Love and Judgement
Balancing love and judgement, hesed and din, is one of the great spiritual challenges of Judaism. Love without judgement damages the one who offers the love. In the inability / unwillingness to hold back there is risk of hurt and an offered vulnerability that may not be reciprocated. This kind of love can result in “love bombing,” an excessive offer of affection or devotion that may be not only unwelcome but in some cases abusive. We more easily see the problems of judgement without love. This easily slips into evil. Giving people what they deserve sounds good on its face, but in practice means holding people to an account they can never manage. It becomes a perverse justification for hurt.
In the political realm, we easily lose empathy for our opponents or enemies. It’s easy to start blaming people for outcomes that we find deeply distressing. It’s easy to lose perspective on human suffering and loss when we ourselves feel threatened. It's easy for judgement to crowd out love.
The war in Gaza brings this struggle to me every day. I feel deeply saddened by the hurt Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, are experiencing. I say this from a place of love, hesed, that precedes and follows judgement. When I say that I am saddened by Palestinian suffering, I do not mean any kind of moral equivalence. I am not talking about who is responsible or why this is happening. I am simply saying that as a human I am pained by homes destroyed, families experiencing deep loss, and a kind of pervasive hopelessness that feels beyond endurance.
My sadness is an input on what I think of the war in Gaza. But not the only one. I also wrestle with keeping Israelis safe and making sure an attack like that of 10/7 cannot occur again. I believe it is a calumny to say Israelis are pursuing genocide. I can think that without meaning I support the current government. (I don’t. I hope for elections soon and speedily).
Yet if all we focus on is our own hurt and loss we have let the terrorists and murderers rip our humanity from us. If Hamas loses militarily but damages our commitment to hesed they will have damaged the Jewish soul. Part of their goal is to embolden the extremes and create hatred and bigotry. We have to remember: Before they were our enemies, they were people created in the image of God. And they still are.
The Mishnah in Sanhedrin addresses the moral dilemma of balancing hesed and din, love and judgement. On the one hand, the Mishnah teaches that we are all created in the image of God. No one is better than anyone else because we are all stamped in the image of that first loving couple. Killing someone destroys a whole world. At the same time, says the Mishnah, there is a responsibility to stamp out evil and protect the innocent. There are times when one can and must act. Failing to stop violence and destruction is its own evil.
There is a military conflict that continues alongside a spiritual one whose challenges become more apparent every day. I pray that we as individuals and as a people can find the right balance between judgement and love.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Booth
