminate human beings who have done no wrong. We do not want to live in a place where people are allowed to kill, even in justified circumstances. As I said, it seems to me that up to this point there is fairly broad public agreement, on the Right and on the Left alike.
On the other hand, it seems to me that there is equally broad agreement that if we are dealing with a terrorist who came to stab soldiers or civilians, and it is clear that from the soldier’s side this was not the settling of scores or just plain murder, then even if he has been neutralized there is no real moral problem in killing him. Two main reasons can be suggested for this. First, the neutralized terrorist poses a future danger (and those released in exchange deals and other releases prove the point). Second, his very motivation to attack renders his life forfeit (why keep him alive at the taxpayer’s expense?). Let every terrorist who sets out to attack know that he will not emerge alive, and once he has done so he has no one to complain against but himself. Therefore, for my own part, I do not see even the slightest moral problem in eliminating such a person. The world will only become better and safer. An indication of this is that, in my estimation, most of the public sees no moral problem in a death sentence imposed by a court on terrorists. The dispute surrounding that concerns mainly the practical plane (how effective and beneficial it is, and the question of the possibility of error).
The conclusion is that, in the view of most of the public, if the soldier did indeed fire when his life was not in danger, then he took the law into his own hands. He did not commit murder, but he acted wrongly from a procedural standpoint, and some will argue that his actions harmed us (in terms of image and otherwise), perhaps even seriously. One may add the concerns about slippery slopes. At the same time, it seems to me that there is equally broad agreement that such an act (at least if it were done under authorized orders) poses no moral problem in itself. If this was indeed a terrorist, and not a case of settling scores, then this soldier only did us all a favor.
So in fact most of the public (apart from fairly narrow fringes) agrees both that this was a procedurally wrong and harmful act, and equally that it was an act that involves no moral problem. So what is the dispute about? Why do both sides treat one another as though there were some polar disagreement here? Because we are not inclined to hold complex positions. It is hard for us to say that the act was wrong, and perhaps even grave, procedurally, socially, and politically, and at the same time that it involves no moral problem. Each side feels compelled to present a picture that is entirely black or entirely white, since that seems more convincing and more forceful. And if that advances its political agenda, so much the better. The mixing of levels of discussion (the procedural and the moral) is sometimes done innocently and sometimes deliberately (in order to portray the other side as racist and murderous, or as treasonous).
As a marginal note, I would add that from the standpoint of Jewish law, although it is indeed permissible to kill a pursuer, and the Rabbi of Brisk even proved that his blood is forfeit (that is, killing him does not constitute murder), Jewish law nevertheless forbids killing a person who is not threatening our lives. Even a pursuer may be killed only if it is impossible to to save him by means of one of his limbs (save the pursued person by inflicting a non-lethal injury on the pursuer). I personally do not identify morality with Jewish law, and therefore I am not sure that I see here a position in Jewish law with moral significance. But at least from the standpoint of Jewish law, the consideration of future danger has a place in permitting the killing of such a terrorist, whereas the consideration that his blood is forfeit does not.
To be sure, if the authorized authorities were to sentence such a person to death for justified considerations (such as deterrence), there would be no problem in terms of Jewish law whatsoever (although it is certainly possible that this would be a mistaken decision from a political and security standpoint). A king may execute a person outside the strict letter of the law. Nor would there be a procedural problem here, since the king is authorized to do so, and as for a moral problem, I have argued that there is none even if an ordinary soldier does it.
A Critique of the Discourse: Spurious Correlations
But my main purpose here is not to present my own position, but rather to criticize our public discourse. This case is a clear example of a phenomenon I have elsewhere called "spurious correlations." When there are two binary questions (A and B) (where the answer to each is yes or no) that are independent (that is, a position on question A does not determine a position on question B), we would expect four groups to arise in the public, holding four different views: (yes, yes), (yes, no), (no, yes), and (no, no). But in most cases you will not find the complex groups [(yes, no) and (no, yes)], only the "simplistic" ones. This does not mean that a position like (no, no) or (yes, yes) is unreasonable, and even the term "simplistic" (in quotation marks), which I have used here, is not meant judgmentally. There is nothing to prevent one from saying that there is both a moral problem and a procedural problem, or that there is neither of the two problems. That is a perfectly acceptable position, and it is not simplistic either. What is important to understand is that the other two groups are also acceptable, at least to the same degree. The oversimplification does not lie in holding the same answer with respect to the two questions, but in thinking that one must give the same answer to both questions.
