The Torah is clear about the need to oppose wrongdoers, demanding that “you shall burn the evil out from your midst” (Deuteronomy 19:19 and 24:7).
But the great German philosopher Friederich Nietzsche warned in his book “Beyond Good and Evil” that “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
This aphorism highlights an all-too-present reality of the era of “war against terrorism.”
Events of recent weeks — from the lone gunman’s attack on the Seattle Jewish Federation to the uncovering of a plot to blow up airplanes on international flights from London — demonstrate the need to fight terrorist monsters.
But how far can people go in this battle without themselves becoming monsters as bad as the terrorists? This issue surfaces particularly when the issue is torture.
Both within and outside the Jewish community, a debate has flared over whether torture is ever justified, particularly when the goal is to obtain information that can foil a terrorist attack and save lives.
The New York Jewish Week’s issue of July 7 carried an article by Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, who is a law professor at Emory University. He contended that “according to Jewish law and ethics, torture in the context of war is no more problematic than death itself, and is permitted by the general license to wage war.
“There is no logical reason that halacha [Jewish religious law] would categorically prohibit duly authorized wartime torture as a method for acquiring information otherwise not available, in order to save lives in the future.”
This brought a rejoinder from Rabbi Aryeh Klapper, dean of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership, in a column he wrote for Edah, which describes itself as “the advocacy movement for a modern and relevant Orthodox Judaism.”
Klapper argued that “Broyde’s assertion is flatly opposed to both biblical text and oral law,” and that “endorsing torture fundamentally desecrates God’s Name. The role of Judaism is to raise moral standards in the world, not to legitimate a lowest moral common denominator.”
What are the issues?
What are the Jewish legal and moral issues involved? Rabbi Mendel Senderovic, dean of the Milwaukee Kollel-Center for Jewish Studies, identifies several.
First, Senderovic said, “Physically harming anybody is biblically prohibited” outside of certain very limited contexts. He citied a passage in Deuteronomy (25:2-3) in which flogging was acknowledged as a permitted penalty for wrongdoing, but the Torah demands that no more than 40 lashes ever be given to an offender.
However, the principle of pekuach nefesh, or saving life, “would override that,”
Senderovic said. In fact, to Judaism, the saving of life requires the violation of nearly all of the 613 Torah commandments. (The exceptions are when someone threatens to kill you unless you commit murder, idol worship, adultery or incest; a Jew must allow himself or herself to be killed rather than violate those laws.)
Moreover, said Senderovic, another principle might apply to a person being interrogated to obtain information for saving lives, the commandment “do not stand by the blood of your fellow” (Leviticus 19:16), which is often interpreted to mean “you shall not hesitate to save someone in danger.”
That means a person who refuses to save lives that he or she is capable of saving violates a Torah law; and such a person can be forced to save those lives, said Senderovic.
Finally, a captured terrorist that is known to be involved in a plot to kill people “would be considered a rodef,” or pursuer, literally someone chasing others for the purpose of doing them harm or committing murder, under Jewish law, Senderovic said.
According to the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 73a), a pursuer must be stopped even at the cost of that person’s life; to which Senderovic added, “You have to do what you can” to save the pursuer’s intended victims.
However, if you are dealing with a person who is not a participant in the plot but passively knows about it, then Senderovic said it is “not so certain” that this person is a pursuer.
Yet there remains disagreement about whether these principles apply to the idea of torturing people to save lives. Rabbi Yitzchak Berman, spiritual leader of Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue (Conservative), said that in his personal view, the idea “is highly suspect.”
“Pekuach nefesh, which allows for breaking commandments to save life, is something which is applied in only limited circumstances,” he said. “Whether or not it can be applied in this scenario is questionable.”
Moreover, rabbinical organizations of the Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform movements all passed resolutions opposing the use of torture in March 2005, during the revelations of prisoner abuse by U.S. troops in the Abu Graib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
And the organization Rabbis for Human Rights in January 2005 circulated a letter to President Bush and Congress stating that “nowhere in the 3,000-year-long corpus of Jewish law is there any allowance for acts of physical coercion in interrogations,” and calling on the United States to “ban the use of torture in any and every setting under United States jurisdiction.”
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