In 1978, the New York Times reflected on the recent premiership of Golda Meir. They quoted a wonderful insight that remains timely:
“We have been obliged to become good soldiers, but not with joy. We are good farmers with joy. It’s a wonderful thing, to go down to a kibbutz deep in the Negev and remember what it was – sand and sky, maybe a well of brackish water – and to see it now green and lovely. To be good soldiers is our extreme necessity, but there is no joy in it.”
Still, she did not feel that reluctant soldiers should not be good and strong soldiers:
“There cannot be quiet on one side of the border and shelling on the other. We will either have peace on both sides or trouble on both sides.
“I understand the Arabs wanting to wipe us out,” she noted, “but do they really expect us to cooperate?”
Here, Ms. Meir gives modern – and droll – expression to the Talmudic dictum that the Children of Israel are merciful and kindly (Yevamot 79a). We do not rush to war and we do not desire it, but, as Meir says, we will prosecute one properly if we must.
And so, Ismael Haniyeh wished to wipe Israel off the face of the map. Yet, thank G-d, someone out there did not cooperate. How should we feel following the death of this Hamas leader?
I will admit frankly that I was happy. This man was an enemy of our people, responsible for the murder, rape, and injury of people I share a deep connection with. He did not merely promise to destroy Israel; he worked very hard to actualize his promise, and with disastrous and terrible success. He would have murdered my children, and yours, if he had the chance, unless he decided to kidnap them.
His death means that he cannot hurt my children. He cannot hurt my people. He cannot hurt anyone. So why should I feel anything but happy?
Yet, we must ask the question. You may have seen the verse from Proverbs: When your enemy falls, do not rejoice. It is actually part of a couplet of verses that go like this (Proverbs 24):
(17) Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls. Don’t let your heart be glad when he is overthrown,
(18) lest Hashem see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him.
The Yalkut Shimoni explains the sentiment with reference to a well-known midrash:
When your enemy falls, do not rejoice – and so G-d commanded… when you meet the ox of your enemy (wandering, return it to him). Hashem said, “You are no better than I. How so? Israel was fit to recite Hallel all seven days of Pesach just as they recite it all seven days of Sukkot. But they recite it only on the first day. Why so? Only because the Egyptians were killed and drowned at sea. They were My enemies, but I caused to be written, “When your enemy falls, do not rejoice.”
Here, we are reminded of the famous midrash that G-d prevented the angels from singing while the Egyptians drowned at sea. The Yalkut Shimoni has a slightly different version of this tradition than we do but the general idea is the same. This approach would indicate that we may want to hold back in our celebrations of our enemy’s demise. G-d did not rejoice when His enemies were vanquished at the Sea of Reeds. Therefore, we ought to refrain from rejoicing as well. Yet, it is important to note, even if the angels did not sing and even if our rejoicing on Pesach is somewhat muted for this, the Children of Israel did sing after they saw their enemies drown. Indeed, we sing that song, Az Yashir, each and every day. Furthermore, while this is a well-known midrash, the Talmud does not make mention of this tradition, and explains our muting of Hallel on Pesach on entirely unrelated and technical grounds. So, we may feel open to perhaps taking a different view.
Rabbeinu Yonah explains this verse somewhat differently, in a manner that may explain the singing of Az Yashir and gives us some direction now.
According to Rabbeinu Yonah, the question at hand is one of motivation. This verse refers to one “who is not happy at his fellow’s downfall for the sake of heaven, and who does not hate (the evil person) because of his wickedness, but only because he is his enemy.”
I have to admit, this is a very high bar. I do, indeed, feel a very personal investment in Haniyeh’s downfall. He worked to destroy my people. I cannot say that I hate the many villains of history – from Genghis Kahn to Stalin or Caesar to Mao – or would have rejoiced in their downfall in the same way precisely because, notwithstanding the magnitude of their crimes, it feels much more distant and does not cut so deeply as attacks on my own family and people.
Perhaps, according to Rabbeinu Yonah, my feelings are ill placed; I should rejoice based purely on how wicked this man was, and no more or less than I would if a wicked person would fall when he did not impact our people at all. There is something to be said for this. After all, we should hate evil, should we not?
But I will not make an apology for loving my people. Could it be that I should not love the Jewish people? Should we, truly, feel no love for our people? Should we be robots, keeping sure to never – heaven forfend! – feel too much sympathy for Shani Louk, just because she is our sister and cousin?
There is something bizarre about such an approach. Indeed, it would be incredibly destructive. We need our relationships: we are motivated by them; we build societies because of them; we work out problems both philosophical and pragmatic because of them. And we should have no truck with such silliness as the idea that people should not really love their own children any more than a child living somewhere, far off in the world, or lost to the sands of history. A human being who cannot feel for their own child and gives them no more than to anyone else is a negligent parent at best; perhaps an abusive one at worst.
I do not apologize for loving the Jewish people. Neither should you.
But, Rabbeinu Yonah remains correct. This must not be about ego. It is not Yitzchak Sprung’s personal enemy who was felled the other day. This cannot and should not be about our own individual self-worth, about inflating our own sense of importance. That really would be horrible. Rather, this must be about our love of the correct things.
We should love kindness, and the G-d of kindness. We should love people, and the G-d of our people. We should love our neighbor and seek their wellbeing. And so, we should rejoice, because this man no longer stands against them; he no longer poses a threat.
Do not selfishly see the downfall of an enemy; see the downfall of your neighbor’s enemy. See the downfall of G-d’s enemy, see the downfall of the enemy of all that is pure and good, see the downfall of a man who would sacrifice his children for a good PR day and would rape ours. Because he was cruel. See the downfall of cruelty personified. Love what is good. Love those who are innocent and good. And when their enemy falls, rejoice with them. See their sigh of relief and feel happy for them.
There is another verse in Proverbs that also speaks to this moment:
When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish, there is song. (11:10).
Radak explains that the righteous bring blessing upon their fellow citizens, and so, when they do well, the city rejoices. But the wicked bring suffering on their neighbors. When they perish, then, there is song.
Indeed, we may rejoice now. Not for ourselves. Not because G-d has made me look better, or because it strokes our egos. But because we may be profoundly happy and grateful that justice has been met; that people we love are safe from this man’s designs; that the enemy of G-d and His creation is stopped.
I cannot tell you how to feel here. I think we have shown that there is room and justification for a variety and spectrum of feelings and we ought to be understanding of our fellow who thinks and feels differently than we do. However, whatever we feel, we must aspire to be l’shem shamayim – that is to say, we must aspire to align ourselves with our highest values and standards as communicated to us via our tradition.