That is the situation in our case. Even if we accept the claim that the procedural question can be answered yes or no, and likewise the moral question, my claim is that these questions are (almost) independent. And yet, for some reason, in public discourse we usually encounter the two "simplistic" groups, and less often the complex ones. Hence there is a spurious correlation here, because a connection is created between two independent questions, despite the fact that there is no real connection between them. The reason for this is oversimplification (and this time without quotation marks), that is, the perception that one must adopt an identical position with respect to both questions. And this characterizes all the participants in the discussion. No one is willing to accept or present a complex position, and therefore, beyond the specific position we happen to hold, almost all of us suffer from oversimplification. I suspect that the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister actually intended to hold a complex position as I described above, namely to reject the act procedurally but not morally (which "values of the IDF" were violated here: obedience to orders and hierarchy, or moral values?), but they do not allow themselves to say something this complex, lest they become prey to the simplistic groups on both sides, and that is a shame. The discourse is only harmed by this oversimplification.
In this article I have presented the position (yes, no), which, to my impression, almost never appears in public discourse. It is of course not certain that this is the correct position, but if the discourse were less simplistic, it would at least be on the table as one of the options. In such a situation, I estimate that many of us would discover that we are grappling with one another unnecessarily, and perhaps the flames would die down somewhat.
A Few Conclusions:
- In my estimation, at least among a very large majority of the public, there is no dispute here at all.
- If one takes the sweeping formulations of the two positions seriously, then in my view both sides are mistaken.
- If there had been a standing order in the IDF to eliminate such terrorists even if they had been neutralized, there would have been no problem with that (again, the only question is whether it is useful). Procedurally, the decision would have been made by authorized institutions, and morally there is no problem with it to begin with. Such an order would also not run contrary to Jewish law.
-
And most importantly, even one who seeks to make both claims, on the moral plane and on the procedural-practical plane, would do well to separate them and articulate his arguments on each plane independently. That will only help dispel the fog and sharpen the positions. Oversimplification in the discussion obscures it, and helps no one.
Remarkably, just as I finished writing this column, Ben-Dror Yemini’s article reached me by email. This is a complex position very similar to the one I presented.
Discussion
Ben-Dror Yemini is for the weak. This article is more suited to the Rabbi.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
Hello Hillel.
Very nice. I agree with most of what he says, but it seems to me that he did not address the danger expected from this terrorist even after he was neutralized. After all, his entire being is devoted to killing Israelis and Jews. Therefore, as long as he is alive he poses an expected danger, and therefore it is morally permissible to kill him.
He claims that the justification for killing is only because the terrorist himself does not act according to those rules. But here there is room for the claim that one’s treatment of him need not be derived from his own conduct. By contrast, my argument is that if he is still dangerous, then there is justification for killing him regardless of his own conduct. Even if he were a Western soldier who acts according to our morality.
But the distinction itself between the moral and the procedural is of course entirely acceptable to me.
Thank you for the reference.
Eliyahu Feldman:
I do not understand how the Rabbi states as a simple matter that today’s leadership has the legal status of a king with respect to the authority to kill. Where did all the discussions about the differences between the monarchical regime of the Bible and the democratic regime of our day disappear to?
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
I did not understand the question. Throughout the world it is accepted that sovereignty reserves to itself the right to kill and impose death. There are of course countries that do not make use of this (with respect to their own citizens, though in war toward the outside they do). Why should Jewish sovereignty (= Jewish government) be different in this regard?
