The Jewish Power Blog: Complicity and Resistance

When God reveals to Abraham the plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah on account of their wickedness, Abraham is troubled, for his cousin Lot and his family live there.  Abraham poses a challenge to God on a theoretical level: how can You destroy the righteous minority together with the wicked?  God assures Abraham that no righteous will be punished.  And when the cataclysm comes, God takes care to rescue Lot’s family (Gen. 18-19).  The implication is that everyone in the two cities was wicked except Lot and family, so in the end everyone got their just desserts.

However, it is interesting to note that Lot was an immigrant to Sodom, and the story of the angels’ visit makes it clear that he was very much aware of the culture of the place, and was even dragged by his neighbors into making a horrendous forced choice (sacrifice the guests – or sacrifice his daughters!).  And yet he had lived there for years, and, even after all this, was reluctant to leave.  Wasn’t he somehow complicit?  Was he worthy of rescue?  Did he really bear no responsibility for his plight – and that of his daughters?

This question, of the conflict between the power of a group (nation) and that of the individual belonging to it, has been much in the minds of many Israelis – and of Jews all over the world – for the past year (or even for several decades).  What do we do when the actions of the Jewish state seem to us to violate our understanding of what Judaism is supposed to stand for?

When the nation – especially a democratic nation – acts, it acts in my name as a citizen.  What are my options – and my obligations – when that action violates my own moral identity?   Is the Torah’s obligation to reprove a sinner relevant here?  “Reprove your kinsman and incur no guilt because of him.”  (Lev. 19:17)  Among various rabbinic interpretations of this verse, consider that of Ramban (Spain, 1194-1270):    “‘Incur no guilt…’  lest you become complicit in his sin by not intervening through reproof.”  Ramban is surely thinking of the Talmudic admonition: “Anyone who could protest the acts of their household and fails to do so is guilty of the sins of their household; and likewise for the sins of their city; and similarly for the sins of the whole world…” (Bab. Talmud Shabbat 54b)

This suggests that I have an obligation to protest.  But how?  What are the limits of that obligation when my voice is ignored by the collective?  Elsewhere, the Talmud seems to allow for such a limit:  “Just as one is commanded to reprove when it might be accepted, so one is commanded not to reprove when it will not be accepted.” (Bab. Talmud Yebamot 65b).  Does that mean that if I see that demonstrations are only causing the authorities to dig in their heels, then I should just stay home?  And if not, at just what point along the line of escalation – from election campaigning to peaceful protest to civil disobedience to blocking roads/burning tires to throwing rocks to armed insurrection – do we cross into forbidden territory?  How extreme an act of reproof/resistance is required of me to avoid complicity?  Is there value in symbolic, personal acts alone (e.g., Hans Fallada’s powerful novel, Alone in Berlin)?

Twentieth century prophet/provocateur Isaiah Leibowitz defended civil war:  If one is deeply committed to a certain value, at the level of “life and death,” then they must fight against anyone who would negate that value, who would deny them that which they see as worth living for.  Why does it matter if the two adversaries are members of the same nation or not?  Unless of course one argues that the nation itself is the highest value, beyond all other values – but that is the essence of fascism.

And indeed, Jewish history is punctuated by not a few strident, even violent internal conflicts between different ideologies: the episode of the spies (Num. 14); Korach’s rebellion (Num. 16); Jeroboam’s secession (I Kings 12); the Maccabees (note that the first casualty of the Chanukah revolt was a Jew, killed by Mattathias [I Maccabees 2:24]); the zealots in the revolt against Rome; and modern conflicts over Sabbateanism, Hasidism, Reform, and the underground militias in Mandatory Palestine.

Perhaps Abraham’s departure from his father’s house for an unknown destination (Genesis 12) can be seen as another kind of response to this predicament – i.e., perhaps he was driven out by his own moral revulsion at the society around him. And Rambam indeed offers “getting out” as an option:

If a person lives in a state where evil behavior prevails, and where people don’t walk in the way of righteousness, let them move to a place where people are righteous and act properly; and if all the nations that they know of behave badly, as is so in our time (!), let them live alone and keep to themselves.  And if the sinners won’t leave them alone but demand that they join with them in their evil ways, let them flee to the caves in the wilderness.  (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot 6:1)

To speak up or to shut up, to stay or to go: to assert our power of agency over against the power of our community – or to accept our powerlessness to effect change…?  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  It seems that for those of us who are not hermits living in caves, there is no escape from this eternal dilemma.