Ethics of joy: Celebrating the death of evil people

Do you remember where you were when you heard Osama Bin Laden was killed by Seal Team 6? Honestly, I do not remember, but I remember how I felt: a mixture of elation, sadness remembering the victims of 9/11, and more complicated emotions.

Looking back in time, we can take a look at how we marked the death of Osama Bin Laden in America. There were impromptu celebrations near the White House in Washington and ground zero in New York after the news broke. In an article from NPR following the event, a young woman, Laura Cunningham, “gripping a Budweiser in her hand and sitting atop the shoulders of a friend — was part of the crowd at ground zero in the wee hours Monday. As people around her chanted “U-S-A,” Cunningham was struck by the emotional response. She told New York Observer: ‘It’s weird to celebrate someone’s death. It’s not exactly what we’re here to celebrate, but it’s wonderful that people are happy.’”

The author of the article then asks a question just as relevant today as it was back then, “Those mixed feelings get at the heart of the moral ambivalence of the moment: Of course there is relief that an evil mastermind cannot commit acts of terror in the future. But is it ever a good idea — from a spiritual or philosophical standpoint — to celebrate with beer and good cheer over the death of anyone, even a widely acknowledged monster?”

The Jewish world was faced with this issue last week as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran last week with a bomb planted by Israel. The question is, are we allowed to celebrate the death of an evil person, and why should we care about this question anyway? I want to deal with the first question, as the answer may seem surprising.

The text most often used to promote the idea that, as Jews, we should not celebrate the deaths of our enemies whom we deem to be evil is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 39b (letters in bold are the actual text; everything else is commentary)

The Gemara comments: As Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman says that Rabbi Yonatan says: What is the meaning of that which is written in the passage describing the splitting of the Red Sea: “And the one came not near the other all the night” (Exodus 14:20)? At that time the ministering angels desired to recite a song before the Holy One, Blessed be He. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: My handiwork, i.e., the Egyptians, are drowning in the sea, and you are reciting a song before Me? Apparently, God is not gladdened by the downfall of the wicked.

Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina says: He, i.e., God, does not rejoice in their downfall, but He does cause others to feel joy. The Gemara comments: Accordingly, the language of the verse is also precise, as it is written: “And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will cause rejoicing [yasis] over you to cause you to perish” (Deuteronomy 28:63), and it is not written: Will have joy [yasus]. The term “yasis” connotes causing joy to others, not that God will experience joy Himself. The Gemara affirms: Conclude from this inference that it is so.

What we learn from this is, contrary to popular belief, it seems like we are allowed to feel joy, but God does not share in that celebration. Can we feel joy after the death of an evil person? The answer, seemingly, is yes.

This brings me to the next question, which is more nuanced and complicated: should we celebrate the death of an enemy, especially one as evil as Ismail Haniyeh? Some have argued that celebrating the death of an enemy like Haniyeh is a way to teach that there is good and evil in this world. Our celebration is a way to highlight this difference. One may think that we would not need to make this point; the evil person’s acts can speak for themselves. Unfortunately, this is not so in the world we live in. On social media, I saw some progressives mourning Haniyeh with the terms ‘rest in power’, and headlines across the mainstream media identified Haniyeh as a ‘moderate’. It goes without saying, but Ismail Haniyeh was not a ‘moderate’ compared to good and moral people in this world, and it is questionable whether he was a moderate even among his peers. But is publicly celebrating his death the best way to make this point?

I believe the proof of Jewish behavior is in what we have seen, or better yet, did not see following Haniyeh’s death. I imagine that some Jews, a small amount, celebrated in public and put it on social media, but this cannot be compared to what occurred on the Arab street after 9/11 and October 7th when widespread celebration was seemingly ubiquitous on television (and social media in the case of October 7th).

In other words, if there was any celebration, it was a bug, not a feature.

As a people, we ask ourselves a question that few if any other peoples’ ask themselves: What will the non-Jews think of us, but even more importantly, what will we think of ourselves after we do something that we may not proud of in retrospect? In other words, should we do it just because we can?

Nachmonides, a noted medieval Biblical French commentator, commenting on the line from the book of Leviticus 19:2 “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.”

“According to my opinion, this separation is not to separate from sexual transgressions, like the words of the rabbi (Rashi). But [rather], the separation is the one mentioned in every place in the Talmud where its [practitioners] are called those that have separated themselves (perushim). And the matter is [that] the Torah prohibited sexual transgressions and forbidden foods, and permitted sexual relations between husband and wife and the eating of meat and [the drinking of] wine. If so, a desirous person will find a place to be lecherous with his wife or his many wives, or to be among the guzzlers of wine and the gluttons of meat. He will speak as he pleases about all the vulgarities, the prohibition of which is not mentioned in the Torah. And behold, he would be a scoundrel with the permission of the Torah (Naval Birshut HaTorah. Therefore, Scripture came, after it specified the prohibitions that it completely forbade, and commanded a more general [rule] – that we should be separated from [indulgence of] those things that are permissible…”

Here we see what it means to be a Jew, and our commandment to be holy in this world. I think back to the old Hebrew National advertisement that I saw on television as a child, “We answer to a higher authority.” How we act in this world as Jews reflects on God, and every single Jew in the world.

Can we celebrate the death of an evil person? The Talmud tells us, yes, but should we? Nachmonides would likely say no. This does not mean that we do not publicly disparage this person, and it is important that others know that this person was evil and deserves no praise. At the same time, celebrating the death of an evil person says more about us than it does the evil person. We can feel relief, and yes, joy, that an evil person is removed from the world, no longer being able to hurt innocent people, but how we show that joy to the world is what we must think about it because that tells us who we are.

As we learn in the Ethics of our Fathers, “Who is strong? One who subdues his (evil) inclination, as it is written (Proverbs 16:32): “Greater is he who withholds his wrath than the hero, and the ruler of his spirit, than the conqueror of a city.” I truly believe, considering our long history of persecution, we are amongst the strongest peoples in the world, but it is how we show that strength that makes us who we are.