There are several articles in Techumin (I remember one by Rabbi Sheviv) dealing with the laws of war in halakha, and his conclusion (as far as I recall) is that the laws of war depend on international law and on the agreement of the nations and the norms accepted among them. Every reasonable person understands that a state government can decide on the killing of one who threatens the state or its citizens. The same applies to a Jewish or Israeli government, democratic or otherwise. It really makes no difference.
Yondav:
I find it hard to understand the immediate leap to the idea that the problem is only taking the law into one’s own hands.
Taking the law into one’s own hands in a case involving human life is itself a moral problem. My view (at least, even though I am right-wing) is that one takes a person’s life only when an immediate decision has to be made (that is, immediate danger) or after prolonged deliberation (a court, etc.). The very act of taking a human life without deep consideration is the severe moral problem.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
First, I wrote that one of the reasons is that this terrorist continues to threaten even after he has been neutralized. Second, I do not agree that his life necessarily has intrinsic value. If in principle he deserves death and the state does not do it, I see no moral problem in my doing it. This is mainly a procedural problem. I mentioned that the Brisker Rav distinguishes between two laws regarding a pursuer: that his life has lost value (= one who kills him is not liable for him), and that he must be killed in order to save the pursued (and apparently there is also a third דין, that he is liable to death as punishment). The first law is what I am speaking about here. My claim is that a person who devotes his life to murdering Jews and Israelis (and indeed to murder in general) has lost the value of his life. He is no longer in the category of a human being and his life has no value. Incidentally, this is only morally speaking, but halakhically I know of no proof for this (the Brisker Rav speaks only of a pursuer during the pursuit).
Of course, the very existence of the death penalty contradicts your view, since in such a punishment a person is put to death as punishment and not in order to thwart a threat. So apparently the point of dispute between us lies here.
——————————————————————————————
Yondav:
First—treating a neutralized terrorist as a future risk does not seem relevant to me. Even if they release him in the future, whoever chooses to release him is creating a new risk here, and it is not an old risk returning. Once the terrorist is truly neutralized—the danger has passed, and apparently the shooting soldier himself also thought the terrorist had been neutralized (and in any case, my view is based on the assumption that he indeed thought so).
Second—the death penalty does not contradict my view at all, because as I wrote there are two possibilities for deciding to kill a person—either in the case of an immediate threat or after in-depth deliberation. When there is some immediate threat, we forgo in-depth deliberation because we have no choice; but in every situation where deliberation can be held, there is a moral obligation to conduct an in-depth discussion and devote time and thought to the process of taking a human life. There is halakhic evidence for this (the time, the many warnings, “the more one increases examination, the more praiseworthy it is,” and in general that is the message emerging from the complex procedure), but in any case the discussion is on the moral level. The very idea of taking a human life on a moment’s decision is, in my view, immoral (and that is even before the practical problem, namely that in many cases it will turn out retroactively that there were sufficient mitigating arguments, even when מדובר במחבל). Incidentally, here too one can enter the discussion of toward whom the command is directed—is it justice due to the one being killed, or concern for the cheapening of human life מצד those who carry out the execution.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
I do not agree with either point.
1. The terrorist, by his very essence, is a threat, and releasing him is merely removing an obstacle. He is a walking danger, and therefore morally his blood is ownerless. It is like a lion in a cage. The lion, by its very essence, is a danger, and taking it out of the cage is the crime of removing an obstacle.
2. Deliberation is not relevant here. The question I discussed was whether there is murder here. Assume for the sake of the discussion that the soldier exercised profound deliberation. In particular, the soldier knows that the deliberation of the institutions will not result in the terrorist being killed. Therefore it is incorrect to say that there was an option here for more in-depth deliberation.
The same applies to the question of what may turn out in retrospect. I believe I wrote that this is indeed a problem, but I am dealing only with the morality of the act itself. Assuming the soldier saw with his own eyes that this was a terrorist, there is no need to fear the possibility of error.
