A question for the questioner:

If someone smashes your child’s head, wouldn’t you hope that the same thing would happen to the smasher’s children?

See Rabbi Benny Lau’s book on Psalms, "Tehillah," on this verse.

With God’s help, 9 Kislev 5781

Nur—hello,

The verse opens: "Daughter of Babylon, the devastated one, happy is he who repays you your recompense that you have dealt to us." Let every foreign mother know that if her sons dash the infants of Israel against the rock—the end of that horror is to come back upon her grandchildren. Biblical morality advocates "measure for measure," not "turning the other cheek" 🙂

Regards,
Dear Balak

I really don’t understand the question. Does the questioner have any idea how cruel the Babylonians were? I’m sure many times more than this. That was the morality of the ancient world. I too wish for Babylon that its infants be dashed against the rock (not that I’d be willing to do it myself, but if that’s what they had done to me, I’m not sure I’d be such a saint). Morality is a reciprocal matter. Morality doesn’t apply toward someone who isn’t moral himself. If some Babylonian had heard this question, he would have laughed at the questioner. Including those babies once they grew up. They wouldn’t even understand the question and would think the questioner was crazy and stupid.

Besides, in the ancient world the consciousness of existence was familial and tribal. Harming one person was harming everyone, and harming everyone was done through harming one. The questioner’s standards are like demanding that if someone harmed my right hand with his right hand, then when I take revenge I should only hurt his right hand with my right hand. It’s ridiculous. And I think this is also true regarding our wars with the Arabs today.

Immanuel, what about toward tigers? If a tiger is hungry, it’ll enjoy taking a bite out of me, so am I also entitled to bite it?

To Lion Dens,

Is this trolling? What kind of question is that? Of course. Morally speaking, you can even bite first, since it’s known that it would do the same to you. Ecologically that may not be right (for our own interest).

And if the tiger’s legs are already in shackles and from now on it can’t do anything to me, am I allowed to hurt it indifferently because at no stage does it consider the goal of not hurting me?

That doesn’t depend on what it can or can’t do, but on its intention. Which it doesn’t have, because it’s an animal. It isn’t immoral to hurt it indifferently. In that case you’re behaving like an animal, not like a human being. But it isn’t immoral to behave toward animals like an animal. In that sense you’re doing what is in your nature (the indifference and cruelty come from the animal level in you; they can’t come from anywhere else. A person has the animal level, from which the "evil" in him comes, and the human level, which can rise above and choose above—against—its nature. An evil person is one who submits to the animal within him, but it in itself is no more evil than other animals. Or if you like, all animals are evil by nature, because nature itself—the blind determinism of mechanical stimulus and response—is blindness and cruelty). It’s like a tiger devouring a sheep. It isn’t immoral that it devours it. That’s its nature. Or if you like, it is non-moral because it’s an animal and wild. But so is the sheep. And it isn’t immoral to be non-moral toward one who is non-moral.

The evil that we feel there is in such behavior in a case like this comes from what Rabbi Michi calls aesthetic or human values. But it’s like incest: a person acts according to his urges in a way that doesn’t harm any other person (so it’s moral). But if you include these things within the meaning of morality (as in the U.S. there is a morals division in various police forces—that is, wild behavior in general without restraints, even where no one else is harmed—the meaning of the word morality in some places in ancient Hebrew is like imprisonment, restraints), then you could say it’s immoral. But indeed the core of the concept of morality is harming others who aren’t harming others.

With God’s help, 10 Kislev 5781

Radak and Meiri connect the verse "Daughter of Babylon, the devastated one, happy is he who repays you your recompense that you have dealt to us; happy is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rock" to Isaiah’s prophecy of the calamity that will come upon Babylon: "Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them… and they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children."

Babylon’s punishment for its cruelty will come through the cruel Medes, who, like the Babylonians, will not ask moral questions, but will also strike little children, and thus Babylon will receive its punishment measure for measure.

There is no proof from here whatsoever that a Jew asking according to the Torah’s view would be given a halakhic or moral license to kill the enemy’s children. On the contrary: in the book of Deuteronomy it is explained that regarding the other nations who fought Israel, one does not harm children and women. Only with Amalek is there a decree of vengeance even against their children, and likewise with the seven Canaanite nations there is the law of "you shall not let any soul remain alive."

And Maimonides wrote that even in those cases, acceptance of the seven Noahide commandments removes them from the obligation of being killed. This is also evident from the verses, for the Torah commanded the destruction of the peoples of Canaan out of concern lest "they cause you to sin," and when the parents accept upon themselves the values of faith and the basic morality of humanity, there is no concern that "they will cause you to sin" (and similarly with Amalek, once they abandoned Amalekite ideology, they are no longer included: "Go and proscribe the sinners, Amalek").

And as is well known, from the descendants of Haman, Sisera, and Sennacherib came great figures of Israel—Shemaya and Avtalyon, Rabbi Akiva, and Rav Shmuel bar Shilat.

Regards,
Simba Liebinger, from the lion dens at Rosh Amanah

As for a tiger that has been hunted—one may kill it for the sake of using its meat or hide, or so that it will not pose a danger, but it would be forbidden to torment it pointlessly for no need, because we are commanded regarding causing suffering to animals, a Torah-level prohibition. If the tiger killed a person, the matter depends on a dispute among the Tannaim whether the law of the "ox that is stoned" applies to a wild ownerless animal, a dispute that depends on whether the death penalty for the stoned ox is a punishment for the ox (as it is written: "and from every beast I will require it") or whether it is a punishment for the owner who did not guard it; according to that latter side, the law of the stoned ox would not apply to an ownerless wild animal.

