Drash for Shabbat Ki Tissa...Enjoy!

Beware the Golden Calf

In this week’s Torah reading, we recount what our Tradition considers to be a shameful episode in the wanderings of the People Israel.  With their salvation at the Red Sea fresh in their memories, really only weeks behind them, they are gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai awaiting Moses.  Their leader has ascended the mountain to receive God’s instruction.  Thinking that Moses is tarrying too long – after all, 40 days is a long time to be waiting – they’re worried.  And they’re a bit awestruck by the lightning, thunder, and smoke coming from the mountaintop.

                So they do the only natural thing – they ask Aaron, whom Moses has left in charge, to fashion a Golden Calf.  I mean, you can relate to it…can’t you?  Last time your children were frightened by a nocturnal thunder storm and came, quaking, into your bedroom, it was the first thing you thought of, wasn’t it?  Mummy, I’m scared from the thunder!  Now, now, child…let’s melt all our gold jewellery and make a calf!

                Okay, maybe not!  So, focusing on the exact action being taken, it is probably difficult for us to relate to our ancient forebears and understand why they did exactly what they did.  At times when we have been left frightened by events and circumstances, we’ve never thought to find comfort in the construction of an idol.  Or have we?

                If you’ve followed my pulpit thoughts over time, you know that I consider materialism to be our ‘idolatry of choice.’  When we are frightened or distressed, we have a tendency to want to buy something, to possess something new.  Even if we don’t articulate it quite clearly, we believe in our gut that the object of our desires, whatever it may be at the moment, will make us happy and solve our problems.  More than that, it will take away our pain, our fears, and our feelings of inadequacy.  It will save us.  Just as the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai thought that a Golden Calf would save them.  This is when materialism, the quest for material things, becomes a form of idolatry. 

An example.  A young man is filled with angst because the women are uninterested in him.  So he goes out and buys an expensive sports car, thinking it will attract women to him.  Now it may very well achieve that after a fashion.  But even if it does, the women so attracted will not bring him happiness!  But it’s far easier to go out and buy a sports car, than to search one’s soul and figure out exactly what one is missing and how to achieve it.  Obviously, this is just an example; one man’s sports car is another man’s yacht, is a woman’s expensive jewellery or wardrobe or whatever.

As I usually do when I speak on this subject, let me make the disclaimer:  I’m not advocating asceticism.  I'm not saying it is evil in any way to buy nice things for yourself or those you love, assuming you can afford them, and enjoy!  Rabbi Don likes to spend money as much as you do.  Most of you know that I have a little boat that I enjoy.  And we have nice tchotchkes in our home.  And I’m contemplating plunking down a considerable sum soon for another ukulele, this one a precision-crafted banjo uke. 

Our Tradition, and common sense, do not counsel self-denial.  But our Tradition does counsel against – and shouts out against loudly for all to hear – thinking that things will ultimately make us happy.  And we all know this instinctively.  And I can prove it.

Remember when you were young and got something new that you desired?  Do you remember how your grown-up relatives reacted when you showed them your new thing?  Unless I miss my guess, it was:  Use it in good health!  That’s what I heard all the time, whenever my parents bought me something new, whether a toy, a bicycle, or new clothes.  My aunts, uncles and grandparents – and the grown-up Jewish neighbours – would react the same way:  Use it in good health!  When I reached the age where I was buying things for myself, my parents would say concerning that new car, or that kayak, or the stereo…Use it in good health!  This is not just a quaint sentiment.  Rather, it is an acknowledgement of what’s really important in life.

So don’t be an ascetic.  Are the bills are paid?  Is the fridge is full?  Have you saved for a rainy day?  All that, and there’s still money in your pocket?  Buy something you’ve been desiring, and enjoy!  But understand that whatever that something is, it will not make you happy.  Mishnah Avot counsels us:  Who is rich?  The one who is happy with his portion.  Enjoy an indulgence, but happiness comes from appreciating the things that really matter.  Health.  Love.  (And I don’t mean the ‘love’ that comes from someone impressed by that new sports car.)  Relationships that are mutually supportive.  And knowing that God is there to inspire you to reach for the things that matter.  Even if knowing God, whom we cannot apprehend in a sensory way, is sometimes difficult.