The same goes for the concern about the cheapening of human life. That is again a side issue that does not touch on purity of arms as such or the prohibition of murder that I was discussing. It is like the Vilna Gaon, who said there is “judgment and accounting”: for example, when one eats pork there is judgment for the transgression and accounting for the neglect of Torah study. I am dealing here only with the transgression, not with the neglect of Torah study.
——————————————————————————————
Yondav:
1. On the first point, one can argue in light of reality. Do one hundred percent of terrorists who come out of prison return to being terrorists? No, even if far too high a percentage do. A lion always remains a lion (perhaps one can tame it or injure it in a way that changes it essentially), but a terrorist is not born a terrorist; he decides to be one, and the process of neutralization-imprisonment-release may remove him from that category, as evidenced by the dozens of percent of released terrorists who do not return to terror (the terrorist who does return to terror makes a renewed active choice).
2. I wonder whether the point of disagreement between us is where one draws the line between murder and killing—in the assailant or in the victim. As I understand from you, the victim is what defines it; that is, if he has lost the value of life, then one cannot murder him but only kill him (to take an extreme example—if tomorrow I go to prison and slaughter every security prisoner, that would not be murder but killing), whereas I see the distinction in the assailant—if this is a calculated process (distorted though it may be), it is not murder but execution (and here the problem of authority comes in), and if it is a momentary decision (in a case where there is no immediate danger), that is (or may be) murder.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
1. It does not need to be one hundred percent. One who devotes his life and is willing to give it up for the killing of Jews is presumed to be a predatory beast or a walking murderer. There is absolutely no need to worry that he may repent until it is proven that he has done so. I think that if you do the statistics, check how many of those imprisoned actually repented, and whether imprisonment indeed helps that. I think you will discover a negligible percentage and the irrelevance of imprisonment.
2. As I understand it, if the victim’s life has no value, then there is no moral problem of murder here. I am not speaking about every security prisoner, but about proven terrorists. And indeed, one who kills all of them in prison is not a murderer in my eyes.
Oren:
Regarding the halakhic problem you mentioned in the article, it is worth noting that there is a dispute regarding the obligation to save the pursuer by injuring one of his limbs when the pursuer is a gentile, detailed in the link:
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%97%D7%91%D7%9C_%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%AA%D7%95_%D7%99%D7%96_%D7%9E%D7%97
But in any case, I think the terrorist is not defined as a pursuer after he has already been neutralized. Therefore the soldier here certainly violated a Torah prohibition of killing. Only the government can kill the terrorist from a halakhic standpoint. Correct me if I am wrong.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
Indeed, an interesting discussion. In my opinion it is based on several basic mistakes.
1. They connect the gentiles of whom Hazal spoke to gentiles in our day, and that is not so. See my article on “enlightened” idolatry: https://mikyab.net/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%94%d7%90%d7%9d-%d7%99%d7%a9-%d7%a2%d7%91%d7%95%d7%93%d7%94-%d7%96%d7%a8%d7%94-%d7%a0%d7%90%d7%95%d7%A8%d7%94-%d7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%97%D7%A1-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%95%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%95/
2. They connect the prohibition on killing to “You shall not murder,” and that too is not so. There is a prohibition from the civil laws, and that is the basis of the rule “What makes you think [your blood is redder?].” Rabbi Israeli, in his article on the Kibya operation, notes that even saving Jewish lives at the cost of damage to gentile property is forbidden. See my article in Tzohar 14 on the relationship between the collective and the individual:https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%99%D7%91%D7%98%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%98-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%9C%D7%9C-%D7%95%D7%93/
3. The issue of injuring one of his limbs is grounded in reasoning, and in my opinion simple reasoning says there is no difference between a Jew and a gentile.
4. The decision as to what counts as war is also entrusted to the state, and in fact it is determined according to international law (see Rabbi Sheviv’s articles in Techumin and elsewhere). International law does not regard the actions currently being carried out as war.
5. Although in my aforementioned article in Tzohar I explained that the question of whether this is war or not is not important practically speaking.
