The Jewish Power Blog: Drilling under My Own Seat

In the episode of Korach’s rebellion, Moses questions God’s apparent intention to punish the whole nation for the sins of a few:

“And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron,  saying, ‘Stand back from this community, that I may annihilate them in an instant.’ But they fell on their faces, and said, ‘O God, Source of the breath of all flesh!  When one man sins, will You be wrathful with the whole community?’ ” (Num. 16:20-22).

God relents, and in the end destroys only the rebels.  The rabbis, however, take verse 22 out of context and interpret it as a statement, not a question:

“ ‘One man shall sin and You will be angry with the whole congregation!’  Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai taught: This is like a group of people in a boat; one of them took up a drill and started to drill a hole under his seat.  His fellow-passengers said to him, ‘What are you doing?’  He answered, ‘What do you care, aren’t I only drilling under my own seat?’  They said to him: ‘But the water will enter and flood the whole boat!’ [which leads to the conclusion] All Israel are guarantors for each other.”  (Leviticus Rabbah 4:6)

Thus, the rabbis’ understanding of collective responsibility for sin is that it is reasonable to expect the nation to be punished for the sins of the individual.  Indeed, in the ritual of Yom Kippur in the Jerusalem Temple (Lev. 16) the high priest confesses and sacrifices and obtains absolution for the entire nation; and now, when sacrifices have given way to prayer, the amidah prayer, the core of the daily liturgy, entreats God to forgive, restore, and bless – not the individual worshipper, but the entire nation; the prayer is phrased in the plural.

Outside our tradition, it is interesting to see the contrast between views expressed by two important twentieth century thinkers/doers:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

“This is the peculiar feature of integrated organisms – that all their parts benefit and suffer alike from the activity of each organ.  Even when the majority of the population is quite powerless to obstruct its political leaders, it is fated to answer for their sins and their mistakes.  …  The nation is mystically welded together in a community of guilt, and its inescapable destiny is common repentance.”  (From Under the Rubble, Boston, Little Brown, 1974 p. 113)

Vaclav Havel:

“To accept the idea of collective guilt and collective responsibility means directly or unwittingly to weaken the guilt or the responsibility of individuals.  And that is very dangerous. ….  To impose the guilt of some Germans upon the entire German nation is to absolve those particular individuals of their guilt and… to submerge them in an irresponsible anonymity.”  (The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997, p. 26)

If a Hamas fighter rapes an Israeli partygoer, or an Israeli soldier abuses a Palestinian prisoner – both examples of individual immorality driven by and given cover by a national narrative of revenge – how much of the guilt is individual, how much national?  Solzhenitsyn argues that the nation requires collective repentance; Havel responds that that lets individuals “off the hook.”  The rabbis, it seems, are clear: the sin is individual, not “submerged in anonymity” – and yet, the punishment is collective.

Thus, if you sin, I, your fellow Jew, will share in the punishment.  This belief creates a strong incentive for individuals to try to prevent their neighbors from sinning – which is why, for example, ultra-orthodox activists have taken extreme measures like stoning cars driving on the Shabbat.  This mutual responsibility supports solidarity – but doesn’t exactly foster pluralism.

The concept of “all Israel are guarantors for each other” is often used as a philanthropic slogan, and seems to imply solidarity and mutual concern and support.  It makes us feel belonging, supported, part of the family.  There is nothing wrong with that understanding, but it does not accurately reflect the rabbis’ intention in telling the story.  It’s one thing to feel obligated to help my struggling fellow Jew.  It’s quite a different level of responsibility to bear the guilt – and punishment – for their sin.

In Israel’s earlier decades, mutual responsibility made diaspora Jews feel proudly part of the inspiring endeavor of creating a modern Jewish state against all odds.  No one imagined that one day Jews all over the world would find themselves being held responsible for the actions and policies of the Jewish state’s government – which, of course, they had no voice in electing.  Mutual responsibility, collective personality, can be warm and fuzzy – but it can also be hard and painful, pinning us at the uncomfortable interface between group identity and our own moral compass.

It seems that when it comes to our own nation, we prefer Havel’s approach – let every person answer for their own sins; evils are perpetrated by “wild weeds” whom we abhor and whose values we reject; or by leaders we voted against.  But when we think about others – Germans, Poles, Palestinians – we like what Solzhenitsyn has to say: the whole nation is guilty, and no individual can escape that communal burden.

But maybe they’re both right; as Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, while all are responsible.”  (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, NY, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996, p. 225)