Judaism is Not a Suicide Pact

Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel recently gave a talk at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus Summer Simcha 2026, where she discussed the difficulties of being a Jew in today’s Democratic Party. “As Democrats,” she said, “we now face a stark choice that involves the potential of voting for members of our own party who seek the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and place the Jewish diaspora in jeopardy.”

In her response to this challenge, she cited the Torah and noted that as Jews, “we’ve been chosen for a specific mission, to build a just society, to be a light unto nations, and to be pioneers of morality.” Nessel then presented a truly radical interpretation of this typically conventional piece of Jewish philosophy.

“I think,” she continued, “that means that we have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and yes, even our own survival.” Nessel argued that although we have “earned the right to continue on as a people in this world, . . . these are not ordinary times and the preservation not just of this country, America, our home that was once the envy of the free world, but also humanity is truly at stake.” In other words, we must abandon our people to save the world. Or so says Nessel.

In what may have been the most Christian message of Nessel’s speech, she asked Jewish Democrats to turn the other cheek in the face of “other Democrats who seem to have thrown us under the bus, despite our lifelong contributions to our party.”

To appease Nessel’s perceived coalition of the goodly right-thinking, she essentially asks Jewish Americans to forgo their connections to Israel, arguing, “What good is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?”

She then takes this idea to the next level through a call for national suicide. To lend credence to her zealous embrace of martyrdom, Nessel pointed to Queen Esther, who was “a hero for offering to sacrifice her own comfort and safety and her very life in order to save the Jewish People. It is perhaps up to us now to follow in her path and to sacrifice the comfort, safety, security, and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.”

Nessel’s apparent appeasement to those that would seek the destruction of her people reminds me of a famous concept in American law, namely that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” As Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds, and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”

Nessel likewise seems to welcome Jewish national self-sacrifice for the sake of her universalism’s untempered “doctrinaire logic.”  But Judaism’s universalist ideals (Biblical social justice, “a light unto the nations,” etc.) are inseparably blended with its national particularism and its recognition of each individual as a world unto their own.

I find this tripartite approach embedded in Rosh Hashanah’s Mussaf prayer, which is divided into three sections: Malchuyot (“Kinglinesses”), Zichronot (“Remembrances”), and Shofrot (the plural form of the word “shofar,” which is a trumpet-like musical instrument made from an animal’s horn). I view the Malchuyot section, which discusses the creation of the world and God’s mastery of the cosmos, as the liturgical touchstone for universalist ideals. Similarly, Zichronot relates to the memory of our ancestors, and is centered on the particular story of the Jewish people.

Finally, Shofrot describes the Divine Revelation at Mount Sinai, where the presence of God was accompanied by the sound of a shofar. We are told on Passover to feel as if we ourselves, each of us individually, left Egypt during the Exodus. Tradition likewise tells us that all Jewish souls—past, present, and future—were in attendance at Mount Sinai. And in the text of the Shofrot section, there is this line: “For you hear the shofar sound and listen to blaring, and there is none like you.” For me, the concepts discussed in this section call to mind individualism and the uniqueness of each person.

Constitutional law often speaks of liberty and security as fundamental forces standing in tension with one another. On occasion, compelling state interests arise that force us to rethink the balance between these greater ideals. As social scientist Thomas Sowell writes, “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.” But in all cases, while one value or the other may be limited, neither is abandoned.

Jewish philosophy makes the same case. We refuse to sacrifice one element of a fused identity for the sake of assimilationist ideologues. We need not concede our personal or national identities for the sake of our universalist values. These elements of ourselves are not in conflict, and anyone who asks that we abandon any of them is merely mandating conformity to their skewed beliefs. They demand the suppression of ourselves for the sake of their gray-uniformed universalism.

This Hellenist approach has dogged our people for millennia. “Let us be more liberal than the Liberals” is no more convincing than “Let us be more Greek than the Greeks.” Jewish identity cannot be whittled down into a strict ideology of popular social justice principles. To allow that to happen would be to accept the annihilation of our uniqueness, and therefore ourselves.

Nessel essentially asks, “What good is our homeland if we are all dead?” Implicit within that question is a demand to abandon our homeland so that we can appease those who hate us for having our own identity as a people. That demand is ancient, and was asked of Jewish leaders like Mordechai from the Purim story Nessel cited in her speech. “Conform or die” is hardly the most enlightened of rhetorical tactics. But if it comes down to that, Jewish tradition’s answer is to rely on God, stay true to our people, and if we die, well, then it was not so nice knowing all of you.

Judaism cherishes the uniqueness of each individual, the particular bonds of our peoplehood, and the aspirations of global transcendence. We can and must uphold all three simultaneously. We cannot afford to sacrifice any piece of ourselves for the sake of appeasing those who seek to belittle us. As we approach God (and perhaps ourselves) this Rosh Hashanah, may we merit the wisdom to learn how best to bolster these elements of Jewish tradition, and develop our relationships with our God, ourselves, our people, and our world.