I had an elementary school tormentor: a mean girl who
wielded immense social power and sought to isolate me. After three years of misery, our paths
separated in junior high school and her power dissipated. But I would be
dishonest if I denied having fantasies of revenge. As the French
post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin once remarked, “Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”
Martha Nussbaum, professor of law and
ethics at the University of Chicago has written, "The primitive sense of
the just — remarkably constant from several ancient cultures to modern
institutions… starts from the notion that a human life... is a vulnerable
thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another's act in many
ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter
invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly,
the retribution must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment."
("Equity and Mercy," in Sex and Social
Justice)
Human history is
sadly riddled with acts of retaliation and retribution, vendettas and vigilante
“justice,” from the elementary school playground to the arena of the world
stage. The desire for revenge is among the less attractive outgrowths of human
ego and pride.
Torah tells us very
clearly that acts of vengeance are out:
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people,
but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)
Torah also makes it
clear that God will avenge Israel:
God
will take revenge against Israel’s enemies -- To be My vengeance and
recompense, at the time that their foot falters, Yea, their day of disaster is
near, and destiny rushes upon them. For the Lord will vindicate His people and
take revenge for His servants when He sees that their might is gone, and
neither bond nor free is left.” (Deuteronomy 32:35-36)
And so we find,
Do not say, "I'll pay you back for this wrong!" Wait
for the Lord, and he will deliver you (Proverbs
20:22; see also 24:29).
The image of God as Cosmic Avenger comes from deep within
the human psyche, that place Martha Nussbaum speaks about. It’s not genuine
justice, is more about “fairness,” a more primitive notion that is far more
reactive than it is thoughtful. God as Cosmic Avenger is a human projection
onto God of what people wish they could be and do, and it becomes most
dangerous when it serves to justify their acts of vengeance.
This week we read the
combined parshiot of Mattot and Mase’ei. In Mattot
we find God instructing Moses that the Israelites themselves are to take revenge against the Midianites (who seem to
have been conflated into the Moabites held responsible for the incident of
idolatry in Baal-pe’or, as recounted at the end of parshat Balak -- Numbers 25:1-9 -- where Moab and Midian appear to
be used interchangeably).
The
Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites
then you shall be gathered to your kin.” (Numbers 31:1)
How is this possible? Do we find here license to exact
revenge against our enemies? After all, God not only calls for vengeance, but
orders Moses to pursue it.
One could certainly choose
to interpret the text that way, but everything in Jewish tradition argues
against such an irresponsible interpretation. Our passage, in which God
instructs Moses to mount an army for a war of revenge, makes clear that only
God can command such an action. So don’t rush to your inbox looking for that message. It isn’t coming.
Our Sages wrestled with the notion of revenge. They said
that the world operates -- which is to say that God runs the world -- by the
principle of middah k’neged middah,
“measure for measure.” This means, “you reap what you sow,” or as is more
commonly said these days, “what goes around comes around.” They were careful to
point out that retribution is not to be wrought
by human beings; it comes as the result of one’s actions. Here’s an
example, and it’s problematic, containing an internal contradiction. It
concerns the sotah, the suspected
adulterous, who undergoes a degrading ordeal described in Numbers, chapter 5,
to publicly vindicate her from her husband’s rash accusation.
According
to the measure with which one measures [out one’s actions], it is measured out
to him. She [the sotah] adorned
herself with sin; the Holy One blessed be God made her repulsive. She exposed
herself to sin; the Holy One blessed be God held her up for exposure. She began
the sin with the thigh and afterward with the belly; therefore she is punished
first in the thigh and afterward in the belly – and the rest of the body does
not escape. (Sotah 8b)
The Rabbis want to claim that the ordeal is just and
appropriate. But the sotah is most
often vindicated, which means that the woman suffers everything described above
without having done anything wrong. This is hardly middah k’neged middah (measure for measure).
The measure-for-measure mentality is one of retribution and
revenge. It does not come from the best part of us. In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon noted in an essay entitled “On Revenge”: “In
taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is
superior…” How do we forego revenge? Our Sages, recognizing the
intensity of our human desire and inclination for revenge, teach us to reframe
our situation and channel our emotions into good. A wonderful example is the
story of the great R. Meir who is bent on revenge, and his extraordinarily wise
wife, Beruriah, who teaches him to reframe his natural impulse. Beruriah’s
teaching depends upon reading a word in Psalm 104 with a different set of
vowels: “sinners” becomes “sins.” Here’s the story:
There
were once some robbers in the neighborhood of R. Meir who caused him a great
deal of trouble. R. Meir accordingly prayed that they should die. His wife
Beruriah said to him: How do you justify [that such a prayer should be
permitted]? Is it because it is written (Psalm 104:35) Let chatta'im (sins) cease? Is it written chot'im “sinners”? It is written chatta'im “sins”! Further, look at the end of the verse: and let the wicked be no more. Since the
sins will cease, there will be no more wicked people! Rather pray for them that
they should repent, and there will be no more wicked. He did pray for them, and
they repented. (Berakhot 10a)
Sir Francis Bacon would have lauded Beruriah’s teaching, had
he studied Talmud. So, too, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who, upon accepting the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, addressed revenge on the societal, rather than
personal, level:
… nonviolence is the
answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time - the need for
man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and
oppression… If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a
method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of
such a method is love.
When I got to high school, I had a shot
at revenge against my elementary school nemesis. Even four years later, it was
sorely tempting. Long ago Confucius
said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Confucius probably had in mind the possibility (or
probability) of counter-revenge by an irate family. But we can understand his words
figuratively: when we exact revenge against another, a piece of our integrity
and decency dies. We’d like to think that revenge is
sweet. It rarely is, and comes at too steep a personal cost. I’m glad I decided
to forego the opportunity. Many years later, I had the opportunity to sip the
nectar of schadenfreude
(pleasure derived from the misfortunes of another), but I
found even that wasn’t sweet. I was
lucky to have figured out in time that what I imagined would taste like fine
wine, would in actuality have tasted like vinegar.
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
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