Our ancient ancestors, during their wanderings in the desert and afterward, made a lot of mistakes.  Time and again, they gravitated toward the material and away from God, and when they did it did not avail them.  Let’s learn from their mistakes.  Let’s be careful about the Golden Calves that we tend to construct and think of as salvific.  Let’s focus on the right things, and therefore give ourselves a ‘leg up’ in the quest to achieve happiness.

Drasha for Shabbat Zachor

Remember Amalek – and Recognise Him in our Age

We have a string of special Shabbatot in the weeks leading up to the festival of Pesach.  Each of these special Shabbatot has a unique theme, with a special Maftir reading and a special Haftarah that support the theme.

                The Shabbat immediately before Pesach is Shabbat Hagadol – the Great Sabbath.  Traditionally, it is the rabbi’s opportunity to offer his community final instruction for keeping the special kosher laws for Pesach.

                Two weeks before that is Shabbat Hachodesh – the Sabbath of the Month.  That is, the month of Nissan, the month in which Pesach falls.  The name Nissan is considered related to nissim, meaning miracles, because important miracles occurred during the month.  We therefore take extra measures, on the Sabbath immediately before Nissan’s Rosh Chodesh to announce and prepare for the month.

                The Shabbat immediately before Shabbat Hachodesh is Shabbat Parah – the Sabbath of the Heifer, as in the Red Heifer.  The Maftir that week recounts the instruction for the Israelites to purify themselves with the ashes of a Red Heifer.  The lesson of this text is that we must purify ourselves, but in a spiritual way, for the upcoming festivals.

                We rabbis like these special Shabbatot, because they offer us an opportunity to veer from the weekly Torah reading in searching for a lesson for the day.  Because the Maftir readings are from a different place in the Torah, they provide an alternate text from which to draw a lesson.

                The Shabbat immediately before the occurrence of the festival of Purim, this Shabbat, is called Shabbat Zachor.  This morning, we read the special Maftir, from the 25^th chapter of Deuteronomy:

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt.  How, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.  Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.  Do not forget!

                Of course, the Amalek referred to here is an enemy that attacked the Israelites in a particularly cowardly way.  It makes sense to remind ourselves of this enemy on the Sabbath immediately before a festival when we celebrate our victory over yet another cowardly enemy, Haman.  He, who would have destroyed us by enticing other Persians into being his mercenaries with a promise of booty.  Moses and the Israelites, according to God’s will as recorded in the Torah, defeated Amalek.  Later, as documented in the Book of Esther, came Haman.  And we have been privileged to participate in the downfall of other cowardly tyrants through history.  Yes, we have suffered – and some days, we could be forgiven for thinking that nobody in the world cares whether we survive or not.  But time after time when we have been on the brink of destruction and extinction as a people, God has granted us the strength and the cunning to rise up and defeat those who malefactors who sought to destroy us.  So it makes perfect sense to prepare for Purim with Shabbat Zachor.

                But there is an apparent paradox in the last verse of the reading.  To repeat, we’re enjoined ‘you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.  Do not forget!’  How can we blot out the memory, yet not forget?

                The answer from the traditional understanding of the text is that ‘blotting out the memory’ means blotting out any physical trace of Amalek.  And yet, not blot out the knowledge that he existed and of how he tried to wipe us out.  Destroy, yet remember.

Now, I know that is not a pretty thought.  It certainly does not appear to jibe with the need to love the stranger among us as ourselves, and the need to be a peacemaker.  But Amalek is no ordinary enemy. 

Any warfare between two peoples is regrettable and can hopefully be averted.  But warfare with a an enemy which will not meet you as equals on a field of battle, who insists on fighting a terror war against your civilians and your weakest at that…such is a contemptible enemy.  With such an enemy you cannot really make peace.  Such an enemy does not desire your territory or to bring you under his hegemony.  His aim is genocide.  Against such an enemy you have two choices.  He destroys you or you destroy him.  Oh, there’s a third possibility; you can try to contain him.  But this will almost certainly be a temporary measure, because an enemy of the sort of Amalek will never let you live in peace as long as he exists.

