Nooses aren’t cute

If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and you hang him on a tree, you must not let his corpse remain on the tree overnight, but must bury him the same day, for an impaled body is an affront to God. You shall not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. (Deuteronomy 21:22–23)

It horrifies me that it needs to be said, but it does:

Nooses aren’t cute.

They’re not fashion statements. They shouldn’t be on accessories or birthday cakes or scarves. 

Jews are tasked not to revel in the downfall of our enemies. The Egyptians who kept us in slavery for hundreds of years? We celebrate our freedom on Pesach even while we mourn the loss of the Egyptians who enslaved us, placing droplets of wine like blood, like tears, onto our plates.

The Beit Din that killed one person in seventy years was called a “bloody Beit Din.” The sages disagree over capital punishment, and their arguments foreshadow today’s vigorous debates over the deterrent nature of capital punishment.

But underlying this is a rabbinic assumption: Human life is precious. Human death must, too, be treated with respect.

Nooses aren’t cute.

The Hezbollah pager fatalities aren’t a Purim costume, even as we embrace the ingenuity of Israeli intelligence. The death of Yahya Sinwar — an enemy of humanity, a truly evil man who the world is far better without — isn’t a meme.

When we mock death, treat it as a joke, we are guilty of defiling the land. If we glorify killing and suffering, are we any better than the people we claim are evil?

We kill because we have to. We kill because we are protecting our nation, our people. This, perhaps, I can accept, even as I pray we approach a day it is not the case.

But nooses on birthday cakes?

We need to be better than that.