Parashat Chukat (5761)

With God's help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, Parashat Chukat, 5761

The Value of Human Life

The entire weekly Torah portion deals with subjects that are connected, in one way or another, to death. It opens

with the section of the Red Heifer, which describes the process of purification for one who has become ritually impure through contact with a corpse. After that,

the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, Moses our teacher's sister and brother, are described. In addition, Moses our teacher himself

commits there the sin of striking the rock, which, according to several commentators, is what caused him to die

in the wilderness. During the portion there is a plague that kills 'a great multitude from Israel,' and, 'to top it off,' the portion

also contains several wars (against Sihon, against Og king of Bashan, and two against the Canaanite king of Arad).

And I have not yet begun to speak about the prophetic reading…

The Torah relates with great gravity to the subject of death. Any contact with a dead body, in all sorts of ways,

renders those involved ritually impure, and of course requires a long and complex process of purification. The prohibition against killing

human beings is one of the three most severe prohibitions in Jewish law, and the punishment for violating it is

death (?!). A priest who has taken a life is forbidden to serve in the Temple, and also to raise his hands

in the priestly blessing, and so on.

On the other hand, one would have expected that precisely within a Torah worldview this issue would not be regarded as so severe,

since we are committed to the view that a person's life does not end with death, but merely passes

into its next phase. In this way, for example, the prohibition against grieving for the dead excessively is explained

(that is, mourning beyond the proper proportion). Mourning is mainly over the bond between the deceased and ourselves,

whereas with respect to him as such we have no reason to grieve, for he has not ceased to exist (see, for example,

a detailed discussion in the book Gesher HaChayim, part 3).

If so, then precisely within a religious outlook, life ostensibly should not be perceived as something

absolute and irreversible, and perhaps in a secular outlook we would expect to find a more

grave attitude toward life and toward harming it. And indeed there are aspects in which one can discern

differences of this kind. In the modern world, the tendency to deny the legitimacy

of capital punishment is becoming increasingly common, מתוך the view that taking a person's life, however vile he may be, is a total

and irreversible act, and therefore human beings have no right to do it. As is well known, within Jewish law there are

death penalties for quite a number of offenses (although there is a clear tendency within Jewish law to refrain from using

them whenever possible). Beyond that, in a religious world there are values that override the value of life;

that is, life is not the supreme value. For example, regarding the three gravest transgressions (murder, idolatry,

and forbidden sexual relations), we are commanded to be killed rather than commit them under any circumstances. By contrast, in

the secular world (at least the modern one) there is a clear tendency toward a view that does not believe in values

of so absolute a kind.

The characteristic of the Jewish approach that I have described here, namely viewing death as an event that is not inherently final,

is not unique to the Jewish religion. It seems that the Muslim religion, too, treats the value of human life more lightly—indeed far more so

than its Jewish sister religion—as we can see these days

in a very tangible way. As stated, this is entirely to be expected, since Islam, too, does not regard death

as the end of existence, and therefore it is only natural that the event of death should not carry so fateful a

meaning as it does in a secular world.

Yet, as I have already mentioned, despite what one might expect from a religious worldview in general,

Judaism relates to death with very great gravity. This attitude stems from the fact that there is

nevertheless something irreversible about death: after death a person can no longer change his

spiritual state. The possibility of spiritual advancement exists only during life on earth.

After that there is

a different mode of existence, in which we reap the fruits of our deeds in life, whether

for good or for ill. Seen in this way, a person's death is certainly an event of fateful

significance. From a Jewish perspective, killing a person does not indeed put an end to his existence, but it does take away

his ability to advance spiritually. The obligation to save a person from death is also based, according to the Sages, on the duty

to enable a person to advance spiritually. For example, the obligation to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a person is explained

by the Sages with the statement: 'Desecrate one Sabbath on his behalf so that he may observe many Sabbaths' (in fact, from this perspective

it can be seen that precisely in a religious world human life has a value immeasurably greater than it does

in a secular world, where the absolute value assigned to human life seems an incomprehensible riddle).

Perhaps the differences between Judaism and Islam in their attitude toward death can be understood against this background.

Judaism places greater emphasis on practical commandments, and therefore there is naturally much greater significance

to the life in which they are fulfilled, and accordingly also to the termination of the possibility of fulfilling them. By contrast,

in a religion in which the place of practical commandments is more limited, its main focus is not life on earth

but the world to come, and it is therefore not surprising that the significance of life is to a large extent summed up by the question of how a person

passes from here to there (as a martyr, etc.).

Against the background of what I have said, one can understand the fact that in the world of religious Jews there is a willingness

to sacrifice lives for values such as the integrity of the Land of Israel under Jewish sovereignty, as opposed to a

secular world that, as one would expect, is less prepared for this. On the other hand, the difference between Judaism and Islam is expressed

in the debate currently taking place within religious Judaism concerning the status of the value of human life in relation

to other values (such as the integrity of the Land of Israel). The discussion is in fact conducted around the question whether the general

'religious' emphasis prevails, or whether rather the emphasis unique to Judaism (as opposed to other religions such as

Islam), which sees human life as a supreme value even from within a religious worldview.

Have a peaceful Sabbath

This may be placed in the repository for sacred texts in any synagogue or house of study. Comments and responses are welcome.

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