Killing People: A Matot-Mas‘ei DvarTorah

(as given by me at shalashudiss yesterday)

This Last week's double parsha begins began, after a short discussion of vows, with the War Against Midyan. God told Moshe to avenge the Israelites on the Midyanites for what the people of Midyan did when they teamed up with Mo’av and Bil‘am a few parshas ago in order to harm Beney Yisra’eil. And so Moshe commands the people to exact God's vengeance on their enemy, and they go out to do battle.

They go out to war and they kill all the men, and drag the women and children back to the encampment, along with all of their stuff. When they arrive, though, Moshe was enraged, and yelled at the leaders of the army — "you kept the females alive?!" And so they then go on to kill all the adult women and the little boys.

When I read this story, I was literally nauseous. And all the fancy explanations, all the highfalutin' apologetics, flew out the window. Because this is human life we're talking about. And the only explanation that still stood at the end was that God must know what God is doing. If you believe that God creates the world, weaves history, inspects hearts and minds, then you have to trust that God knows what needs to be done. And that Moshe, who talked directly to God — although he did make a few mistakes in his career — can be trusted to know what God wants.

Take that image, that queasy feeling, put it aside.

In the second half of the double parsha, in Mas‘ey, there's another discussion of killing — the laws of premeditated and accidental homicide. God tells Moshe to appoint cities of refuge, so that a murderer who took a life unintentionally, can flee there. The term used for the accidental killer is רוצח מכה נפש בשגגה. One more time is the term מכה used — during the process of judgement between the killer and the victim's blood-avenger. Every other time the killer is mentioned, though, the term used is רוצח. Murderer. The community will save the רוצח... But if the רוצח leaves the city of refuge... If the blood-avenger murders the רוצח... The רוצח may return to his territory...

The prototypical example of a רוצח בשגגה is someone swinging an axe. They're cutting wood, and somehow don't pay attention to the fact that the axe is broken, or weak — and in the process of swinging the axe, the axe head flies off the handle and chops someone's head off. The killer isn't an 'accidental killer' — the Torah only calls them that one and a half times — but an unintentional murderer. You don't just get off because "too bad, accidents happen." If you kill someone, even if you didn't mean it, you're a murderer. A רוצח. Human life is just that important. It's not something that you can play around with, not something that you can get out of simply because you didn't mean it.

Take that image, the unintentional murderer swinging their axe, put it aside.

Right now we're in the Three Weeks between the 17th of Tamuz and the 9th of Av. A time of communal mourning for the Destruction of the Beit Hamiqdash, the Destruction of Israelite Independence in our Land, and the Exile in which we still live. They say that what caused the second Temple to be destroyed was שנאת חינם — baseless hatred, free hatred, worthless hatred. When I look around the world, I see a lot of hatred. And this hatred is usually expressed in words.

People say things, very serious things; they make statements all the time, and I don't know if they really think about what they're saying. Because either they're not really thinking about what they're saying, and using words that if they thought before they spoke, they would realize shouldn't be used; or they actually do mean what they say, and that's even more frightening.

For example, the word עמלק. People throw this word around like it just meant "slimy bastard" &mdash but ‘amaleiq has very serious halakhic implications. It has a definition! When you call a group of people who you've never met personally עמלק, what you are saying is that you believe that you have not just the right, but the obligation, to go out and slaughter them. Men and women. Combatants and noncombatants. Children. Babies. All of them. Because that is what עמלק means. We give words meaning, and so we can't claim that we didn't mean what we said. And it's not like people only call anonymous foreign masses ‘Amaleiq — leaders of communities have thrown that word against others in their own community who have nothing more than an ideological difference of opinion with them! For this you threaten the lives of them and their children?!

Another recent example which has been going around the Internet lately — an incident where one Israeli government official called another one a Nazi (simply because he was trying to follow the law and do the right thing, as opposed to what the other guy wanted), and because the one who was called a Nazi lost his family in the Holocaust, he slapped him. The word Nazi means something. It means something very specific. Like ‘Amaleiq, it's not a word that you can just throw around as if it meant nothing more than 'slimy bastard' — and it even seems that the guy who used the word knew what he was saying, and meant it!

A third example, which may have occured a while ago, but I only heard about it recently. I don't keep up much on politics (because it hurts my soul) but it seems that an American political pundit or commentator said that a certain politician deserves to be blown up in a terror attack. I assume this is because they think the politician is too soft on terrorism, but please! Come on! To actually say that you want someone to get blown apart in a terrorist attack? Once again, either they weren't thinking about what they were saying, or they were thinking, and inexplicably decided to say it anyway.

Words have meaning, and you can't ignore that. If you call someone עמלק, you are saying that all the halakhic definitions and ramifications of that status apply to them. If you claim that someone deserves to be killed, you really are saying that that person deserves to have their life taken away.

Hhazal say that כל המלבין פני חברו ברבים כאילו שופך דמים. One who embarrasses another (such that the blood drains from their face) — it's as if they killed them and spilled their blood.

But words can kill in much more than metaphorical ways.

The pen is mightier than the sword because the pen drags the sword along with it in its wake.

Just open up the newspaper and you'll see people killing with their words. Every day, people make statements. "So-and-so is a rodeif." "So-and-so is an infidel." "So-and-so deserves to die."

And people take these statements at face value! After all, if words mean anything, why would you assume that people don't mean what they say?

And if you open up the newspaper, you can see every day people accepting their own, or other people's statements, and acting on them. Killing people. Hurting people. They've come to the conclusion that someone deserves to die, and they take the completely logical step of remaking the world into how it's supposed to be.

So, I guess the moral of the story is this:

Be very careful what you do. When you're swinging that axe, pay attention. Pay attention to whether it's built correctly, whether it's in good working order, whether you know who and what is around you. Because if it breaks and hurts someone, it's your fault.

And be very careful what you say. Words have meaning. And when it comes to human life, just as in action, words have very serious consequences. We need to be very very careful never to act or speak as if we know who deserves to live and who deserves to die. Because someone — whether us or someone else — may very well take our words at their meaning.

We are not God.
We are not the Creator of Worlds.
We cannot weigh reality in the palm of our hand.
We do not know who deserves to live and who deserves to die.

And we are not Moshe.
We do not speak to God face-to-face.
We do not see the universe through pure God-colored lenses.
God does not tell us the contents of God's heavenly record books.

And we are not Pinehhas either.
According to Hhazal, Pinehhas did not act on his own initiative a few parshas ago, when he followed Zimri and Kozbi into the chamber, and speared them through. He asked Moshe. He asked the prophet. He asked the person with the direct line to God.

Because human life is deadly serious.

We have to be very very careful.

If you think you know who deserves to live and who deserves to die, and you use words, use language, to impose your evaluation on reality, you have already impacted on human life. Whether or not anyone acts on your words.

And if you think you know who deserves to live and who deserves to die, you're wrong. It doesn't matter how right you think you are. You're wrong. Because you're not Pinehhas. And you're not Moshe. And you're certainly not God.

In the end, just like our poor lumberjack negligently swinging their axe, you're nothing but a רוצח.