**Honor Killing: A Look at Links Between Religion and Culture (Column 712)**

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

Honor killing is usually carried out as a response to an affront to family honor and authority: sexually permissive behavior, clothing deemed improper by society and the family, or simple disobedience to familial authority. This phenomenon lies at the seam between religion and culture, and it is worth examining it through that prism.

Background

In 2017 it was reported that an honor killing occurred in Ramla. An Arab Christian girl was in a relationship with a Muslim young man, and her (Christian) family murdered her for that reason. Since this was a Christian and not a Muslim family, it prompted me to reflect on the relationship between religion and culture.

Following that article, I tried to find data on the scope of the phenomenon among Arab Christians versus Arab Muslims, in Israel or in general, and found none. On Wikipedia and in the data summary on the Knesset Research and Information Center site I found a complete disregard for this question, and I wonder whether that is accidental. Be that as it may, it seems quite clear that this phenomenon characterizes primarily (even if not exclusively) Arabs. The case above involved Christians, so apparently it is not only Muslims. It is known that the phenomenon exists among Druze as well. An interesting reference I found on Wikipedia there (note 27) is to an article by a Norwegian anthropologist named Unni Wikan, who claims that cases of honor killing were also reported in the Jewish community in Yemen. In other words, it cuts across religions and appears to belong more to culture than to religion and religious law.

Needless to say, the death penalty for an adulterer and adulteress in halakhah also falls under this heading, for there too people are killed on the basis of sexual permissiveness. Although today this halakhic penalty is not applied in practice (like all capital punishments), it is hard to say that we Jews are free of such conceptions and behaviors. I assume that most religious Jews will tell you that when the Messiah comes and capital punishments return (speedily in our days, amen), this penalty will return among them. In other words, the current state is merely incidental.

Among Arabs the present state is closer to the utopian one (the Sanhedrin has not been abolished there, and therefore they can fulfill all the duties of their religion without formal constraints). Indeed, in several Arab countries (Jordan, for example) there are reduced penalties or even complete exemption for a murderer in such cases. Incidentally, the claim is that in Israel, too, there are such leniencies, even if not in the formal law. The police are willing to hand over the handling of such cases (as with blood vengeance, an offense with a similar root) to the elders of the local society and/or to reach compromises and agreements, instead of enforcing the law and punishing the killers and those who commissioned the killing. This is, of course, inconceivable for any other offense, and certainly not for murder. Perhaps bigamy is a similar case, and note that there too it is an ideological offense arising from different cultural conventions. Incidentally, offenses among Haredim as well (and not only draft evasion—also incitement, intervention by rabbinic officeholders in politics, unequal and discriminatory criteria, lack of basic education, nepotism in appointments, minimal standards of proper governance in the education system and beyond, the status of women, and the like) sometimes receive lenient treatment on the assumption that this is an internal cultural matter of that particular “tribe.”

Defining the Phenomenon

You will surely wonder how to relate to the murder of female partners by Jews. There are quite a few such cases among us as well. For the purposes of our discussion, it is important to distinguish this phenomenon. That Norwegian anthropologist noted that honor killing is not defined as a crime of passion perpetrated by a spouse. On the contrary, it is an ideological killing in cold blood out of a sense of duty, commissioned by the family (and not necessarily the spouse). The killer, sometimes a family member and sometimes an outsider, does so for ideological reasons, and sometimes he himself truly does not wish to do it (in the spirit of “do not say: ‘I do not wish…’”). Incidentally, even where there is punishment for such a killing, in some places it is sometimes imposed on another family member and not necessarily on the killer, for the family is deemed culpable.

Therefore, the vast majority of cases of the murder of female partners among Jews that you have heard about do not fall into this category. Those are committed out of anger and jealousy and without premeditation; they are not carried out on an ideological—certainly not social—basis. That is, there is no social backing or legitimization for this phenomenon, which certainly does exist in Arab society. Needless to say, “hot blood” is a universal phenomenon, and acts of violence committed in hot blood exist in all cultures (see, for example, murders between drivers on the road, and more). Without entering the question of which of the two phenomena is more severe (there are considerations both ways), I am indeed interested in examining honor killing and its implications.

A True Story

One summer many years ago, we were on vacation in a cabin, and next to us stayed an older couple. I believe he was Druze (I am no longer sure). He was an educated and interesting man (he was an inspector at the Ministry of Education), and we ended up discussing various matters. It was truly fascinating. Among other things, I asked him about honor killing (which, as noted, exists among Druze as well). He explained to me pleasantly that this is an ancient Arab custom that is in no way connected to Islam or religion. It is a practice imported from tribes in the deserts of Arabia and remained among them as a cultural norm embedded in their customs, which over time became absorbed into religious norms. This, even though many today regard it as a religious norm.