See the article: "An ox that is stoned because it killed a person—Is this a punishment for the ox or for the owner?" (Daf Yomi Portal, Bava Kamma 44b)

Rabbi Immanuel, in my view principled morality is not connected to reciprocity at all, and categorically and sweepingly does not depend on anything that happened in the past. Reciprocity and relating to the past are an additional element that I employ for deterrence considerations for future benefit, and because of my own internal psychological considerations that lead me to defy the command of morality—may its glory be exalted—when certain feelings (for example, revenge) rage within me. But although I’m not sure how relevant that is at all, I do have a certain intellectual respect for the position you presented.

To Lion Dens,

I’ll have to insist on what I said, and in my humble opinion you need to reconsider your position. Because morality that is not reciprocal is not morality at all in my eyes. It is moralism, and its consequences are bad.

To Shatz,

This is a nice interpretation. But the discussion here is not halakhic but moral. And Jewish law is one level above morality. The fact that by the same token Jewish law could have allowed killing children for its own reasons—so long as that does not contradict morality (and as I explained, in Babylon’s case it would not have contradicted it)—there’s no problem with that. Those laws you mentioned, forbidding the killing of children, are the kind of thing that belong to commandments accepted by obedience, even though they are close to rational ones. And as you said, an obligation to kill children does indeed exist regarding Amalek and the seven nations, where Nur’s claim about immorality would seemingly also apply, and all the laws regarding other nations do not remove that problem. In fact that’s why this is just standard apologetics. These things are also true regarding the tiger, because the law of causing suffering to animals is Jewish law and a kind of going beyond the letter of the law. It is indeed a rational commandment (in my view even rational commandments are commands of obedience, just at a lower level than ordinary such commandments), but of the sort connected to aesthetic morality (morality of aesthetic values, in the Rabbi’s terminology) and not essential morality. It is like the law of meat and milk, or slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day, or the mother bird’s nest (about which the sages also took pains to say that it is a decree, not mercy). We need to stop with the apologetics and focus on understanding and explanation, not excuses.

With God’s help, 11 Kislev 5781

To Immanuel—hello,

If morality were only a matter of "social convention," then there would be room to say that if the other person does not uphold his part in the "social contract," then I too am exempt from my part.

But since morality is anchored in God’s commandments, beginning with the seven Noahide commandments and continuing with the Ten Commandments, why should I care that so-and-so is a thief and murderer? How does that permit me to cling to his evil ways? How does that exempt me from keeping "the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice"? On the contrary, in a generation where everyone scorns the demands of morality, one must strengthen oneself in moral ways in order to show humanity, through personal example, the straight path.

That is how our forefather Jacob acts in this week’s Torah portion. Even though Laban deceives him and keeps changing his wages endlessly, Jacob continues to be careful to do his work faithfully and devotedly by day and by night, in cold and in heat. "By day the heat consumed me, and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes."

And so too in a world where victors in war treat their defeated enemies with brutality, murdering children and raping captive women—the Torah demands of the captors not to harm the children and women who did not participate in the war, and a person may not torture the captive woman, and if he desires her he must free her and marry her as a free woman.

The laws of "you shall not let any soul remain alive" said regarding Amalek are the exception that departs from the Torah’s general law of war. Regarding the seven nations, the stringency is explained by the fear lest they cause Israel to sin, and regarding Amalek too it is said: "and proscribe the sinners, Amalek." Both the Canaanite nations and Amalek were unique in that they turned evil into an ideology, and therefore even a child who grows up in such an atmosphere is presumed to adopt the way of evil when he grows up.

But even in these exceptions, the possibility of repair was given through accepting the foundations of faith and morality in the seven Noahide commandments, and as I mentioned, descendants of the greatest persecutors became great Torah figures who enlightened the eyes of Israel.

The morality of Judaism is not a "social convention" but a divine commandment, and therefore we will bear the lofty morality of Judaism even in a world that scorns it. We are the "vanguard force" meant to raise humanity to the desired moral height, and therefore we must be "ascending in holiness," influencing for the good and not being influenced for evil.

Regards,
Anar Eshkol Fishel-Wertheimer

To Shatz,

The Torah and the seven Noahide commandments are one level above morality (even murder; they are a kind of commandments accepted by obedience that correspond with morality). Even human morality with God (with reward and punishment from reality, from God, or karma)—even that morality is not a social convention. It is a reality like the laws of physics. But part of the intuition regarding it is that it is reciprocal. To be moral is not to be a sucker. The practical difference is in a situation where you don’t know whether the person facing you is immoral or not (a doubt). Then you have to act toward him morally. But I’m speaking about a situation where it is clear to you that he is not. Then there is no moral obligation toward him. All in all, human morality is a matter of reason, and one who has no reason is like an animal. Regarding children and babies, it depends on the society in which they will grow up—whether they will acquire that reason in the future. If not, then their status is like that of the adults. In practice most human behavior stems from subconscious things within a person. And the subconscious is influenced by the society in which the person is found in a deterministic way. In practice most human beings are the product of the society in which they live without being aware of it at all. Even the smart-alecks (like Rabbi Michi) who think they are special, thoughtful, and critical—they’re simply a bit more developed than the rest, but even with them 98% of their behavior and views are dictated / influenced by society.

Immanuel, what do you mean by consequences? If there are plausible consequences for a specific decision or for general conduct, then we have no disagreement. If the consequences you mentioned are consequences in the depths of the theoretical issues, then I’m not familiar with that.

Consequences both for decisions and for general conduct. See, for example, the High Court of Justice.