With the other kind of enemy, one can make peace.  The enemy who, even though you are locked in a struggle that may lead to the one party is vanquished, respects you as you respect him.

During my years of military service, I found that military men, even when they are enemies, tend to respect one another.  As soon as the political leaders make peace, the military join together in a fraternity of brotherhood and respect.  I was serving in the intelligence service as a Soviet analyst in 1988 at the time of the signing of the INF Treaty.  That was the agreement where the two biggest world rivals agreed to eliminate whole classes of nuclear weapons, those of intermediate range.  INF, in reality heralded the beginning of the end of the Cold War.  Almost as soon as it was signed, bitter rivals who had so recently been facing one another down, each hoping the other would blink first, were drinking and sharing fellowship together.  Some of my colleagues in the USSR-watching ‘business,’ actually got to travel to Russia on verification team missions and spoke fondly of the friendships they’d quickly formed with their Soviet counterparts.  I was busy in the school house during those days and didn’t personally get to participate in those missions, but I can tell you that almost everybody in the uniform of the USA felt breathless at the sudden change, at the thawing in the Cold War.  Of course, the general population felt it also, but for the military man, who had been ready to be killed by a Soviet soldier only months before, it was an incredible time.

Likewise, with the Iraqis once Saddam Hussein was eliminated.  When I went to Iraq in 2006, I found warmth on the part of Iraqi regular soldiers, for us Americans and our coalition partners.  Each of us was ready to defend his country’s interests with his life, but once peace had been made we only wanted to stand together against common challenges.  Had it not been for a stubborn insurgency, Iraq in 2006 would have been a rather safe and happy place – not just for coalition soldiers, but for Iraqi civilians as well.  The soldiers are gone, and all of our countries that participated are happy to be rid of the burden of Iraq.  But sadly, the lot of the typical Iraqi only gets worse and worse thanks to intractable enemies of peace who will not be satisfied until Iraq turns into another Iran.

With some enemies, the kind of peacemaking I’ve been talking about is impossible because there is no common regard and respect.  Hamas is a good example of the latter.  Because Hamas denies the Jews’ humanity and fights in a cowardly manner, it is difficult at best to imagine reaching some kind of peace accord with them.  With the Palestinians in general, perhaps.  Many Israelis have friendships with individual Palestinians that are based on mutual regard and respect, and a mutual desire to transcend the political morass that divides their two people.  But until the Palestinians in Gaza are ready to rise up against their Hamas political masters who launch rockets indiscriminately against residential areas, and hide those rockets underneath schools and hospitals, then there is probably no way to make anything that could be described as ‘peace.’  Hamas are, unfortunately akin to Amalek and will never be a party to a real peace agreement.

This is why we are told to remember Amalek, especially since we blotted out every physical trace of him.  And why we juxtapose the memory of Amalek with the festival that remembers Haman, another enemy whom we blotted out physically.  We are well-advised to remember the lessons of the conflict with Amalek.  With some enemies you can make peace.  But with others, their behaviour informs you that peace with them is not possible.  You can destroy them.  Or they can destroy you.

Again, not a happy thought.  But it’s not a happy world, either.  We can pretend that everything is just fine.  That all enemies can be made into our friends if we’ll only reach out to them in friendship.  That someday soon, we’ll all be linking arms and singing, We Are the World.  But that will only happen in our dreams, until the time of universal redemption that we call ‘The Messianic Era’ comes.  So in the world as it exists, we must be careful not to expose ourselves to the enemies that would just as soon stick a knife into our backs as shake hands.

Amalek was, presumably, a real people, an historical fact.  But Amalek is also an archetype for the kind of enemy that strikes the non-combatant and denies your humanity.  Amalek the people is historical.  But Amalek the type is all around us.  In every age there is a potential Amalek.  It is our task to work for peace.  To make peace with others whenever possible.  But it is also necessary to recognise the Amalek in our own age and to remain vigilant.  It is our task to recognise the enemy with whom peace is impossible.  Recognise, and not let him destroy us.   

Drasha for Parashat Terumah...Enjoy!

Why Does the Tabernacle Matter?