Regarding killing the terrorist after he was neutralized, I wrote that this involves a halakhic prohibition. And still there is no moral problem here, and I would be very happy if the state were to establish a rule permitting this (though that is probably not legally possible, including from the standpoint of international law).
Dor:
How classic…http://www.kikar.co.il/209258.html
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
Quite predictable. There is no influence there from the media and the general education system and the values transmitted through them, and some expounded this disparagingly and some praiseworthily. And I expound it in both ways.
Hello and have a good week!
I am a yeshiva student. A few days ago I discussed the “shooting soldier” episode with another young man. That fellow told me he had happened to read an article you wrote on the matter.
Attached here is what I discussed with that fellow (I would of course be happy if you have comments on what I wrote):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJAdMjYRm7ITEE1amxzdGlfakU
I just wanted to remark on a fundamental mistake in your article. There is no moral or halakhic justification whatsoever for killing an enemy civilian, since he is not threatening me. Killing in war is not punishment and is not based on guilt. It is a necessity done for the sake of rescue.
Killing the civilian is not necessary for my rescue and is therefore forbidden. It has nothing to do with the Geneva Convention. Of course, if the civilian threatens me, then it is permitted, and as I wrote in another article, even if killing one who threatens me will result in harm to an enemy civilian, there is no problem because the civilian is part of the collective that is pursuing me. But even in the law of a pursuer there is no permission to kill if one can save him by injuring one of his limbs. Therefore, when there is a collective pursuer (a people against whom I am fighting), I may strike soldiers who threaten me, but not “limbs” that do not threaten me.
But the law concerning a terrorist is of course different, since he is in the category of a soldier (he is the one threatening me). Therefore morally and tactically he should be killed even if he has been neutralized (except that this is a decision the army should make, not the soldier in the field. But that is a disciplinary problem, not a moral one. See my article).
Thank you for the comment. But is killing permitted only for the sake of self-defense? My understanding was that in a natural war civilians have no privileged status over soldiers.
The halakhic rules of saving life and capital law (the law of a pursuer, etc.) were, it seems to me, stated by the decisors as applying not in wartime. In war these laws disappear and do not apply. The simple explanation for this, in my opinion, is that in ordinary war (without agreements and the like) there is really no reason not to kill the other people—who are in the wrong. That is what war means. [After all, it is also permitted to go to war not only when I actually sense danger, as is explicit, it seems to me, in the Gemara; I think the permission for that is that the national interest overrides the individuals.]
First, I do not think that in war halakha is suspended, as people tend to think; only where the thing is required for the sake of victory. The world is not ownerless even in war.
But even if that is so in war, nowadays we do not have the halakhic laws of war. Our war is nothing but the law of a pursuer where the pursuer is a collective (and in my view every “war to aid Israel from the hand of an oppressor” is entirely such, not only nowadays. It is not like the other obligatory wars, even though Rambam grouped them together). And in particular, it has already been pointed out that the laws of war in halakha are themselves based on the practice of the world and therefore on international law (I believe in an article by Rabbi Yehuda Sheviv in Techumin, among others). See about this in my article in Tzohar 14
Regarding this dilemma, I have recently been uncertain about a medic who is at a scene where there is a wounded terrorist—would it be proper to give life-saving medical treatment to such a person? Or would it be proper not to provide it?
If one ignores the orders and the side effects, I would leave him to die (and perhaps even help him along).
Hello
I do not understand the Rabbi’s approach. It has an icy coldness and an extreme rationality that do not accord with life itself. Human life is not logical (if only it were), and the demand that it be so, or at least the rational approach to it, is devoid of compassion. To leave a person to die—this is a heartless approach. The cold calculation that this person came to kill me, and therefore now that he is wounded I have no obligation to help him and may even help him die, is not at all clear to me. Is this what halakha claims? I understand nothing about halakha. I am completely secular and act מתוך inner reflection on my suffering and the suffering of the other. I was a combat soldier in the army, and fortunately I did not kill anyone, even though that was my aspiration at the time. Today I understand how washed in hatred and pain I was.
