Hitting the mark, missing the point

I’ve just heard about a new book, Ethics of Our Fighters: Judaism and the moral challenges of warfare, by Rabbi Shlomo Brody. Neville Teller, reviewing it for the Jerusalem Post, has this to say about it:

Ethics of Our Fighters has as its background the Jewish reaction to being confronted with the moral challenges of warfare.

In Ethics of Our Fighters, Rabbi Shlomo Brody has produced a deeply considered analysis, based upon a profound understanding of the principles underlying Judaism and Jewish thought, regarding the ethical dilemmas posed by the sometimes unavoidable need to engage in warfare. Never was the title of a book more apt or more descriptive of its contents. 

Its conclusions, however, are far from confined to people engaged in defending Israel or the Jewish people. Like so much of the civilized world’s view of morality, emanating as it does from the Torah and associated Jewish thinking, they are universally applicable.

He then adds the following:

The title … is an adaptation of “Ethics of the Fathers,” the English title of Pirkei Avot, the famous collection of ethical principles uttered by the leading rabbis whose legal and related opinions appear in the Talmud. Pirkei Avot’s six chapters of ethical and moral pronouncements are included in the daily prayer book. Replete with the wisest of wise counsel as they are, Brody points out that Pirkei Avot has nonetheless nothing at all to say about the ethics of warfare or the moral and ethical principles that should be followed in times of conflict.

The reason is not difficult to deduce. For centuries after the Roman era, the scattered Jewish people simply did not engage in military matters. The long lacuna came to an end just over 100 years ago, when Jews were caught up in World War I and fought on both sides, according to the countries in which they lived. Then, starting in the 1920s, in their ancient homeland of Israel, known then as British Mandate Palestine, Jewish fighters found themselves in armed conflict with local Arabs who were intent on preventing the League of Nations mandated establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people.”

I am reluctant to accept that “Pirkei Avot has … nothing at all to say about the ethics of warfare or the moral and ethical principles that should be followed in times of conflict”. That misses the point. Pirkei Avot was not compiled as a warriors’ manual. But this does not mean that nothing our sages taught in that tractate is relevant to wartime, even today. That’s why I recently posted six pieces on Avot Today that dealt with what Avot had to say about dealing with death and bereavement, jumping to conclusions regarding apparent non-combatants, keeping one’s temper at times of stress, prayer at times of war and while in combat, celebrating victory, and postwar reconstruction.

Leaving quibbles about the author’s opinions aside, I’m intrigued by this book and its approach to Jewish ethical issues—and when I’ve got hold of a copy and read it for myself, I shall share my thoughts on it with Avot Today readers. If anyone reading this post has already seen the book, I do hope that they will share their thoughts on it too.

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Middot at war 6: Picking up the pieces

This, the sixth and final post in Avot Today's Middot at War series, looks beyond the conflict to the aftermath. Is either side obliged to assist the other in picking up the pieces and engaging in the large task of reconstruction?

Prima facie this is a topic that lies way beyond the content of Pirkei Avot. However. There is a possibility that this may not be so.

At Avot 1:7 Nittai HaArbeli says:

הַרְחֵק מִשָּׁכֵן רָע, וְאַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע, וְאַל תִּתְיָאֵשׁ מִן הַפּוּרְעָנוּת

[Translation] “Distance yourself from a bad neighbour, and don’t stick to a wicked person, and do not abandon belief in retribution”.

The first two parts of this teaching have a plain meaning and, while commentators have offered many examples and explanations, they share a core meaning: don’t become too closely involved with bad influences. The third part, however, is a vague and general proposition that invites interpretation.