First Intuition

At first blush, it was clear to me that he was engaging in propaganda. His words reminded me of various apologists on behalf of Judaism who explain to us that “her ways are ways of pleasantness,” that we invented women’s equality and democracy, human dignity (every human being), majority rule, and morality, and that current problematic phenomena are at worst exceptions unrelated to halakhah and religion (which, of course, are morally and socially perfect). Violence has no place in our precincts, as is known, and those who act thus are mere wild growths. At every interfaith gathering you will hear fiery speeches along these lines, and at times I sense that those delivering them even truly believe this propaganda. Therefore I find it hard to believe a person who represents a religion or faith in the eyes of people who do not belong to it. In many cases he lies brazenly, and of course sees it as a great mitzvah of sanctifying the Name (and preventing its desecration). Some have already forgotten that it is a lie, or have convinced themselves that anything that does not fit their agenda is mere foreign influence and not essential to their perfect religion.

Second Thought

But upon second thought, I told myself, one must not be “ecclesial” (in the terminology of the previous column). It is always worth considering that perhaps there is substance to arguments and theses that strike me as so far-fetched and unconvincing. Could it be that in the Muslim and Druze halakhic sources there is indeed no basis for honor killing or blood vengeance? Could it be that these were in fact absorbed from the surrounding culture and embedded within religious conceptions and norms? Isn’t it expected and obvious that cultural norms in a traditional society are preserved more strongly and eventually become embedded within religious norms?

Back to Us

Immediately afterward I turned back to us and thought that there is no reason to assume that such things have not happened among us as well. Have various norms not crept into our halakhah, absorbed from the surrounding environment and embedded within it? Today everything seems to us part of halakhah and the word of God. Everything is sanctified, and we study all of halakhah in the beit midrash as part of Torah study. But in fact halakhah is a mix of norms that descended from on high with additions (by way of interpretation, midrashic derivations, or rabbinic ordinances and decrees) added by the sages of the generations. It is quite reasonable that such additions were influenced by the norms prevalent in the society in which those sages operated. In a milieu that views women, or Gentiles, in a certain way, there is no reason that the sages would not, through a derivation or interpretation from some verse, learn that a certain law does not apply to women or to Gentiles. This is an example of cultural influence entering halakhah.

With customs this is certainly what happens. There it does not even need to pass via derivations or interpretation. Custom, by its very nature, operates through this mechanism of integrating cultural norms practiced among us and embedding them within the binding halakhic framework. Thus the customs of Krakow entered, via the Rema, into the Shulchan Aruch, and by a kind of hocus-pocus became binding halakhah for all of us. The punctilious will even find in them exalted depths revealed to us at the “Revelation at Mount Krakow.” Think of a niddah touching a Torah scroll, or pregnant women entering a cemetery, and other forms of sorcery and practical magic. In my estimation, all this reflects a certain attitude toward women and toward the state of niddah, yet somehow it is now perceived as a sacred religious principle. Do not forget that one who violates it acts against the Shulchan Aruch, heaven forfend. Go and see how many rabbis and communities are prepared to be killed so that women will not dance with a Torah scroll on Simchat Torah. There is not a shred of source for this, nor even a hint of logic, yet for them it is treated as an article of faith on which one must be killed rather than transgress. Not to mention the sanctified Lag BaOmer, whose entirety is a “supernal cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Torah” (it is worth reading the sensible words written by Rabbi Na’avat on the matter)[1].

But that is only with respect to customs. There, this is precisely the mechanism I am discussing—namely, the insertion of cultural norms into halakhah. What will you say about including women in a minyan? For this there are sources among the Rishonim, but not really in the Talmud and Hazal (see on this in columns 510, 598, and in Rabbi Golinkin’s article here). It is quite clear that this reflects a particular conception of women in that era, which can certainly be a product of its time and place and bears no sanctity. Therefore there is no obligation to preserve it in an age in which conceptions have changed. The usual response, of course, is that the change in conceptions is itself a religious problem, for it runs counter to halakhah. The assumption is that halakhah shaped the conceptions, whereas I suspect the order was the opposite: circumstances and culture shaped halakhah.

There are also halakhic principles with clear sources in Hazal, yet they themselves say that it is a matter of social norms (for example, women being called to the Torah due to “the dignity of the congregation”). Or the study of Torah by women, about which you can find severe statements in the Talmud—now relegated to the halakhic margins even in the Haredi world. And still, of course, the guardians of the walls explain to us that all these are sacred principles, and even if it seems to us that in our day there is no harm to the dignity of the congregation, this is a mistake. The Talmudic rationales are sacred and eternal, just like the verses of the Torah. See on this also my remarks about the laws of communal governance that entered the Shulchan Aruch and became part of halakhah through no fault of their own (see, for example, at the end of column 448, and elsewhere).