Suppose the government and the IDF were to permit the killing of wounded and neutralized terrorists, and IDF soldiers would be required to kill them—does the Rabbi think it is really so simple to kill a human being and that there is no psychological price? I understood from reading here that psychology is not dear to you, but one cannot ignore the consequences for the human soul that follow from killing another person, no matter what label is given him: terrorist, enemy, or any other name. Before all else, there is a human being here, flesh and blood.
And let me return for a moment to the case of the shooting soldier—it is clear that he shot him out of personal revenge. There was no danger, because the commander on the scene checked the wounded terrorist and only then was access to the area permitted (that is according to the Ovda investigation), and as a former combat soldier I know that this is indeed how one acts in such an incident. That is to say, the soldier knew that the terrorist had been neutralized and was not dangerous, and if he had thought he was dangerous he would not have taken off his helmet (it is very basic that when there is suspicion of an explosive, one goes around with a helmet on) and then shot. Besides, when he was asked immediately after the shooting why he shot, he answered that he deserved to die—twice. So this claim, “it is clear that from the soldier’s side there is no settling of accounts or just plain murder here,” is simply not true. That is, he planned the killing, at least over the course of several minutes during which one sees him walking around the place in thought—which is called murder, not killing. Not self-defense, not fear, but clear deliberation.
“Every terrorist who goes out to attack should know that he will not come out of it alive, and having done so he has no one to blame but himself”—I assume Hamas saw Gilad Shalit as a terrorist. Would his murder by them also be accepted by the Rabbi as proper?
Who decides who is a terrorist and who is not? One side sees American soldiers in Iraq as terrorists and the other as saviors. Who is right? And how can there be justice here if, in this case, that of the American invasion of Iraq, the reasoning was deceitful (non-conventional weapons that Saddam did not have) and probably economic (oil).
Your analytical ability is very impressive, especially in light of your broad and extraordinary knowledge, but reality, if there is such a thing, is not subject to cold calculations alone, especially when we do not know all the reasons that led people to carry out one action or another. The actions of Lehi and Etzel were terrorism and were part of the establishment of the State of Israel. Can such actions be justified?
And in addition, as far as my memory serves me, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy Sodom along with its inhabitants, and God agreed, even if only one righteous person were found in the city. Let us suppose for a moment that the terrorist had not died, had entered prison, and there discovered on his own that sabotage and murder were no longer appealing to him, and he became righteous. Is it not worthwhile to judge him favorably? Such cases have happened in history, and there are people who believed in wars and underwent a profound change. A person is a person before any other title given him by others. I am an example of that.
In any case, I very much enjoy reading here, and your erudition is very impressive. It is also refreshing to read a religious person who examines, investigates, and questions every matter, no matter by whom it was said/established and when. More power to you.
Hello Indie.
I am glad that my words are interesting and useful to you.
As for your comments here, you are taking me back to very old matters.
Indeed, I believe in rationality and think that a rational approach would solve quite a few of the problems we are dealing with. Nor do I accept the idea that irrationality is a decree of fate and there is nothing to be done about it. Indeed, there are irrational dimensions in our lives, and the advisable counsel is to try to overcome them and not accept them as a decree of fate.
I do not see the suffering of the other as an exclusive consideration. Indeed, it is important to prevent suffering, but there are other considerations that can override that one. In my view, a person who sets himself the goal of harming people (certainly if those are people from my group) is someone we are better off seeing die as quickly as possible. His suffering interests me no more than the peel of a garlic clove. The fact that you see suffering as an exclusive consideration in itself points, in my opinion, to an irrational dimension in your approach, and it is toward that that my remarks above were directed. I have written here more than once about the way our public discourse gets dragged into feeling and emotion, both on the right and on the left (though in my opinion more on the left), and to my mind this is a terrible affliction.
