Q&A: Would You Encourage a Nazi?
Would You Encourage a Nazi?
Question
I wanted to ask about your outlook.
It’s clear from a number of your remarks in various places that if someone reaches the conclusion that he ought to deny the Torah and God, you have no problem with that, and you even encourage him to act in accordance with his conclusion; you even admire the courage of someone who actually did so [in the latest article, about Yaron Yadan], and basically you’re right.
My question is: shouldn’t your concern for the person make you want to persuade him by every possible means and move him away from his conclusion, since according to your view he is gravely harming himself?
If someone came to you having concluded that all weak people and inferior races should be murdered, and he asked you whether to proceed toward carrying out such acts… would you tell him that he is courageous and strengthen him in his decision [if we set aside the question of public welfare], or would you make sure to explain to him by every possible means that he is mistaken?
I recall that in one of the articles, someone corresponded here claiming that a community should be established to encourage abortions, and you responded sharply there, and said that you were “considering” censoring those remarks.
Answer
My assumption is that the Holy One, blessed be He, also relates this way to such decisions (see at the end of the column you posted today, 222). Therefore, one should not compare an act whose harms are proven to an act whose harms depend on the degree of malice involved.
Obviously there is an obligation to try to cause every Jew to do his duty.
Discussion on Answer
Meaning, were it not for the consequential harm, you wouldn’t object at all, but on the contrary would praise him for his courage [as in the article you mentioned]?
You mentioned that God also takes a person’s view into account. Does that mean that Elisha ben Avuyah, for example, should not be punished, since he acted in accordance with his conclusion [and on the contrary, should be praised for his rare courage]?
And if you say “personal bias” [even though in the words of the Sages he is described as being entangled in difficulties and as having read external views], I would ask: how do you know that people nowadays are not similarly biased, and that in truth they do believe but are simply following the arbitrariness of their own hearts?
How do you know that God takes a person’s opinion into account? Perhaps He demands that a person subordinate his own judgment and do as commanded; true, that will not help someone who is one hundred percent certain he is right [because he does not believe in the command at all], but someone who is only eighty percent certain will be wary of the remaining twenty percent and refrain.
Just put an exclamation mark after all your questions. That’s my answer to them.
Obviously! Obviously!
And no personal biases. There is no claim against someone who errs under compulsion, according to the best of his understanding. The Sages hardly recognized such a possibility at all (that a person simply would not believe), and therefore interpreted everything as the counsel of the evil inclination and as something to be condemned. I’ve elaborated on this at great length in several places.
By the way, in the end I didn’t censor it there either. 🙂