A Drash for Saturday, 16 February 2013

In following the weekly Torah portions for the last few weeks, you’ve been treated to a tour of compelling narratives.  Moses’ election to lead the people Israel to freedom.  His encounter with Pharaoh.  The plagues.  The parting of the sea.  The encounter on Mt. Sinai.  The ‘Top Ten’ Commandments.  Legislation on ‘big’ issues that gives us pause to think.  And now this week’s reading…

“Bring me gifts…gold, silver, copper, blue. Purple, and crimson yarns, linen, goats hair, ram skins, dolphin skins, acacia wood, oil, spices, lapis lazuli and other stones…make me an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high.  Overlay it with pure gold inside and out, and make upon in a gold moulding around.  Cast four gold rings to be attached to its four feet…make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, then insert the poles into the rings on the sides for carrying the ark…”  As Yul Brenner famously said in The King and I:  Et cetera, et cetera.

From the sublime to the boring.  From the narratives of great events and concepts, to a set of precise instructions for building a box in which to carry a couple of stone carvings.  Well, guess what?  The rest of the book of Exodus is more of the same, except for a brief interruption for the Golden Calf.  Otherwise, from here on in it’s about detailed instructions for crafting objects that you and I have never seen.

Reading these parts of Exodus, how are we supposed to be inspired?  What is the lesson to take away, that we can apply to our lives in our own day and age?  Is there one?

          The instructions that we’re reading this morning come from well over 3,000 years in the past.  Jewish history has taken some interesting twists and turns since then.  Including our religious practices and our religious ‘space.’  From the Tabernacle to the Temple to the synagogue to Temple Shalom, dedicated on this spot in 1992.

          Many of you have travelled extensively.  Sometimes in the course of your travels you visit synagogues in various and exotic locales.  Synagogue architecture varies considerably from place to place.  Jewish buildings dedicated to communal worship in different parts of the world, are built to different stylistic motifs that evolve over time.  A synagogue in Berlin does not look like a synagogue in Calcutta, which in turn does not resemble a synagogue in Curacao.  Of course, a traditional synagogue has separate men’s and women’s seating sections, while a progressive synagogue does not.  And yet, there are common elements that link them all.  And if they weren’t there, the buildings could still be used for worship.  But no congregation would think about omitting those elements.  All of those elements are found in our sanctuary.  What are they?

          Some representation of the Ten Commandments.  An Ark for keeping the Torah scrolls, with some Biblical verse inscribed.  With a curtain and a constant light above.  And scattered throughout the sanctuary, certain symbols are considered required.  The Magen David – usually lots of them!  The Menorah.  Some symbolic representation of the Tribes of Israel.  The shape of the room varies.  The floor coverings vary.  The layout of the furniture varies.  But no congregation would dream of omitting any of the important symbols or objects.  Despite there being no Halachah concerning them, we know they’re supposed to be here.  When we design and build a space for Jewish worship, there are certain rules as to what’s included.  And these rules have evolved over centuries.

          I once built a new Jewish chapel.  In addition to working with the architect to hammer out the room’s size, shape and orientation, I got to design and commission all the furniture.  The Ark.  The reading table.  The matching parochet – the curtain for the Ark – and mappah – the covering for the table.  The ner tamid.  The commander gave me a budget, and I took the money and spent it!  The resulting chapel was very different from, say our sanctuary here.  It was more contemporary, more spare, more functional in a utilitarian way.  It had my own personality all over it.  But any non-Jew seeing that chapel and this sanctuary would surely recognise both as being executions of a worship space for the same religion, because despite my affecting a very different style, I included all the same required elements – the same ones you see in different renderings here.  Any Jew stepping into the chapel, whether its particular style was exactly to his liking or not, would recognise immediately that he was in a Jewish space and would feel comfortable.

          But in our reading this morning, the people Israel are about to build their very first Tabernacle.  There are no long traditions as to what it looks like.  As to what goes into it.  So the people have to be instructed.  Because it matters.