If the matter has a psychological price, that is a psychological question and not a moral one. So take a pill, or let others do it. Operating on a person in order to save him also carries a psychological price (digging around in his blood, and sometimes he dies under my hands or my scalpel). So should we not operate? In any case, I am speaking on the principled-moral plane, irrespective of technical problems such as psychological or other costs. If you say that you would not be able to kill him because of the psychological price, I have no argument with you. So long as you are not making a moral claim about the prohibition on killing him.
If Hamas sees Gilad Shalit as a terrorist, then killing him would certainly be understandable to me (from their perspective). I think they are mistaken, of course. The one who determines whether someone is a terrorist is me (= the person deliberating whether to shoot). That is the essence of the law of a pursuer, within which the decision is made by the person on the scene. But here I argue that the state should assign such a terrorist the status of a pursuer, not the soldier himself, so it is not really the law of a pursuer.
In human courts we do not deal with the question whether perhaps the person will repent; rather, we punish him according to what he deserves. All the more so since the chance of that is slim, and the expected damage from not killing him is ten times greater.
With respect to Abraham and the Holy One, blessed be He, in Sodom, perhaps Abraham expected God to bring them to repentance instead of killing them. We human beings cannot bring others to repentance. There are quite a few offenders who, according to halakha, deserve the death penalty, and no one has brought Abraham as an objection to that.
Oren:
1. You wrote that “it is clear that from the soldier’s side there is no settling of accounts here.” Why is that clear? Actually, my intuition is that it is more likely that this stemmed from an impulse of revenge. 2. You wrote that because of considerations of deterrence and the release of terrorists, his blood is permitted, but it seems to me that these considerations are not what stands before the soldier’s eyes at the time of the incident, but rather the heat of the urge for revenge. 3. Regarding the comparison to an execution by a court, the difference is that in court the decision is made with deliberation, not in a split second, and clearly in the heat of the event one cannot exercise serious judgment, and therefore the very decision to impose a death sentence off the cuff has, in my opinion, a moral flaw.
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
1. I didn’t write that it is clear, only that if it is clear then there is nothing wrong with what he did. That is a principled statement, not a claim about this specific act. On the substance of the matter, my intuition is also similar to yours. 2. Again: I am speaking about the principled permissibility of terrorists’ blood, not about the motives of this particular soldier. What I wrote is a reason why their blood is permitted. A person whose entire being is the murder of Jews, who devotes his life to that and is even willing to sacrifice it for that, and who is clearly in the category of a walking danger regardless of where he is, there is not the slightest moral problem in killing him. I am very puzzled by anyone who thinks otherwise. 3. The court was brought in only to sharpen the principled point. If the court is allowed to kill him, that means there is no moral flaw in killing him. From that point on, everything is technique (which can be important). If the soldier mistakenly killed someone who was not liable to death, that is very grave. If he acted rashly, that too. But my claim is that the killing itself, in and of itself, is not problematic. It is not murder. Incidentally, once we are talking about a terrorist, it does not seem to me that one needs all that much serious deliberation. Such a person’s sentence is death (in principle). A general remark: if it is indeed justified to kill the terrorist after he was neutralized, the argument that the soldier’s motives were improper is irrelevant, for two reasons: a. because motives of revenge are definitely relevant. b. because motives do not matter. It is similar to a court sentencing a person to death, and the executioner killing him because he hates him. Is the executioner’s act improper? In my opinion, no. Perhaps his motives are improper, but not his action. It is a flaw in personality, not an offense in the act. By way of analogy, this is like what several later authorities wrote (the Netziv and Rav Kook), that a transgression for the sake of Heaven is permitted only where the sinner’s intention is for a mitzvah. I disagree with them completely. The question is whether the act is justified, not what his intention is. If the act is justified in the circumstances, then even if he did it for some other reason, the act is right and permitted and desirable to do. Think of Jael wife of Heber the Kenite, who had relations with Sisera and then killed him (this case is brought in the sugya of a transgression for the sake of Heaven in Nazir). Now suppose Jael killed him because she hated him. Should that have meant she had to refrain from having relations with him? After all, those relations were necessary in order for her to be able to kill him, and killing him was necessary for the sake of the people of Israel. It is absurd to argue that because her intentions were not pure, she was forbidden to do something vital for the survival of the people of Israel, isn’t it? So too regarding our soldier. Even if his motives were indeed of that kind (I suspect that they were), and even if such motives are improper (about that I am not sure), still, if the act itself is fitting and right, then it should be done, and there is no way to judge a person for having done it (except for the aspect of obeying orders and what I called in the post the procedural problem).
