Between Angels and Human Beings: On the Moral Level at Which We Ought to Live – Beshalach

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Torah Thoughts for Beshalach

By Michael Abraham

With God’s help

Between Angels and Human Beings: On the Moral Level at Which We Ought to Live

Our portion describes the rescue of the children of Israel through the miracle of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the drowning of the Egyptians in the sea. The midrash relates that the ministering angels wished to sing, and the Holy One, blessed be He, stopped them with the well-known statement: “My handiwork is drowning in the sea, and you are singing?!” There is an evaluative claim here that one should not sing even over the downfall of enemies and wicked people. Many cite this saying as the basis for the demand to relate to our enemies as human beings, and indeed it seems to me that one certainly can, and even should, distinguish between resolute war against a person or group that endangers us and hatred of that group, or joy at its downfall.

In contrast to the position expressed in that midrash, the children of Israel do in fact sing to the Holy One, blessed be He, the Song at the Sea, and praise Him for Egypt’s downfall. The question is what becomes of that value judgment stated to the angels, and why it does not apply to the children of Israel. Some resolve the difficulty on the basis of the midrash that the Song at the Sea will be recited in the future (“Then Moses will sing” [Exod. 15:1]—”then” in the future, as in “Then our mouth will be filled with laughter” [Ps. 126:2]), but Scripture does not depart from its plain sense.

The accepted explanation of this contradiction lies in the difference between the status of the angels in this miracle and that of the children of Israel. The children of Israel were the ones saved from that distress, and therefore they had to sing in thanksgiving and praise to the Holy One, blessed be He, for their rescue. The angels, by contrast, who were not themselves saved from distress at the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, were not permitted to do so. Ostensibly, the difference lies in the aim of the song: in the case of the children of Israel, it is thanksgiving for their own rescue, a legitimate and desirable song, whereas in the case of the angels it is a song about the event itself, which also includes the destruction of the Egyptians, and that is a negative song. According to this, the angels too could have sung, had it been a song only about Israel’s rescue and not about the destruction of the Egyptians.

It seems that there is a deeper point here. Human beings who try to live on too high a spiritual plane can דווקא fail and fall. If human beings try to live with the consciousness that one should not rejoice at the downfall of the wicked, they may reach a point at which they also feel sympathy for their deeds. Angels, by contrast, can conduct themselves in the ideal way, without concern that they will fail. Therefore, from angels the Holy One, blessed be He, expects life in the ideal feeling of sorrow over the loss of human beings as such, including the wicked; but from human beings there is no such unequivocal expectation. True, individuals who can live in such a moral atmosphere would presumably be considered pleasing before God, but in an ordinary human society such a normative level in public life involves the danger of collapse.

In our own day as well, we know people who genuinely and sincerely feel sorrow over the loss of enemies and haters, and over war as such, yet many of them lose their basic identification with their own people, and with the good that fights evil. Today, with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we hear about “victims of hostility on all sides” and about “the tragedy and bereavement of both peoples,” while absurdly placing both sides of the conflict on the same moral platform.

The root of these feelings and statements lies in a lofty moral point, according to which every loss of human life, without distinction of nationality, religion, or anything else, is tragic. Yet one can see that living on such a plane sometimes leads to a complete loss of direction, involving a failure to distinguish between good and evil, and between the just and the unjust. Clearly there are acts of cruelty and injustice on our side as well (some of which, sadly, I myself have witnessed), but these do not blur the overall judgment that distinguishes between murderers and combatants, between aggressors and defenders, between the persecuted and the persecutors. This is the danger of living with a sensibility that is indeed elevated in moral terms, but for human beings (at least as a public norm) is apparently too elevated. Even King David, unquestionably a moral and elevated personality of the highest order, expresses himself in several places in the book of Psalms in hair-raising terms regarding the pursuers of Israel. For example, in Psalm 137: “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you as you have repaid us… happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rock” (Ps. 137:8-9) (a favorite example of Yeshayahu Leibowitz against Ben-Gurion-style “prophetic morality”).

Another example of this phenomenon is the use of animals. Eating meat, as well as other uses of animals, raises a difficult moral problem. Animals undergo extremely severe abuse during their breeding, transport, and slaughter. It is certainly proper to refrain from using animal products (meat, milk and eggs, and fish as well) so as not to abet this abuse, and therefore I have no doubt that one who refrains from using animals stands on a higher moral level than one who uses them. Yet we do see people and groups who fight on behalf of animals while trampling the dignity and rights of human beings in the process. Quite a few of them allow themselves to demonstrate enthusiastically for “a woman’s right over her body” (= the ultimate permission to murder fetuses in cold blood). It is rather astonishing that in many cases this comes from those same social and ideological groups, and even more astonishing that they themselves, in most cases, do not feel this dissonance at all. As in the previous example, we have here an attitude toward a population different from us (animals) that ostensibly stems from a higher moral world, yet it may lead to failures in basic moral domains that concern our attitude toward our own group. Whoever elevates animals to the level of human beings will in the end lower human beings to the level of animals. This is the same phenomenon of a moral ascent with a sting in its tail, and perhaps this is what the Sage meant when he said, “Do not be overly righteous, lest you destroy yourself” (Eccl. 7:16).

The question is what to do in the face of such phenomena. Should we therefore refrain from fighting evil (using animal products or singing over enemies)? In many cases that is a heavy and unreasonable price. It is incumbent upon us to fight evil, and the evil people as well, while at the same time trying to minimize the moral damage and the possible failures. Continuing immoral conduct merely out of fear of failure is highly problematic. The matter depends on how severe the present evil is in comparison with the expected failure. Thus, for example, there is clearly a difference between singing over the downfall of the wicked, which is a failure on a subtler plane, and one we may perhaps allow ourselves to fail in so as not to arrive at the opposite failure, which is graver, and the consumption of animal products, thereby abetting the severe abuse involved in them, which is already far beyond what, in my assessment, we are permitted in our current condition. It seems that this line can and should change across the generations. The moral progress of the world ought to raise the line separating the evil that can be compromised with from the evil that cannot.

In the period of the Exodus from Egypt, Israel was apparently not allowed to refrain from singing, because their moral level did not permit them to live on the plane of sorrow over the fall of enemies. It may be that today our situation on this matter is different. True, many fall and fail, but it seems to me that the failure is not inevitable. It is possible to live in a state in which empathy does not take the wind out of the sails of the struggle against evil and the belief in the justice of our cause. Regarding the consumption of animal products, it seems to me even clearer that today there is no principled problem in refraining from this while still preserving sensitivity toward human beings.

My claim is that the Sages tell us about the dialogue of the Holy One, blessed be He, with the angels in order to teach us something about human beings. The situation in which Israel of that generation allowed themselves to ignore this evil is not an ideal norm. It is an evil that is perhaps sometimes necessary for human beings, but our consciousness must also contain the ideal norm that one does not sing over the destruction of the wicked. In the future, Rabbi Kook and his student Rabbi HaNazir write, the use of animals will cease. Only “then” will human beings too be able to live by the norms of angels. Until “then” we must be only (!) human beings. At least with respect to certain things, that “then” is already here.

Have a peaceful Sabbath

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