Israel At War 5785: Vayishlach – Should the Many Suffer for the Sins of the Few?

Was it just to kill, enslave, and loot an entire city of people because of the crime of one?

This week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, relates how two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, reacted to the rape and kidnapping of their sister, Dinah, by the prince of Shechem. They not only freed Dinah, they killed every male, took the women and children as slaves, and kept the livestock as booty. Killing every male might have been necessary to retrieve their sister safely and forestall pursuit and retribution. But the rest fits the definition of collective punishment.

Collective punishment is when an entire group is punished for the actions of a few. Most of us would say that only perpetrators should be punished, not the group to which they belong.

Yet, sometimes the innocent are unavoidably affected by the actions of the guilty. In recent years, flash mob lootings of stores caused many to lock up merchandise, limit numbers of customers, or even close down, thus punishing both consumers and laid-off employees for the actions of a others. Most of us would prefer a minor inconvenience (merchandise locked up, stringent security procedures in airports) to a major one such as losing a neighborhood store or being hijacked, even if we ourselves did nothing wrong. We might call this not collective punishment, but collective consequences.

Other examples of what collective consequences are a curfew that inconveniences honest people to keep criminals off the street, or police firing teargas at a demonstration, affecting peaceful and violent demonstrators alike. It is not always feasible to identify and single out only those creating a problem.

Our Torah portion raises another question: is there such a thing as collective responsibility? Were the people of Shechem collectively responsible—and thus deserving of punishment—because they did not come to Dinah’s aid? Presumably, they could have attempted to interfere with the prince’s abduction, or at least helped him get his daughter back. Yet punishing Shechem with mass slaughter, enslavement, and theft seem disproportionate.

We are fortunate to live in a different society than that of Jacob and his family. If someone is kidnapped or raped, we have police to catch criminals and courts of law to punish them. Internationally, it gets trickier. Many countries have signed on to international law and courts, but some, not trusting other governments’ justice, have refrained. Questions of jurisdiction and extradition can delay or hinder justice, if it ever comes.

But in Jacob’s time, there was no UN or ICC (ineffective, biased, and corrupt as these institutions often are). He could not call on any police to help Dinah or punish her abductor. Force majeure was his only option. And responses that today are outlawed as collective punishment were the only way to deter an enemy from future assaults. That was the harsh necessity of those times if one wanted to survive.

Today, Israel faces a similar dilemma to Jacob’s. What should be the proper consequences for October 7th, and who should be held responsible?

In echoes of Dinah’s story, on October 7th, many women were raped by the brutal terrorist invaders, and some were abducted to Gaza. We know from released hostages that their captors sexually molested women and intimated they would marry some of them. The multiple rapes, along with the murders and torture, make the story of Dinah look like that of a fairy-tale princess in comparison. Just as Dinah’s rape engendered rage in her brothers (Genesis 34:7, 34:31), Israelis were outraged and horrified by this mass sexual violence.

Wanting revenge would be a natural reaction to these and the other hideous crimes committed by Hamas. Yet, though many have accused Israel of vengeful collective punishment against Gazan civilians, the charges are false. Israel has strived to avoid civilian casualties to the extent possible when the enemy has embedded itself in civilian infrastructure. Gazans, killed and maimed in bombardments, relocated multiple times, and living in tents with Hamas stealing humanitarian supplies, have suffered horribly, but not because Israel intended this.

What about collective responsibility? Gazans elected Hamas as their government years ago, and civilians participated in the October 7 assault. Many cheered as hostages were paraded through Gaza or beat them, and some even held captives in their homes. Did those who knew where hostages were held inform Israelis? As with the people of Shechem, even those who did not participate did nothing to help.

Our sages Maimonides and Nachmanides held that the culture of Shechem nurtured atrocious behavior. While the Torah records Jacob’s displeasure with his sons’ actions, there is no record of the people of Shechem condemning their leader. From this, our sages inferred that all the citizens of that city, not only their ruler, had some responsibility for crimes committed within their gates.

A society can either lift up or bring down individuals. Wicked people share in the benefits of good societies that they live in, while good people suffer in bad societies, from Sodom and Gomorrah to present-day Syria. Good societies actively encourage right behavior with civic education, moral instruction, and the rule of just laws. Bad societies encourage corruption, hatred, and wicked behavior through unjust laws and propaganda. The organization Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has done an outstanding job of documenting and exposing the Jew- and Israel-hating propaganda disseminated via mosques, schools, and media in the Palestinian territories, as well as in the Arab world generally and even in the West. There is no doubt that Gazan civil society was contaminated by this hatred.

So, if it is true that Gazans are collectively responsible for October 7th, what does that mean? Certainly, they have suffered greatly since Hamas’ attack. But these are natural consequences resulting from that attack, Israel’s right to defend itself against future attacks, and Hamas’ policy of embedding itself in the population. And because the society both tolerated and participated in murder, rape, and kidnapping, the law of collective consequences holds, and even those who did not participate and did not agree now suffer along with those who did.

Whether this suffering will deter Gazans from again attempting to wipe out Israel remains to be seen. Even the military defeat of Nazi Germany and the deaths of 1.5 to 3 million German civilians were not enough. A military occupation by the victors was necessary to turn society around. Germans had to be deprogrammed from years of antisemitic propaganda and brainwashing, and the Nuremberg trials had to hold perpetrators of atrocities to account. The same will need to happen for the people of Gaza, generations of whom have been raised on hate and urged to kill Jews and expel them from the land. Israel has discussed how to try captured October 7 terrorists. There has been talk of the need to occupy Gaza and radically re-educate Gazans.

This was not an option for Shechem, but it is an option today. Not only will Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad need to be destroyed, but the society of Gaza must be transformed—for the sake of Gaza as well as Israel. Only a better society will engender better people, who can envision living in peace with their neighbors.