The Immorality of Moral Indifference

There are three sins for which the Torah defines not only the act, but the person himself, as an abomination. In many other cases, the Torah describes the action as an abomination, yet stops short of defining the individual as such.

One of these three sins is that of offering one’s child as a human sacrifice to the Molech. The blatant disregard for one’s own child’s life in the name of religion is not merely a reprehensible act. A person who can calmly commit such an atrocity is himself an abomination.

In our modern world, thank God, it is quite uncommon to find parents offering their children as human sacrifices. Society has indeed come a long way since the days of antiquity.

There is, however, a society whose actions are in many ways even worse than those associated with the Molech, yet whose behavior is often justified—or at least minimized—by much of the world.

Fundamental Islamic movements have produced societies in which mothers and fathers willingly sacrifice their own children in an effort to injure and kill those they deem undesirable. These “undesirables” or “heretics” include babies, siblings, parents, and grandparents. Included among them, though certainly not limited to them, are every Jew.

After once again coming across a video of a mother expressing joy that her child died as a shahid while attempting to murder Jews, this disturbing reality came to mind.

For many people, it is deeply uncomfortable to acknowledge that such death cults and religious societies exist in the modern world. Even mentioning them forces one to confront a morally troubling reality. It is far easier to deflect, rationalize, or excuse their behavior. One hears explanations such as: their actions are merely a response to mistreatment; we must be misunderstanding them; they must have good reasons for their extreme behavior; or we cannot judge them because we ourselves are imperfect.

In fact, this is often the world’s reaction. Pointing out the underlying mentality and religious worldview that produce such behavior is frequently dismissed as inappropriate or racist. Even more troubling is the tendency to project those very same attitudes and crimes onto their victims. Doing so may make it psychologically easier to process evil, but it simultaneously creates a false sense of moral equivalence.

We see this phenomenon regularly in discussions surrounding Hamas and Israel. As an example, mere days after Israel published testimony concerning Hamas’s mass sexual violence on October 7, the New York Times rushed to circulate unsubstantiated accusations of Israel using dogs to rape Palestinians, with little regard for evidence or credibility.

For those who have experienced the effects of such ideologies firsthand, and for those willing to look reality in the face, there is no escaping a difficult conclusion: societies and people who embrace and celebrate such values place themselves outside the bounds of normal moral society.

What does this mean in practice?

It means that such individuals and societies cannot automatically be granted the benefit of the doubt. When questions arise regarding a conflict between a healthy society and a corrupt one, instinctively siding with the corrupt society is not moral neutrality. It is itself an immoral choice. Such judgments reflect more upon the observer than upon the healthy society being condemned.

Only when these attitudes and behaviors are confronted and corrected from within can such societies be regarded in the same way that we regard other moral societies—imperfect, certainly, but fundamentally committed to the value of human life.

In discussing the first murder in history, after Kayin killed Hevel, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes (Genesis 4:10):

“The earth entrusted to man—’Adam’—upon which he is to live a life consecrated to God, is called ‘Adamah.’ Yet it remains ‘Adamah’ for a person only so long as he respects the rights of every other human being created in the image of God. For the murderer it is no longer ‘Adamah.’ Rather, the earth as ‘Adamah’ calls upon God to execute justice upon the one who has destroyed a human being.”

The message is clear. Although we are born as Adam, our status as Adam is not unconditional. One’s standing as a human being endures only so long as one honors the covenant that binds humanity together. When a person destroys that bond through the destruction of others, he forfeits the very status that gives him his place within the human community.

It is my hope that we find the moral courage to confront reality honestly and without illusion, and in doing so, help make the world a better place, one step at a time.