Q&A: Response to Your Article
Response to Your Article
Question
Rabbi, could you please respond to this: https://ravtzair.blogspot.com/2019/11/blog-post_6.html?fbclid=IwAR3mgTlgyOq6GtD2mkqSdPDjr9caRrUk_E37KinpJJDAhuuX_DlnMTtJfD8&m=1
Answer
I do not know what exactly I am supposed to respond to. This is nonsense. The writer assumes that the laws of democracy override everything, as if they possess some kind of holiness. In my remarks I brought the examples of Herschel Grynszpan and David Frankfurter. They murdered a political figure who held office under a regime that had been lawfully elected through a democratic process (the Nazis came to power through a democratic process). Not to mention that the obligation to obey the laws exists under a monarchy as well, not only in a democracy (Jewish law speaks of “the law of the kingdom is the law,” not specifically the laws of democracy).
So what does the writer expect if I reach the conclusion that all of us, all the citizens of the state, are heading for destruction under the cover of democracy—that is, through a process with no formal legal defect? Are we supposed to go like sheep to the slaughter and sacrifice ourselves on the altar of democracy? This is nonsense.
As for the question whether Yigal Amir’s factual assessment was actually correct (that is, whether we really were headed for destruction, and whether the murder would have saved us from it), I already addressed that in my column. But that is not the discussion here. The discussion is a principled one: what is a person supposed to do if those are his assessments? I do not understand how the idolatrous consideration raised by the writer—which grants holiness to the laws of democracy—deals with the problem I was talking about.
In short, I addressed all of this in my original remarks, and I do not know what there is in the writer’s words that requires any further response.
Discussion on Answer
Haggai, that is just a collection of meaningless words. After all the verbiage, if you think that someone is now on the verge of a life-threatening danger, that he is about to die (!), you still would not save him if it meant violating democracy?! If you would save him—that is what Yigal Amir thought. And if not, then justify that morally! What, does democracy override human life?? Rather, what—you assume it would not help. Fine, but Yigal Amir assumed otherwise. So at most he was mistaken. But the discussion here is about the moral judgment of the person!
No—I would not save him if it goes against the “laws of democracy,” because a few minutes later he will again be in life-threatening danger, whereas the very attempt at rescue will have damaged the democratic consensus, and then the level of violence will rise and many other people will end up in life-threatening danger.
For example—if a person is currently at the center of a group of hundreds of people lynching him, and there is no force around at the moment that can stop them—there is no chance that I will manage to save the poor man from the mob, while on the other hand my own life, and perhaps the lives of those around me, will be endangered.
It is obvious that Yigal Amir was wrong. Let us try to learn from his mistake and not damage the social consensus not to use violence (which is mockingly called “the laws of democracy”).
Haggai, you were answered quite adequately, and I really do not understand what you are saying. You would leave a person to die because of the laws of democracy? Have you gone mad? And even according to your strange and bizarre approach, suppose the whole nation is going to die. Would you still not save it because of the laws of democracy?
And what is the meaning of this hair-splitting, that if you save him he will go back into danger? Are you inventing forced cases? What dangers were created after Rabin’s assassination?
Excuse me, Rabbi, I am trying to answer the point and explain, and it would be good if you would try to address the cases I brought as examples.
Yes—I have probably not gone mad, but I will not take violent actions that the majority of my people oppose in order to save a person. Would you violently break into a prison to save someone sentenced to death when there is public consensus that he deserves that punishment?
If all my people are going to die and they want that, I will not try to prevent it by using violence (quite apart from the technical question whether that is even possible), but I will try to persuade them.
The danger created after Rabin’s assassination was a lack of solidarity among the people, to the point of indifference to the lives of people identified with the right-wing settler sector, a lack of willingness to protect them or help them in times of trouble. When you are a Jew in a hostile region (like planet Earth), that is a matter of life-threatening danger.
I do not see what there is to answer. I answered everything, and your remarks do not address the issue. Sorry.
It seems to me that the claim is that just as in the case of a pursuer, if it is possible to save the victim by injuring one of the pursuer’s limbs, it is forbidden to kill him, so too here: since democratic elections were supposed to take place in 1996, which Rabin was going to lose, this is a case of a pursuer who could have been stopped by a lesser injury.
Y.D., I assume you are joking.
Hello Rabbi Abraham,
The Young Rabbi is not assuming that the laws of democracy morally override everything. What he is arguing is that I, as an individual person or as a minority group, am not supposed to use force or violence to impose my understanding on the public, even if it is an extremely urgent and important matter.
This is not a moral issue—in the technical sense, almost always an action by an individual or a minority will not really change the course of social events. The failure of Yigal Amir, and, to distinguish, Grynszpan and Frankfurter, is not “accidental” but rooted in the fact that they did not obey the “laws of democracy,” which are more like a law of nature or of human behavior than a moral law.