Midrash Shmuel offers several shots at explaining this teaching. One starts with a quote from the Torah: כִּ֣י תִפְגַּ֞ע שׁ֧וֹר אֹֽיִבְךָ֛ א֥וֹ חֲמֹר֖וֹ תֹּעֶ֑ה הָשֵׁ֥ב תְּשִׁיבֶ֖נּוּ לֽוֹֹ (“When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back”: Shemot 23:4). The Gemara (Bava Metzia, Eilu Metziot) establishes that this verse refers to one who is wicked: to help such a person is a way to achieve perfection of one’s soul and even to bring the wicked back to the path of goodness. R’ Yosef ibn Nachmies adds here that a person who is so steeped in goodness as to have reached this level of perfection should never despair of God’s mercy in respect of any puranut [translated above ass ‘retribution’ but in this context ‘disaster’] for which he has been destined.

Does this mean that a righteous nation should set about helping to restore the position of an evil enemy over which it has triumphed? I very much doubt it. My feeling is that this conclusion goes way beyond anything that Nittai HaArbeli might have contemplated. This mishnah addresses the individual, not the state, and the same must surely be said of R’ Yosef ibn Nachmies’ take on it.

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Middot at war 4: dealing with death

Death is a virtually inevitable consequence of warfare, whether brought about by the use of weapons, disruption of healthcare services, suicide or anything else. While Pirkei Avot makes numerous references to being judged after one’s death and to the World to Come, it has relatively little to say about how we—mourners, survivors and comforters—should go about our task.

R’ Shimon ben Elazar (Avot 4:23) does however have some practical guidance for us, teaching us this:

אַל תְּרַצֶּה אֶת חֲבֵרֶֽךָ בְּשַֽׁעַת כַּעֲסוֹ, וְאַל תְּנַחֲמֵֽהוּ בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁמֵּתוֹ מֻטָּל לְפָנָיו, וְאַל תִּשְׁאַל לוֹ בְּשַֽׁעַת נִדְרוֹ, וְאַל תִּשְׁתַּדֵּל לִרְאוֹתוֹ בְּשַֽׁעַת קַלְקָלָתוֹ

[Translation, with numerals added] (i) Do not appease your friend in his time of anger; (ii) do not comfort him while his dead still lies before him; (iii) do not ask him about his vow the moment he makes it; and (iv) do not endeavor to see him at the time of his degradation.

Of these teachings, the second is right on our topic. It’s practical advice too. Don’t get into someone’s hair while they are trying to organize the funeral of a loved one. With family members often separated from one another by entire continents and time zones, arranging a Jewish funeral nowadays often involves not only dealing with the chevra kadisha—the burial society—but with making urgent arrangements to transport the deceased to Israel. At times like this, it can be distracting for a mourning relative to face a battery of kindly and well-meant expressions of sympathy. You might even antagonize and anger him (Rabbenu Yonah). The commentary ascribed to Rashi gives a different practical explanation: the mourner’s grief and distress before the burial will be so great that he will be unable to absorb any consolation. As R’ Reuven P. Bulka puts it: “The wound is too fresh, the shock too deep and the receptivity too shallow” (in Chapters of the Sages).

But is this the message of the mishnah? Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) clearly thinks so:

“The truths of this mishnah are so self-evident that they do not require any commentary …The teaching of this mishnah is that one should always apply sechel (common sense) in relating to others”.

With respect to this position, which is taken by several commentators (including Rambam himself), I feel reluctant to accept it. It’s not normal practice among Tannaim to preserve as a teaching something that is so obvious that it needs no explanation. So do the words mean more than what we take at face value? And, if so, what? The Me’iri (Beit HaBechirah) has something to add: he takes all four teachings of R’ Shimon together as warning us that doing the right thing is only half the story: we have to get our timing right. The best of words or actions can cause untold distress if delivered at the wrong time.

I wonder whether, in contemporary society, we might add even more. Our words and deeds have an impact on not just others but on ourselves. If we get our timing wrong and our words or actions are regarded as being intrusive or inappropriate, we mind find our best intentions “rewarded” with an angry or hostile response. Feeling upset or embarrassed, we may in turn be discouraged from having another go and neglect important mitzvot when next the opportunity to perform them arises.