——————————————————————————————
Oren:
1. Regarding intentions and motives, there is the famous dispute between Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai and Rabbi Shimon about the Romans, and Rabbi Shimon relates to the Romans’ motives and not their actions (that is, I understand from this that you agree with Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion in that dispute?). In any case, even if you follow Rabbi Yehuda, we still see that motives and intentions do play a significant role in judging the severity of actions in Judaism (for example, one acting under duress is treated more leniently than an unintentional sinner, who is treated more leniently than an intentional sinner; a transgression for the sake of Heaven versus a mitzvah done not for its own sake; and so on). Also, if I remember correctly, Kant attributes only a moral dimension to intentions, and sees the actual deeds as value-indifferent. 2. Regarding the executioner who acts out of revenge: after all, the main motive for the executioner’s actions is obedience to the sentence out of recognition of the court’s authority, and the revenge is only incidental. It is obvious that if the court had not ruled to execute, the executioner would not kill him even if he hated the defendant or felt a desire for revenge against him. The same could be said about Jael: that her primary intention was for the sake of a mitzvah (even if there were additional intentions not for the sake of a mitzvah, they were not primary). One need not demand that a person’s intentions be pure in order to commit a transgression for the sake of Heaven; one need only require that he have, among other things, some intention for the sake of a mitzvah. If he has absolutely no intention toward a mitzvah, then in my view there is an improper act here (even if its results are good). 3. You wrote that there is no way to judge a person for doing a proper act even if his intentions were improper. Did you mean that only because we have no way of knowing what his intentions were? Or did you mean that even in the hypothetical case where we do know his intentions, we still should not judge him?
——————————————————————————————
The Rabbi:
1. It has already been pointed out that this dispute follows their respective approaches regarding the law of unintended action and labor not needed for its own sake in the labors of Shabbat. But all that is not relevant to us here, because a transgression for the sake of Heaven is a consequential matter. Jael lay with Sisera because he had to be killed. Therefore intentions are irrelevant. What I argued is that it is absurd to say that she was forbidden to do so if her intentions were not pure. But that does not mean she is righteous in the sense of personality. We judge the soldier by his act, not by his intentions. If anything, the opposite is true: if he were to commit a criminal act with non-criminal intentions, then he would bear no criminal guilt. But there is no room for accusing someone of wrongdoing for a correct act done with criminal intent. Thus in the prohibition of murder as well, even Rabbi Shimon does not exempt one who acts without intent (in the halakhic sense: he performs the action for another purpose but knows that murder is inevitably involved). Especially since in a psik reisha one is liable even when the act is unintended. Would you convict in court, or even see a moral problem in, a person who gives charity in order to publicize himself? In terms of personality he is not a perfectly righteous person, but to see that as an offense, even a moral one, is absurd. 2. Regarding the executioner, even if he acted from motives of revenge, that means nothing. So long as the thing is justified and grounded in a legal decision, it is perfectly fine. Again: not a righteous person in terms of personality, but he did not commit a moral offense. You are not distinguishing between the claim that a person is not righteous in terms of personality and the claim that his act is improper and he is a wrongdoer (even a moral wrongdoer). 3. No. I mean that one judges acts, not intentions. A person who wants to murder but does not carry it out is not judged (I am not speaking about an attempted murder that failed, but about mere intention. A failed attempt does involve action, and one is judged for that. In my view it is exactly as severe as actual murder. He is simply both a murderer and a bungler). So too, a person who commits a justified killing with impure intentions is not judged, even if Elijah himself were to come and inform us that those were indeed his intentions.