          It matters because God is the constant in the upheavals of life:  for our ancient forebears as for us.  The wandering in the wilderness epitomises the dislocation and disorientation that many of us can feel as we follow our lives’ courses.  Wherever we go, wherever we wander, however we organise our lives, God – and the way we approach Him – provides the unchanging anchor that gives us a sense of who we are and what our destiny is.  And our worship space, the sanctuary built by the local congregation for its use, is the visible reminder of that constancy.

          The people Israel have just been freed from Egyptian bondage.  Of course, they are grateful for their liberation.  But along with that liberation comes a need to live with a lack of constancy in their lives, and this is frightening to the people.  Many times during the sojourn in the wilderness, they petition Moses to let them go back to Egypt.  At least there, they knew what to expect on a day-to-day basis.  Moses knows that constancy is a very real need.  But he also knows that they will never live out their destiny as slaves to Pharaoh.  So he is introducing structure into their lives.  That structure is symbolic of God’s constant presence.  Of God’s watching out for them.  Wherever they roam, God is the constant.  Wherever they roam, if they sense God’s presence then they are home.

          We don’t often think of this concept, but we certainly feel it.  Whenever we visit a new place and go to the local synagogue, we mentally compare it to the place we know best.  If we attend a service elsewhere, we compare it to the service in our home congregation.  And this is not unique to Jews.  If you visit other faiths’ houses of worship in various places, you note the same constancy in décor and furnishing even though styles differ.  If you attend their worship services, you’ll note the similarities in the service from place to place.  A Pentacostal service in the USA, Australia, or Mali is going to be pretty much the same allowing for differences of language.  Likewise, our neighbours – the Latter Day Saints.  Look at their synagogue architecture from place to place, and attend services here and there, and you’ll definitely see the constancy.

So what about the non-religious?  Well, the non-religious person looks for this constancy in other facets of life and lifestyle, because it is a human need that transcends the differences between the religious and the non-religious.

This need for an anchor in life’s vagaries, and the account of how the people Israel achieved it, is for me a key lesson in these pages.  God’s instruction through Moses, and the people’s carrying out that instruction, provides them with the sense of place necessary to endure the wilderness.  They still find their sojourn difficult, and they still complain and rebel.  Resistance is part of the process.  That, plus we’re often stubborn in various ways.  But that doesn’t negate the reality that we need, and we seek constancy in our lives.  We build structure and stubbornly defend it.  And we should, because it matters.  The Tabernacle matters, and not just because it chronicles the activities of our distant ancestors.  It matters because of the lessons into our nature and needs as human beings, that it holds.  Shabbat shalom.

   

Drashot for Shabbat Mishpatim/Shekalim

Staying in Touch

A Drash for Friday, 8 February 2013

I’ve said before that our ability to communicate instantly – including such media as e-mail and social networking – is largely a blessing.  I know that spending time on line can be tedious.  It can also become all-consuming.  If we allow ourselves to become addicted to the virtual world, we might be too busy to enjoy the real world.  That’s a real danger, and for many younger adults it is very real.  For me, I’m happy to wade through what my ‘friends’ have posted when I have time.  When I don’t, I simply ignore them.

More than a few people have gotten in trouble for the things that they’ve said, or revealed about themselves, on Facebook and other networking sites.  There have been a few spectacular cases of ‘cyber-bullying.’  And people have had crimes committed against themselves because they trusted someone they ‘met’ on Facebook or elsewhere.  So one must be careful on line – just as with any other kind of encounter with someone you don’t know well.  There is no shortage of malefactors out there, looking for their next victim.

And then there’s the problem of spouting off too quickly, and then regretting it.  Once you’ve said something you regret, you can’t un-say it.  When it’s something you said in a face-to-face conversation or on the telephone, then one person has heard it.  But if you write it, especially in electrons, then ultimately the entire world can and will ultimately see it.  Just ask Anthony Weiner, the former congressman from Queens, New York.  So one must not get caught up in the immediacy of firing off a passionate e-mail, text, or IM.

Those who have a past that is questionable, or suspicious, should probably be extra-careful about their online presence.  You folks here at Temple Shalom know what I’m talking about here, so I’ll say no more.

But for the rest of us, one’s ability to find someone out of one’s past is a great blessing.  So I like Facebook.  And I wonder how we managed to live before it…and Google.