In the context of war, there is a further dimension to comforting mourners that we should bear in mind. Sadly there are many people mourning those who were massacred on 7 October as well as soldiers who have fallen since. Their deaths are painful to us all because they have been killed as Jews and/or Israelis. But there are also people who have died of old age and natural causes. We must be on our guard not to think of these as second-class deaths. To those who are left behind to mourn, the loss of a loved one is painful and cannot be repaired—whether that person fell gallantly in battle or died peacefully in
bed. We must not let the nature of death govern the quality of our comfort and condolences to those who are left behind.

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Middot at war 3: how do you pray?

“There are no atheists in foxholes” is a famous aphorism that has often been cited as a proposition that, at times of extreme fear or stress, even a person who does not believe in God in any conventional sense will find himself invoking the aid of a Higher Power.  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are a fighting force comprised of those who are deeply pious, those who are conventionally religious and those who have no commitment to any religion at all. We can scarcely imagine what goes on in the minds of its combatants when they are in action. Whether they pray, what they pray and what thoughts lie in their hearts are not for us to inquire.

Many of those of us who remain at home are also praying. We pray for the wellbeing of friends and family at the front, for their safe return, for the full recovery of those injured and for the comfort of those bereaved.

At Avot 2:18 Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel opens with two prayer-related teachings:

הֱוֵי זָהִיר בִּקְרִיאַת שְׁמַע וּבִתְפִלָּה. וּכְשֶׁאַתָּה מִתְפַּלֵּל, אַל תַּֽעַשׂ תְּפִלָּתְךָ קְבַע, אֶלָּא רַחֲמִים וְתַחֲנוּנִים לִפְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: כִּי חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם הוּא, אֶֽרֶךְ אַפַּֽיִם וְרַב חֶֽסֶד, וְנִחָם עַל הָרָעָה

[Translation] Be careful when you recite the Shema and with prayer. When you pray, do not make your prayers routine, but rather [an entreaty for] mercy and a supplication before the Almighty, as it states (Joel 2:13): ``For He is benevolent and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, and relenting of the evil decree'' …

This is the only explicit reference to prayer in the whole tractate of Avot. The concept of prayer has however been read into various other contexts. Thus in Avot 1:2, avodah (“service”)—the usual word for the bringing of offerings to the Temple—is sometimes applied to prayer, the form of service we adopted when the bringing of sacrifices was no longer feasible (as Rambam explains in the first perek of Hilchot Tefillah). Later, in Avot 6:6, we see a list of 48 means of acquiring Torah wisdom, but this list does not mention prayer either. 

At times of war many people, regardless of their religious, philosophical or political opinions, experience an urge to pray to a higher authority of one sort or another. For the observant practising Jew there is a standard set of prayers that cover, among other things, God’s responsibility for delivering salvation, justice and peace as well as relief from illness, pain and suffering. These standard prayers can be, and often are, augmented by additional prayers which may be quite spontaneous.

Using a regular formula for daily prayer offers the advantage of familiarity and fluency: you don’t have to ponder about what to say and you are less likely to stumble over the words when you recite it. But familiarity has a downside too: it’s easy to switch one’s focus from prayer to other thoughts. Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel warns of this but there is no easy way to prevent it. We humans are created with minds that effortlessly associate one idea with another and, once the chain reaction begins, it can be difficult to end.

Those of us who use a regular prayer formula may have another problem to face. Sometimes our hearts and minds can be so preoccupied with our objective that we do not even notice when we reach the relevant part of our template and sail straight past it. This has happened to me on numerous occasions, particularly when recalling or re-living an event for which I was grateful so vividly that I did not notice that I had prayed my way through the prayer of gratitude, Modim anachnu lach. To my embarrassment I have had similar experiences when praying for the well-being or speedy recovery of family and friends.

The Kozhnitzer Maggid (Avot Yisrael) alludes to the difficulty of focusing on one’s prayer when one’s mind is full of other things when he explains the final mishnah in the fifth perek (5:26). There, Ben He He teaches “According to the effort [or ‘pain’, ‘distress’], so is the reward”. For him, the effort comes from the task of keeping one’s mind clear when praying when so many thoughts and ideas persist in trying to enter it.

