Between Islamic terrorism, biblical genocide
The question is stark. Surely the Biblical commandment to kill the Amalekites equates with Nazism and Islamic fundamentalism?
We just commemorated the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, Washington and the Pentagon. These barbaric acts shocked us all to the very core of our souls. I remember not being able to sleep for nights; I was traumatized by the sheer scale and cruelty of the attack.
Indeed, during the summer months we read the book of Deuteronomy. The last few verses of chapter 25 state: "Therefore, when G-d gives you peace from all the enemies around you, in the land that G-d your L-rd is giving you to occupy as a heritage, you must obliterate the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. You must not forget."
How can such evil exist? I kept asking myself. After five years and many more attacks the world is still struggling to come to terms with this new evil.
There is however one nagging question: doesn't Judaism also command us to perpetrate acts of terror and murder against others?
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Jewish genocide?
Rashi - the great medieval commentator - says that the command to obliterate Amalek includes the killing of men, women and children; even animals belonging to Amalek must not be spared. This presents us with a moral dilemma. How can G-d command us to commit genocide? Does being true to our religion mean that we must believe that genocide is at times not only justified but obligatory?
The question is stark. Surely this commandment equates with Nazism, Bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalism! Some may reply that killing Amalek is akin to President Truman's use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 - ostensibly cruel but justified by the overall good it produced for humanity.
But this answer is only plausible if one sees it from the American point of view. The Russians, for example, did not see it this way: Soviet Marshal Georgii Zhukov wrote in his memoirs that from their vantage point, "Without any military need whatsoever, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the peaceful and densely-populated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Whether or not World War II could have been terminated without reverting to such extreme measures is as much debated today as it was then. It is all a matter of perspective. The same applies to the mass murder carried out by religiously motivated Islamic extremists.
The meaning of jihad
Qur'anic scholars throughout the ages have held differing views on the meaning of jihad. The idea of jihad is derived from the Arabic root meaning "to strive" or "to make an effort." This word has been interpreted to mean an inward spiritual struggle to attain perfect faith or an outward material struggle to promote justice and the Islamic social system.
During the period of Qur'anic revelation while Muhammad was in Mecca, jihad meant an internal struggle and non-violent struggle to spread Islam. Following his move from Mecca to Medina, and the establishment of an Islamic state, fighting in self-defence was sanctioned by the Qur'an (22:39).
It was at this stage that the Qur'an increasingly referred to qital (fighting or warfare) as one form of jihad. Two of the last verses on this topic (9:5, 29) suggest waging a war of conquest or conversion against all non-believers.
In the middle ages Islamic legal scholars divided the world into two spheres: Dar al-Islam (land of Islam), where Islamic law applied, and Dar al-Harb (land of war) where it did not. Islamic state's duty was to extend the Dar al-Islam - through peaceful means if possible but if not, through war.
These medieval Islamic legal scholars held that the Qur'anic verses suggesting peaceful accommodation or coexistence with non-believers (especially 2:193, 8:61) were cancelled out by the later, more belligerent ones. In medieval legal sources, jihad generally referred to a divinely sanctioned struggle to establish Muslim rule over non-Muslims as a prelude to the propagation of the Islamic faith.
However, this belligerent interpretation of jihad has not been accepted by all Qur'anic scholars. Many Islamic scholars argued and continue to argue that the Qur'an and Islamic Prophetic traditions allow war only for self-defence against persecution and aggression.
According to this view those that defined jihad as an expansionist war were misguided and distorting Qur'anic ethics. They point out that the division of the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb does not exist in the Qur'an or Prophetic traditions.
The duel interpretation of jihad - peaceful and warmongering - by Islamic scholars indicates that its usage to sanction the slaughter of innocent people tells more about the people who are interpreting the Qur'an then the Qur'an itself. In light of this the Biblical commandment to obliterate Amalek is fundamentally different from any other ethically, religiously or idealistically motivated killing that the world has seen.
Back to Amalek
Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) - one of the leading philosophers of our age - in an essay entitled "The Pursuit of the Ideal" asked the following question: If one really believed that Hitler's "final solution" would make mankind righteous, happy, creative and harmonious for ever, would any cost be too high to pay to achieve this?
In answer Sir Isaiah Berlin maintains that history teaches us that the consequences of drastic measures are seldom what is anticipated. There is no guarantee - not even a high probability - that such acts will lead to improvements.
Hitler and his ilk could therefore never be certain that the killing of the Jews or of others would lead to the positive consequences they claim to desire for humanity. Thus, Sir Isaiah Berlin concludes that a precarious equilibrium must be maintained to prevent the occurrence of desperate situations and of intolerable choices.
It is clear, however, that both philosophically and ethically, if one could be one hundred percent certain that the killing of a group of people would lead to the indefinite betterment of humankind then such killing would not only be justifiable but obligatory.
Unlike the Islamic jihad, the Biblical commandment to obliterate Amalek is unequivocal. It is not a decision that came about through human interpretation: it is the word of G-d Himself.
When the all knowing G-d says that killing a group of people will lead to the betterment of humankind one is ethically obliged - however difficult and heart wrenching it may be - to carry out the command. Thankfully since today we cannot conclusively identify any single nation as being Amalek the rabbis freed us from this unsavory obligation.
It is nonetheless clear that the now obsolete commandment to obliterate Amalek and the voluntary killing of innocents by Islamic extremists are not morally equivalent. These extremists are cold blooded murderers who hide behind interpretations of a holy book whilst committing barbaric crimes against humanity and they should be acknowledged as such.
Rabbi Levi Brackman is executive director of Judaism in the Foothills and the author of numerous articles on a whole range of topics and issues, many of which can be found on his website .
