Q&A: Woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor
Woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor
Question
They’re currently circulating a video of a house/farm in southern Lebanon being bombed, and there are secondary explosions of missiles, some of which go flying into nearby houses and a nearby village and destroy them.
Wonderful: woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor.
The idea is that someone who hides military weapons in his civilian home is a vile wicked person, and he deserves to suffer, and his neighbors suffer too.
I could identify with that, and military weapons really ought to be in a military warehouse and not inside a civilian place, since that’s dangerous for the host too.
My problem with this is that I learned in the Tashbar in Bnei Brak at the home of Maran the Hazon Ish, and in his courtyard there was a weapons cache (maybe more than one), and he did not object, and perhaps he even allowed it willingly and voluntarily.
He was not wicked.
And he allowed military weapons inside a civilian area.
So is someone who does this a wicked and vile person? Or a legitimate patriot of his people?
Or is there a new rule: if he’s a Lebanese sheikh, then it’s wickedness,
and if it’s a righteous man from Bnei Brak who tithes and doesn’t carry on the Sabbath, then it’s righteousness?
?
Answer
This has nothing at all to do with wickedness or righteousness. They bomb in order to eliminate the weapons and those operating them. And if someone put them in his home, then he should bear the consequences.
And aside from that, even without what I wrote, what you presented as some crushing ironic argument is nonsense. Judging such a person depends on the goal and the justification. Comparing different peoples presents it as though our morality is not equal for all. But the difference is not the people; it is the context and the goals.