None of us can bend God to our will, and the words of our prayers—whether “set piece” entreaties or spontaneous utterances from the heart—are not a process for magically getting what we want. However, if we do keep our mind on our prayers we can at least say that we have truly recognized that there are things we want that we cannot achieve for or by ourselves, and that we concede that there exists a greater power in our lives than even our own.

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When war breaks out

We have all been shocked and distressed by the sudden turn of events that transformed the tranquil spiritual haven of Shabbat and the festival of Shemini Atzeret in Israel into a bloodbath of terror, chaos, violence and death. At the time of writing this piece, how this could have happened is beyond comprehension. We can only mourn the dead, console the living, take care to safeguard our own lives, pray that no more innocent human life should be lost on either side -- and remember to place our trust in God.

What does Pirkei Avot have to offer in a situation such as this? The Ethics of the Fathers is not a soldiers’ manual. One of its overarching themes is that of peace. We are taught to love and pursue it (Avot 1:12) since it is one of the three bases upon which the world endures (Avot 1:18) and one of the 48 qualities that enable a person to acquire Torah (Avot 6:6). Anger and violence are not condoned, and the praise accorded to strength is not that of the warrior but of the person who exercises self-control (Avot 4:1). Beyond that, the maxims and principles articulated in Avot are not suited to military conflict. Is it meaningful to expect a soldier to judge favourably the sniper who his aiming to shoot him, or to greet his enemy with a happy, smiling face?

But Avot will have an important place in the unfolding of the story of this tragic conflict. Eventually the events leading up to the Hamas invasion will be subjected to the close scrutiny of an official inquiry. This is where Avot is particularly relevant, since another of its overarching themes is that of justice—another of the bases upon which the world endures. The tractate contains substantially more references to the judicial process than it does to peace, and there is good reason for this. Peace is an end that we seek to achieve, while justice is both an end in itself and a means of achieving it.

Yehudah ben Tabbai teaches (Avot 1:8):

כְשֶׁיִּהְיוּ בַּעֲלֵי הַדִּין עוֹמְדִים לְפָנֶֽיךָ, יִהְיוּ בְעֵינֶֽיךָ כִּרְשָׁעִים, וּכְשֶׁנִּפְטָרִים מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ יִהְיוּ בְעֵינֶֽיךָ כְּזַכָּאִין, כְּשֶׁקִּבְּלוּ עֲלֵיהֶם אֶת הַדִּין

When disputants stand before you, consider them as being guilty; and when they leave your presence, regard them as innocent because they have accepted your ruling.

This mishnah does not overtly mention commissions of inquiry, but the principles it incorporates are highly relevant. In his Avot leVanim, R’ Chaim Druckman links it to the tail-end of a verse from Leviticus:

בְּצֶדֶק, תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ

“In righteousness you shall judge your fellow” (Vayikra 19:15).

Citing explanations of this Torah snippet by Rambam and Rashi, R’ Druckman builds on his theme that the “righteousness” referred to here covers the procedural aspects of a hearing as well as its decision. It is imperative to treat everyone who comes before a tribunal in a fair, open and impartial manner.

What does this entail? For one thing it means letting everyone have their say, not pressing some parties and witnesses to say more while seeking to stifle or curtail what others have to say. For another thing it means disregarding rank, status, fame or notoriety of those who come under scrutiny.

All of this is in practice more difficult than one might at first think. The public will, quite understandably, looking for people to blame. These may be politicians or those with military and intelligence expertise. They may be senior or junior, and either possessing military or government experience or lacking it. Both the public and the investigators will have been exposed, inevitably, to a large quantity of information promulgated by the media, some of which may be factual but which may also have been designed to shape public opinion.

The responsibility of those who examine the lead-up to this war, its conduct and possibly its consequences is immense, and the pressure to which they will be subjected may be close to overwhelming. Nonetheless, Avot urges them to take strength and conduct their duties in a manner that is absolutely transparent and impartial, so that there can be no accusations of cover-ups, no allegations of favouritism—and so that, with the truth at its disposal, Israel will be in a position to dispense true justice.

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