Hate? HATE??

Love/Hate

This week we will take a little break, while we enjoy a sandwich (without matzah)!

A break from Pirkei Avot, that is.

But first; our (Hebrew) word for the week: Ahavat-Ahavas: אהבה

With the root of:

אהב

Love; loving; relating intimately; devote completely to another. dv: offer/bring forth. “Ahab”, which occurs 250 times in our Hebrew Bible, means, and shows, spontaneous, impulsive love. While “Hesed” denotes a deliberate choice of affection and kindness [notice that this indicates a lesser ‘devotion’ to another]*. And the Hebrew word: raham translates into having compassion or ‘brotherly love’. (that: [brotherly love] is, in itself, worth investigation in this era of "PC" attitudes; but we'll best leave that for another discussion)

* We will consider this later in our discussion but please note that Greek (and Latin) have many many more 'shades' of meanings in 'interpretation' of LOVE.

d

Today we got to that word by way of an essay by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in the L.A. Jewish Journal, entitled: Christian Love vs. the Obligation to Hate Evil. Allow me to paraphrase his words – as I have several other words sitting in my computer that want to contribute to the discussion.

After a preface discussing which horrific event we can control and which we cannot, he asks why we do not stop the evil. “Why does evil continue to flourish so mightily in the year 2011?” “Why has the Mafioso Assad family continued to rule Syria for decades?”

“Why, only after beginning to use rocket-propelled grenades against demonstrators is [Gaddafi] declared by an American president to have lost ‘the legitimacy to rule’?”

Because, he says, “(W)e have forgotten how to hate evil.”

Early Christians – like Paul – embraced the Jewish Bible but rejected what they called the ‘vengeful’ G-d of the "Old Testament”. In its place they promoted Jesus (to, or) as, a deity. He, they claim was, synonymous with love. Hate had no further place – and that included evil! [In the book of Malachi] we read HaShem saying; “I love Jacob but I hate Esau.” The former being a representative of those who struggle for peace and the latter is a symbol of those who live by the sword. Jesus tells the Christians to ‘turn the other cheek’ and this is to advocate passivity in the face of blind cruelty. And look where that got the Jews in 1939, 1940, 1948, 1967... !!!

The rabbi says that this was a sanitized version of Jesus. He says that JC was a rebel against Rome (the Empire) and for that reason was put to death; but the effects of this misapprehension are still felt today. He then mentions just a few of the 20th century genocides: The Turks slaughter of the Armenians (WWI); the Shoah (!!!); the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; the Hutus murders of the Tutsis in Rwanda; the Croats... the Muslim Janjaweed militias (not to mention the murder of hundreds, or perhaps, thousands, of Mexicans by the cartels). [Where did that ‘turning of the cheek’ get the world’s population in the past 100 years alone?]

Rabbi continues: “How did the world allow so much suffering? Because we practice love with hating?” Meaning we often lack the motivation to stop monsters from committing their crimes against innocents. Is it that or our lack of ethics? Our lack of ‘backbone’? Our lack of wanting the other fellow to do it (for us)? Or our own lack of courage? That is mankind’s lack of courage, to be sure!

A couple more points that the rabbi made: The Obama presidency hosted a state dinner for China while they brutalized a Noble Peace Prize winner. The Carter administration lobbied to have the Khmer Rouge recognized by the UN! Kofi Anan (as head of all UN Peacekeeping forces) kept a Canadian General from using force against the Rwandan genocide forces. [His reward? The appointment of him as Secretary-General].

Can, he asks, love really exist without hate? [can we have light without knowing what darkness is?] “Can someone claim to love the 1.5 million children who were killed by Hitler without hating the SS who gassed them and dashed their brains against rocks?”

Rabbi continues with more (rhetorical?) questions and then says that it is stupid to say that once we hate evil and terrorists, that it will spill over into hating innocents as well. Discerning adults, however, are capable of controlling their emotions and direct them to legitimate targets. This, then, he says, is what Jesus himself meant. He never told the Christians (or anyone else) to love G-d’s enemies. Just your (true) enemy. Likewise, by turning the other cheek, Jesus never meant that if Osama bin Laden blows up New York that we should let him take Los Angeles as well. Jesus knew, full well, that Evil Exists.

If (JC meant [to perhaps put words in his mouth, just as evangelicals seem to do]) someone whom you consider a friend said something unpleasant about you, (you) need to transcend the provocation.

But remember that Evil Exists.

d

A recent article in “Time” asked; “What if there’s no HELL?” In the article, it is noteworthy that “Christianity becomes more of an ethical habit of mind than a faith based on divine revelation.” Which seems to say that the evangelical Christians are beginning to understand what the Jews have been attempting to do in their lives for multiple centuries before Christianity was created. When the evangelists say that G-d is love... (and) that it should lead human beings to work for the good of this world, it shows an awareness that one can love a fellow and still hate evil. Perhaps even work to eradicate evil?

Consider then, these two final comments:

The Rebbe Maharash quoted what the Baal Shem Tov says, that when one passes judgement on another, he is passing judgement on himself, whether for positive or negative.

The Frierdiker Rebbe said; If a negative aspect is noticed (in another), it is due to a lacking of the beholder and he should correct it within himself.

As a friend of mine is quick to say: Think about it.

d