Middot at war 5: celebrate with care

The tragic current war between Israel and Hamas has already lasted a month and does not appear to be about to conclude. Readers of Avot Today will not need to be told what they should be praying for—peace—or which of the combatants deserves in moral terms to emerge victorious.

Thousands of humans on both sides are already mourning the death of their loved ones, grieving over serious and disabling injuries. But when the conflict ends, many people will be rejoicing. We pray that we will be able to celebrate the triumph of good over evil and the salvation of humanity in the face of unspeakable, barbaric atrocities.  But how does a Jew celebrate?

Pirkei Avot offers sobering advice to the victors. At Avot 4:24 Shmuel HaKatan teaches:

בִּנְפֹל אֹיִבְךָ אַל תִּשְׂמָח, וּבִכָּשְׁלוֹ אַל יָגֵל לִבֶּֽךָ, פֶּן יִרְאֶה יְיָ וְרַע בְּעֵינָיו וְהֵשִׁיב מֵעָלָיו אַפּוֹ

[Translation] "When your enemy falls, do not rejoice; when he stumbles, let your heart not be gladdened—in case God sees and it is displeasing in His eyes, and He will turn His wrath from him [to you]"

This warning is not unique to Avot: it is a direct quote from Proverbs 24:17-18. It is unusual for any teaching that comprises part of the Oral Law to pre-exist as a quote that has been cut-and-pasted from the Written Law. When this occurs, it is neither an accident nor a coincidence but the product of a conscious decision on the part of the Tanna who quotes it. We are thus entitled to ask why he has done it and what lesson we can learn from the fact that he has done so.

Both the Bartenura and the commentary ascribed to Rashi have relatively little to say. They agree that this teaching is featured here because Shmuel HaKatan said it so often and that one should be careful not to rejoice at another’s downfall in case God transfers His anger from the unfortunate subject of His anger to the person who is enjoying the spectacle. But later rabbis have offered a wider choice of explanations.

What a Jew may legitimately celebrate with a full heart is the destruction not of the wicked but of wickedness itself (Berachot 10a).  The Rashbatz (Magen Avot) notes that restraining oneself from rejoicing is a way of emulating God, who does not rejoice at the downfall of the Egyptians who pursued the Children of Israel into the Red Sea (Megillah 10b). Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) adds that we are only human: God therefore does not demand anything of us that we cannot deliver. We cannot force ourselves to love other people but we can at least refrain from hating them or harbouring resentment against them. Not rejoicing at their misfortune is thus part of a process of character improvement. The Maggid of Kozhnitz (Avot Yisrael) links this mishnah to another in Avot: since we do not understand how and why another person acts wickedly, we are expected to judge him favourably if we can (Avot 1:6): our pleasure at such a person’s downfall is actually the consequence of our judgement on him.

I have always felt that a person’s capacity to do evil matches his or her capacity to do good. So when I rejoice when retribution is inflicted on the wicked, I do try to focus on the destruction of the wickedness itself—and also to mourn for the good which that person could have achieved in their life, had they only chosen to do so. When the good that they could have done is lost, we are all the losers.