And what about all the rabbinic enactments and decrees? In columns 582 – 583 I showed that these are not part of the Torah but norms that the sages saw fit to fix as binding halakhah. They have no exalted roots in supernal realms; rather, they are entirely earthly considerations. There you will certainly find a strong influence of norms dependent on time and place.

And what will you say about Torah-level laws derived from midrashic derivations or interpretations of verses, such as the disqualification of women from testimony and from serving as judges (see in column 70, in the series of columns 475 – 480, and more)? Is this not based on some conception or status women had in the time of Hazal, by virtue of which it seemed self-evident to derive such a law from verses? And so it is with various derivations on different topics. This is rooted in understanding the mechanism of halakhic derashah.

To understand this last category, we must remember that derivations are always saturated with the conceptions of the expositor. Take, for example, the derivation: “‘You shall fear the Lord your God’—to include Torah scholars.” In column 647 I showed that the inclusion of Torah scholars is based on the expositor’s own reasoning. The Torah writes the word “et” (“the”), but does not tell us what to include. So how does the expositor decide? According to his logic and judgment. What seems most reasonable to him is to include Torah scholars. So too with the disqualification of women from testimony derived from “‘and the two men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord’—men and not women.” This is, of course, a midrash and not a plain-sense interpretation, for the “men” here are the litigants, and in the Torah when it says “men” it often includes women. These difficulties sharpen the fact that the derivation excluding women from testimony is agenda-driven. The expositor thought this is fitting and hung it upon this verse to derive it. In any case, even without these difficulties, I could have said “men” excludes minors, or Gentiles (“you are called ‘adam’”), or tables, tape recorders, written testimony, and the like. The decision to exclude women is the expositor’s, and it is hard to avoid interpreting that his decision depends also on his conceptions of women, of society, and of their roles in society.

In my essay on the Fifth Root I explained that there is no halakhic derivation in the world that is not saturated with the expositor’s reasoning; therefore, the rule that we do not seek the “reason of the verse” (ta‘ama di-kra) was not said regarding derivations but only regarding plain-sense interpretation of verses (see on this in the next column). Thus, derivations are a channel through which cultural influences all but inevitably enter halakhah. And note: in this case we are speaking of Torah-level halakhah.

Why Is This So Surprising?

Such a perspective greatly unsettles people within the religious and Haredi world, and me as well—not only because of the implications, namely, shaping a different and more sparing attitude to those cultural influences and stripping them of the aura of sanctity that, in our eyes, accompanies halakhah. But that is not the whole picture.

We always protest when researchers or simply outsiders come and explain how our customs and laws developed. From our perspective, they did not develop but descended from heaven. We tend to deny foreign influences of the surrounding environment. A sober Jew knows that things did develop over the generations, but in our consciousness things arise organically and autonomously, and the external influences—even for one who is aware of their existence and acknowledges it—merely reveal to us God’s will for us. Once the thing has arisen, it becomes sacred like all halakhah, as if “what came before is nullified.” At the same time, we are quite ready to describe other religions and beliefs in such a scholarly-objective fashion. There it is clear to us that every law is the product of some need, some influence—something entirely human and contingent, that could have been otherwise. In short, we have a tendency to relate to others with a scholarly gaze but to ourselves with a generous, inherent one.

In column 620 I discussed this phenomenon in our attitude to British norms and rituals. There I also mentioned the ridiculous, childish book by R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook that contains his notes on the New Testament (a sample chapter from which was enthusiastically published in issue A of Tzohar). It is foolish criticism of verses in the New Testament, in which he exposes problematic positions and contradictions (at times he shows that it is against the Ketzot). I explained that similar criticism of our sources would reveal no less problematic issues, but we do not see it. For us, everything is sacred and we have excuses and reconciliations for everything. No doubt Christians do as well—but in their case it is, of course, apologetics, and for the punctilious a result of pagan influences (which, of course, you will not find among us at all).