                Thanks to Google, one of my Navy shipmates from the 1980’s located me a few years back.  Thanks to that contact, and to Facebook, I became plugged in to a network of my colleagues from a time of my life when we were all young and stupid…a time that we shall always remember and cherish.  It’s great to be plugged in in this way, to keep the memories alive by reminding one another about our antics then – and keeping up with one another’s antic now.

                Another example.  Just the other day, I received a surprise e-mail.  It was from the daughter of old friends whom I have not seen in almost 30 years.  I was godfather to this girl at her christening, but I have been out of touch with her parents for a long, long time and never got to know their daughter.  But thanks to the internet, she suddenly tracked me down.  She had often been curious about the Jew who had an affectation for argyle socks and French cuffs, who was her godfather, so she took the initiative and found me.  Now I have found out that she’s a successful career gal, AND that she became a Jew five years ago.  And that she’s getting ready to make Aliyah to Israel later this year.  And that her mother studied for the Lutheran ministry at about the time I was training to be a rabbi.  And she’s now pastor of a small church in Wisconsin.  All this was in my in-box when I awoke on Thursday morning and opened my e-mail!

                So for me, as someone who doesn’t always work as hard as I should to keep in touch with friends from whom I’ve moved far, the internet and social networking are most definitely a blessing.  But what about those who have experienced trauma as a result of contacts made on such media?  I would say this:  keep your vital personal information as close to your vest as you can.  And never completely trust someone whom you don’t already know – unless they have references from others whom you trust.  And even then…be wary.  When I get ‘friend’ requests from people I simply cannot identify, I always question them.  Do I know you?  If it turns out it’s someone I indeed know, but forgot, I’m willing to ask forgiveness.

                But why not just eliminate the risk by staying away from the cyber-world?

                Of course, that’s a valid approach.  But unless you have something to hide, it’s better to enable others to find you.  A few years ago, I was looking for someone out of my past.  I wasn’t doing so with any malicious intent; I wanted to repay an old debt.  A letter came back to me, and an extensive search online turned up nothing.  I thought she had died!  But she was very much alive; she simple had no online presence.  No e-mail, no Facebook, no Google hits.  Several years later she contacted me.  And how did she find me?  Through my online presence, of course.

                So the electronic media present us with incredible opportunities – along with some danger.  And the way to account for the danger is the same wisdom that we should already be applying to every way that we communicate.  Learn to step back.  Consider.  Let the passions die down.  Communicate rationally.  Think about what we’re exposing of ourselves.  Avoid saying things we’ll regret later.  And be ready to ask forgiveness if we end up sending something we shouldn’t have sent.  But since we’re following all these caveats already anyway – aren’t we? – then we should not fear the electronic or mass media.  We should allow them to bless us with the possibilities of maintaining, or renewing, old connections.  With the possibility of forming new connections.  Because our connections are what make the difference between a life and an existence.  They make life worthwhile.  Connections are why most of you are here in shul tonight.  So, connect away!  Even in the cyber-world.  But after Shabbat!

 Murder---or Killing?

A Drash for Friday, 8 February 2013

                When I served as a military chaplain, people often asked me a question that threw me for a loop at first, until I was used to hearing it.  The question was, how a rabbi can serve in a war-making organisation.  This, since the Torah outlaws killing.  I mean, doesn’t it?  Thou shalt not kill; it is one of the Ten Commandments, or as I like to call them, ‘The Top Ten.’  Some of you have long known that ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is an inaccurate translation of the Hebrew Lo tirtzach.  Some of you know that the better translation is, Thou shalt not Murder.  Perhaps obviously, all murder is killing…but not all killing is murder.  The generally accepted definition is murder is, Unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another person.  That definition obviously excludes unintentional killing.  Or killing that’s intentional, but not with malice, as in for self-defence.  Although perhaps not so obvious, it also excludes some killing in battle, of enemy combatants.

                It also excludes the prescribed killing of a convicted murderer.  That is to say, killing carried out by order of a court of law.  Otherwise known as capital punishment.  Killing for capital punishment is not only allowed, but sometimes required by Jewish law, as we see in today’s Torah reading.  The reading gives the three offences, for which capital punishment is prescribed:  murder, abuse of one’s parents, and kidnapping.

