Humanity, Anger and Justice
For the last four summers, I have attended the ten day Rabbinic Torah Seminar at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. One hundred and seventy-five rabbis from around the world came together this summer to study Jewish texts and wrestle with some of the most difficult philosophical questions facing Israel and the Jewish people today.
We learn alongside some of the brightest minds in the Jewish world. This summer, our theme was “Being Human.” One of the most memorable sessions for me was “To Be Human: Anger and Compassion,” taught by Masua Sagiv.
Masua opened her lecture with a remarkable story that moved me to the core. Here it is.
There was a horse trader in 16th century Germany named Michael Kohlhaas. A nobleman illegally seized two of Kohlhaas’s horses and abused them. Kohlahaas repeatedly tried to seek justice through the legal system. But because the nobleman had important connections, Kohlhaas was no match for him, and so the case went nowhere.
Kohlhaas became obsessed with obtaining justice and decided to take the matter into his own hands. He organized a violent rebellion. His quest for justice became destructive and caused people considerable suffering. He was captured and sentenced to death.
But then, remarkably, just before Kohlhaas was executed, he was told that his lawsuit had finally been decided in his favor. He received compensation for his losses, and, most importantly, the nobleman was sentenced to two years in prison.
The Elector asked Kohlhaas before his execution, “Are you satisfied?” And Kohlhaas replied he was overjoyed. His deepest wish was fulfilled but he had to pay the price for his own crimes. Kohlhaas went calmly to the execution block and was beheaded. He died content because, at the very moment of his death, justice had finally been done.
We can only imagine how much anger this man was harboring if the news of justice were enough for him to accept his own death. In other words, for him, achieving justice was more important than preserving his own life.
In her article “What is Angering Michael Kohlhaas?” Eva Illouz writes, “Anger raises a troubling moral question: when should we stop defending our sense of justice? Anger raises the possibility that a world of Kolhaases – a world of people obsessed with retribution and justice – would become a world drained of grace and humanity.”
What Eva Illouz is saying is that at some point, even if you are wronged, you cannot let anger get the best of you because it has the potential of distracting you and anyone close to you – your family, your friends.
At the same time, if we suppress our anger, that too could lead to a disaster.
Maimonides seems to contradict himself. In Mishneh Torah, he calls anger an “exceptionally bad quality,” yet elsewhere he says that we should not become “like the dead, without feeling,” and that anger may be appropriate when something serious demands it.
Perhaps Maimonides is teaching us that the answer is neither uncontrolled anger nor indifference. We need to feel anger when injustice demands it—but we must remain in control of our anger.
Similarly, Hannah Arendt, who was a German and American historian and philosopher, writes in her work “on violence,” that “rage is by no means an automatic reaction to misery and suffering and such…Only when our sense of justice is offended do we react with rage.”
So what happens when the injustice is real? Kohlhaas’ demand for justice was legitimate, yet his anger, expressed with force, ruined him in the end.
Now imagine that injustice has been committed against an entire people, in which case the anger is not only justified, but necessary.
Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023 not only caused Israel tremendous trauma, the loss of multiple human lives, and the creation of a huge rift between government and Israeli citizens. It also caused Israelis to suffer a huge moral injury.
Hamas forced Israel into circumstances in which maintaining its moral ideals became extraordinarily difficult—and the resulting war damaged Israel’s sense of moral certainty.
Israel was attacked in the most fundamental way: adults and children were murdered, men and women raped, tortured, and hostages, dead and alive, injured and not, young and old, were taken.
In addition, this attack brought back the trauma of past pogroms and the Holocaust. In a 1969 press conference, Golda Meir stated, “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”
After the attack, (however late the response was) Israel had no choice but defend its population by attacking Hamas. Israel had to fight – but by doing so it placed itself in a morally painful position.
Israel was accused of a disproportionate response. It is true that due to the dense population in Gaza, there was significant damage to the buildings, which led to multiple civilian casualties. Given that the fighting took place in urban areas, with many Hamas operatives placed among the population, and knowing that many of the tunnel entrances were located in living rooms as well as in children’s bedrooms, camouflaged by toys, there was no way for the Israelis to avoid harming civilians.
Nevertheless, many Israeli war experts have been carefully analyzing each building, the number of civilians populating it, and the actions that may have avoided even worse devastation.
There is no question that the Gaza residents suffered tremendously. There were injuries, death, hunger – people who survived had no shelter, clean water, or food.
Israel took measures to transport the basic necessities to the civilians but Hamas consistently took hold of the trucks, dividing the goods among its operatives and selling the rest to the civilians for an astronomical price. At the same time, Israel was accused of starving the population. In spite of these accusations, Israel continued bringing in food and medicine, while many hostages were still in the Gaza dungeons.