Take, for example, their Holy Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is outright idolatry, no? And what about our “trinity,” “the Holy One, blessed be He, Israel, and the Torah are one”? What are you talking about?! That is an exalted, kabbalistic principle—deep and abstract. Well, you will say, in our case it is only a metaphor and not a literal description (though I have heard with my own ears more than once that in kabbalah this is a factual description and not a metaphor at all). For some reason, we choose to ignore the fact that Christians also have many and varied interpretations of the Trinity. I merely wonder: what is the meaning of the assertion that those three are one? Does it even have a simple meaning? Different interpretations are all but inevitable for such a statement, even without the need for apologetics—simply because it is hard to ascribe to it a clear sense. But our attitude toward ourselves is generous and empathetic, while toward others we show a critical approach (see columns 517 and 571 on “Michi’s laws,” which reflect a similar duality).

In column 647 I discussed that same duality regarding science. Science investigates all the phenomena in the world, but feels very uncomfortable when one begins to study it with the same tools. The scientific community, of course, has no sociology. Only everyone else does, and the sociologists will study them. As is known, there are many “edot” (ethnic communities) in Israel: Moroccans, Iraqis, Yemenites, Tripolitanians, Ethiopians, and more—but Ashkenazim are not an “edah” (have you ever heard of the Hungarian, German, or Polish “edah”?). In that column I discussed the dilemma that arose in the social sciences (anthropology and sociology): whether it is preferable to maintain scientific distance from the population under study, or to live within it and understand its way of thinking from the inside. Either way, it is clear that there is a great difference in the perception and description of a phenomenon depending on whether you view it from the outside or from within. Therefore, the difference between our attitude to others and to ourselves is a perfectly understandable psychological phenomenon—but once we outgrow childhood, we should be aware of it and neutralize the biases that stem from it.

Conclusions

Indeed, if we neutralize the biases I have described—as we should—there are conclusions that follow from this picture. In our halakhah, too, there are components rooted in various cultural influences, some internal and some external. These components are not sacred and are not binding (except in cases where there is a formal impediment to changing them, such as a regulation enacted by a formal “quorum” that requires a comparable “quorum” to repeal it), and it is certainly worth considering whether they are relevant and correct in a different cultural reality. This exists among us as well, not only among Muslims and “pagans.” Perhaps this is how we act—but it is not necessarily how we ought to act. It is a habit, not necessarily an obligation.

To the same extent, a secular gaze upon Judaism sees all of it as such (just as we view Muslims or Christians). Here, too, there is a bias. A proper view must integrate the external gaze with the internal gaze. There are inherent and organic developments, and there are foreign influences—among us and among others. We must not give control solely to the external gaze (the secularists’ error), nor solely to the internal one (the religious error). We must understand that even if we have concluded that the Torah has a divine basis and was given to us from on high (which secularists do not accept), it still follows that elements shaped by various social and cultural influences—external or internal—have been mingled within it. It is important to distinguish these from the organic part, though it is not always easy to do so, for this has significant implications.

Returning to the beginning: I do not know whether honor killing is an original religious norm in Islam or a cultural influence. But I have no certainty that the claim that it is a cultural influence is far-fetched. On the contrary, the fact that it exists throughout the East, and not only among Muslims, strongly supports the idea. We can now return to the question of the death penalty for the adulterer and the adulteress in halakhah. Are there cultural influences here as well? Here we are not dealing with a derivation but with explicit verses. Such a law is harder to attribute to cultural influences—at least if we have concluded that the Torah is from heaven. And yet, we know that the sages, in various ways (interpretations, derivations, enactments), emptied explicit verses of their literal application—such as the rebellious and wayward son, the condemned city, “an eye for an eye,” and even the abolition of capital punishment (even when it applied, the Mishnah says that a Sanhedrin that executed once in seven years was called “destructive,” for in practice halakhah was shaped such that it is very difficult to reach a case in which a person is liable to death).

The question is: when the Messiah comes and the Sanhedrin returns, will capital punishments return? Will we go back to executing an adulterer and adulteress? Or will we understand that we live in a different culture and that today this is not relevant? Will we act as our sages did in the past? As a rule, I do not usually answer such questions, for one can answer them only when one lives within the reality in question. Only then can one understand whether it is truly correct or not (see on this in column 669, and elsewhere). I can say that at least in my present feelings I have no desire for this to return. But perhaps when I live then I will understand that it is indeed fitting and proper to act thus (as I wrote in column 412 regarding the sacrifices).

[1] One note: he writes that he has no interest in entering the discussion about the paganism involved, and that he speaks only about the invented aura of sanctity and the hollow religiosity reflected by it. In my view, it is the same thing. Paganism is the ascription of sanctity to hollow things devoid of meaning and source—a pursuit of counterfeit sanctity which, in many cases, comes at the expense of fulfilling what has real value (yet is not accompanied by ecstatic “holiness” and political power struggles over the place and time to be allotted to my Rebbe—preferably an adulterer and criminal like Berland—at the holy bonfire lighting in Meron).