                The death penalty for cases of Murder and kidnapping is logical.  Even those who don’t agree with capital punishment for any crime, would agree that these two crimes particularly stand out in their severity, especially when committed under what we now call ‘aggravated circumstances.’  A murdered person has, after all, been deprived of his life permanently by the killer’s malicious forethought.  The victim of a kidnapping has by definition experienced liberation, unless kidnapping is combined with homicide.  But the victim will likely be scarred for life by the brutality of the crime.  We don’t often think of one who has insulted or injured his parents as being quite on the same level as a murderer or kidnapper.  But think about it:  in Jewish law, one is commanded to have reverence for one’s parents, as for G-d.  That’s because your parents have literally created you as partners with G-d.  That makes the office of parent a lofty office indeed!  Therefore, insult and abuse to one’s parents is considered a particularly serious offence.

                Now, some people who oppose all capital punishment do so on moral grounds.  That is to say, they find the idea of state-sponsored killing of even the worst offenders to be anathema.  But many people oppose capital punishment on more pragmatic grounds.  This argument says that, no matter how long and drawn-out the process of executing the convicted criminal, it is possible that someone may be mistakenly put to death.  After all, we have seen cases where a man’s conviction for a crime has been overturned because of new, or previously-suppressed evidence, many years after the verdict.  It’s true that someone thus freed can never get back the years they were wrongly imprisoned.  But had they been executed instead, there would be no redemption at all possible.

                This is certainly a valid concern, and Jewish law accounts for it as well.  According to Halachah, one can only be sentenced to death on the testimony of two eye witnesses.  But the Rabbis put a further safeguard into the process.  The killer must have been warned that he faced death of he went through with the commission of his crime.  Some would say that these safeguards made capital punishment in Jewish law a near-impossibility.  It would have made it a theoretical threat for certain crimes, but almost never carried out.  And this is for some, the reasoning behind making executions so difficult for the state to seek and achieve, even in countries that do have capital punishment such as the USA.  That it would serve as a theoretical deterrent to certain crimes, even when rarely carried out.

                To those who suggest that capital punishment provides no proven deterrent to the crimes for which it can be applied, Dennis Prager offers a suggestion for an elegant test of this theory.  It should be decreed, and widely publicised, that capital punishment will be applied to murders that take place on odd-numbered days of each month – and the state will vigorously pursue executions for murders committed on those days.  Meanwhile, the state cannot pursue executions, only life imprisonment as a maximum, for such crimes committed on even days.  If the public is convinced that the state will, in fact do as stated, within half a year there should be a clear trend of higher incidence of murders on even days if capital punishment is indeed a viable deterrent. Obviously it isn’t going to happen!  Unworkable though it is, I think it is elegant in its logic and would likely show some result.

                When criminologists interview convicted criminals in prison or on death row, they often ask why the threat of prison or death did not deter them from their crimes.  And their answers most often fall into one of two categories.  The first is that the passions that led to the crime overpowered any logic as to the consequences.  The second is that so many convicted criminals escape either fully or in part from paying commensurate to their crimes, that there was no real deterrent.  This suggests that extreme punishments – whether death, or locking-them-up-and-throwing-away-the-key, can indeed serve as deterrents to extreme crimes.

                The Torah is sometimes accused of being a brutal document.  Passages like today’s reading often serve as fodder for thinking this.  As we also see in this week’s reading, the Torah puts limits on slavery.  Yet it does not take the position of completely outlawing slavery or capital punishment.  The wisdom of the Torah lessens the probability of killing for purposes of extraction of justice.  But it leaves the possibility intact.  I would argue that this is evidence of the Divine Wisdom that the Torah reflects.  Because remember, the conversation that Torah engenders is traditionally considered as Divine as the text of the Written Torah itself.  So the limits that the Rabbis placed on the extraction of the Ultimate Penalty, should be seen as a natural outcome of the Written Torah’s prescription.  The conversation, extending over the centuries and continuing even today, is what defines Jewish tradition.  So even as we debate and argue the morality of capital punishment in our day, we should understand that as part of G-d’s intent.  Shabbat shalom.