And as all of this was going on, Israelis were constantly facing the dilemma of whether to eliminate Hamas by force, risking more and more civilian casualties, or to declare a ceasefire, giving in to the pressure of world leaders, while recognizing that Hamas would launch another attack as soon as they could regroup.
Every news source in Israel broadcast this debate. And this is why I am so proud of Israel. Despite its many flaws, including a corrupt government, the extremism of settlers, the refusal from IDF service among the Haredi, and a tremendous political rift in society, there still remains an ongoing debate on utilizing appropriate war tactics as well as an expectation that the army should employ methods to avoid casualties whenever possible. In other words, despite Israel’s justifiable anger against their enemy, they still were conscious of their moral responsibility.
That is why the screening of the documentary “Naza” at the Venice International Film festival came as a punch in the gut to the majority of Israelis. Naza is a short for nezek agav, which means ‘collateral damage.’ Well, the film certainly brought ‘collateral damage’ to a nation already demonized by so many world leaders.
The movie directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Shore also co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land.”
In this documentary the filmmakers interviewed twenty-four soldiers, claiming that some were in Israel Defense Forces intelligence units and others were military insiders. The premise of the documentary is to show that the IDF were told to intentionally seek ways to eliminate the entire Gaza population.
There was a twenty-five minute ovation following the screening of the movie and it received a Special Jury Prize. The fact that it was produced by two young Israelis gave legitimacy to the message and further strengthened the claims of those who continue to promote the belief that Israel is committing genocide.
I was angry, Israelis were angry, and many Jews around the world were angry as well that one of “their own” portrayed Israel in such a light, playing into the hands of a growing antagonism toward Israel. Further, any action encouraging this attitude legitimizes the demonization of all Jews, accusing them all of being Zionists, which is synonymous with colonialists, which results in labeling all Jews as social pariahs, thereby giving a green light to antisemitism.
Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman, President of the Shalom Hartman institute and author Yossi Klein Halevi recently discussed at length the “intense cultural and political fallout” surrounding “Naza.”
They grappled with a critical question, asking “what happens when a film about the war becomes part of the war—and when Israel’s moral legitimacy itself becomes the battlefield?”
“Naza,” in their opinion, encouraged the world’s already biased perspective of Israel. They are concerned that this “work of art” could become a weapon in the larger struggle over Israel’s legitimacy.
Yossi, who watched the movie, expressed concerns about the precision and legitimacy of the facts it presents. He has stated that he believes the information they present is baseless. Yet, regardless of his concerns, the world will be watching this movie and absorbing every piece of information as fact.
He also addressed the twenty-five minute standing ovation, which he compares to Stalin’s authoritative rule, when the Soviet people were forced to applaud at the conclusion of a lecture, a movie, or a party speaker, until their hands hurt from clapping. He says that, much like Stalin’s forced applause, this type of ovation was staged specifically to validate the movie and contribute to delegitimizing Israel.
Their discussion also revolved around the question of whether Israel can fight a necessary war and still retain its moral identity, which is fundamental to its existence.
These themes were prevalent during all post-October 7 seminars: ‘can Israel conduct a just war while still having responsibility for the consequences of that war for civilians?’
What Hamas succeeded in doing was to create a war in which Israel’s physical survival became inseparable from a struggle over Israel’s moral identity.
The question is, how can Israel continue to fight its enemies without losing its morality?
And Hamas understands how deeply the moral dimension matters to Jews and to Israel!
So tonight, on the most significant night on the Jewish calendar, when we look inward, examining our souls, I want to ask: How does Israel remain Israel when it has been forced to fight a war like this? How do we maintain our morality, when our enemy doesn’t show any moral obligations – even toward their own people? How does Israel protect itself against an enemy who doesn’t value human life? How should Israel fight without descending to its enemy’s level?
In war we cannot control what our enemies do, but we can remain responsible for who we are. And I believe that, no matter what, in every circumstance, Israel continues to struggle to do the right thing.
On Kol Nidrei we ask God to release us from our vows. We don’t ask God to release our vow of commitment to justice but we ask God to release the things that prevent us from pursuing justice with humanity.
Tonight perhaps we can ask ourselves not only what we want to be forgiven for, but what we need to let go of.
We don’t have to let go of our love for Israel. We don’t have to let go of our commitment to Jewish safety. We don’t have to let go of our outrage over October 7, or antisemitism, or injustice.
But perhaps we can let go of the vows that anger stirs up in us, including the vow to never listen; the vow to never trust; the vow to never see humanity in others.
And it is OK to be angry when we are wronged or when we see an injustice – it makes us human. But we must learn to control our anger, so that anger does not control us.
Michael Kohlhaas died contented because justice had finally been done.
May we never have to sacrifice our humanity in order to pursue justice.
And may this Kol Nidrei help us release the anger that consumes us, while preserving the courage that helps us to defeat injustice.
G’mar chatimah tovah.
