A profoundly disturbing ‘mezuzah’
An email advertisement I received in late July disturbed me. When I have described to others my feelings about the product being advertised — a unique, limited-edition mezuzah case made in Israel and priced at $390 — they respond with such comments as “what a great idea” and ask why it bothers me so much.
There are a great many innovative cases, and many cutesy ones (note that they are “cases”; a “mezuzah” is the doorpost on which they are meant to be placed). There are floral designs, hearts, a pickle mezuzah case, and even a Mr. Spock mezuzah case. For the children, there are cases featuring Sesame Street characters, WALL-E, and other favorite characters. I am not thrilled with some of these; others are quite beautiful. One of my granddaughters and her husband made the glass he broke under the chuppah into their front-door mezuzah case.
This case, however, is made out of the metal forged from an Iranian ballistic missile that was fired into Israel, and represents the 36 missiles that killed 28 people, wounded more than 3,000 others, damaged 2,305 homes in 240 buildings, including the Soroka Medical Center, left more than 13,000 Israelis displaced, and destroyed years — or even decades — of scientific research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The case is designed to look like a U.S. B-2 stealth bomber, the type of warplane that dropped a series of 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The ad calls this combination “a powerful fusion of faith, defiance, and triumph.” I see the opposite as true.
Placing a sacred scroll meant to fulfill a mitzvah (a commandment) into a case that represents war, both in the material used and in its image, is a gross violation of what the mitzvah stands for and a complete distortion of Jewish law’s attitude toward war, starting with the Torah.
Many people think the Torah is all for war. The truth, however, is that both the written and the oral law view war as a profound tragedy and a prohibited act that at times becomes a regrettable necessity. In no way does Jewish law glorify war in any way. It also imposes extremely strict moral and ethical standards on how wars are to be fought. These standards stem from two fundamental principles that war of necessity violates:
• The first is the Torah’s “prime directive,” pikuach nefesh, the sanctity of human life. This principle overrides nearly every other law, including kashrut and Shabbat rules. There are only three exceptions. If a person is ordered under penalty of death to commit murder or to engage in an idolatrous act or a forbidden sexual act (rape, incest, adultery, and the like), that person must forfeit his or her own life rather than comply. (See the Babylonian Talmud tractate Sanhedrin 74a.)
• The second is bal tashchit, meaning “do not destroy.” This principle underlies much of Judaism’s environmental legislation. It is of great significance that this category of law grew out of the Torah’s rules of war. It explicitly prohibits the destruction of food-bearing trees during a siege. (See Deuteronomy 20:19.)
It is the nature of war that some people will die — many people, actually — and that some property, at least, will be destroyed. Creating rules that require making every effort to minimize the amount of death and destruction is counterintuitive; the destruction Israel has caused in Gaza despite the IDF’s best efforts proves that. Jewish law from the Torah on, however, insists on these rules being followed as best as circumstances allow, precisely because Jewish law tolerates war under specific conditions, including the war in Gaza, but does not otherwise approve of war.
That is how our Sages of Blessed Memory and the rabbinic decisors who followed them understand it. Our Bible, the Tanach, tells us that the Torah’s “ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.” (See Proverbs 3:17.) This prompted the Babylonian sage Abaye to state that “the entire Torah was given on account of the ways of peace.” To this, the Midrash Tanchumah 3 added: “And although wars are written about in the Torah, even they were written for the sake of peace.”
How seriously should we take this? Very seriously.
Deuteronomy 20:10, for example, mandates that before “you approach a city to make war on it, you shall offer it terms of peace,” because every effort must be made to avoid taking lives and causing wanton destruction. While not all commentators agree, Maimonides, the Rambam, says this applies to all wars, including obligatory ones. (See his Mishneh Torah, The Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 6:5.)
Consider, as well, this law as codified by the Rambam just two paragraphs later, in Law 6:7: “When a siege is placed around a city to conquer it, it should not be surrounded on all four sides, only on three,” in order to allow the inhabitants to “escape with their lives.” Nachmanides, the Ramban, who is usually critical of the Rambam, albeit respectfully, not only supports the Rambam in this case, but he also offers the reasoning behind it, saying, “We are being taught to deal kindly with our enemy.”
Mishnah Sotah 8:7 informs us that there are two types of war in Jewish law: obligatory wars (milchemet mitzvah) and elective wars (milchemet reshut). They differ in some important ways regarding why and how they are to be fought, as well as the limitations imposed on them.
The obligatory wars are mandated by the Torah. Self-defense is one such war, based on Numbers 9:10, which addresses going to war “in your land” against an “enemy that oppresses you” by attacking you. There is also the war against the seven Canaanite nations, who lost their right to live on the sacred soil of the “holy land” because of “all the abhorrent things that they have done for their gods.” Israel must uproot them “for fear that they [will] lead you into doing” all those abhorrent things “and you stand guilty before the Lord your God.” (See Deuteronomy 20:18.)
Then there is the “eternal” war against Amalek because of the unprovoked attack on the Israelites coming out of Egypt and how those most vulnerable were targeted, including the elderly, the infirm, new mothers, and anyone else who traveled in the rear. (See Exodus 17:14-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19.). These wars are divinely commanded, so no approval is needed.
Elective wars, on the other hand, do require approval, first from the 71-member Sanhedrin (biblical Israel’s highest legal authority) and then from God, by consulting God via the rrim v’tumim, the special stones used for important matters. The stones were kept inside the breastplate worn by the high priest. We know they existed and what their purpose was, but how they worked is a mystery.
One major difference between the two categories is in how an army was assembled. For elective wars, there are exemptions for the engaged, for the newly married, for those who have established new homes but have yet to occupy them, for vintners who have planted grapes that are not ready to be harvested and processed, and for the fainthearted. (See Deuteronomy 20:5-8.) For obligatory wars, there are no exemptions. As Mishnah Sotah 8:7 puts it, “all go out, even a bride from her bridal chamber and a groom from his wedding canopy.”
The Torah and the rest of Jewish law abhor war and do their best to limit its destructiveness and the inevitable losses of life. The ideal is the concept of “shalom.” In the words of Psalm 34:15, we are to “seek shalom and pursue it.” We tend to translate shalom as “peace,” but the English word does not reflect the far deeper meaning of the word. Shalom derives from the root letters shin-lamed-mem, and its basic meaning is wholeness, completeness, and integrity. Shalom is a state in which nothing is missing, where everything functions harmoniously together.
Given all this, how could anyone even consider creating a case for a sacred scroll on which are inscribed the words of the Shema and its first two paragraphs, which consist of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Deuteronomy 11:13-21?
More to the point is what that case and the scroll inside represent. At a basic level, they symbolize the special relationship between God and us, the Jewish people. However, in the context of the verses in Deuteronomy in which the commandment is stated, they are also a symbol of God’s law in its entirety. As the second paragraph on that scroll states at the beginning, it is meant to remind us that we must “obey the commandments” and serve God with all our hearts and souls. Putting that case and that scroll on our doorposts (our mezuzot) is meant to remind us, as we enter, that everyone beyond those doorposts deserves to be treated with respect and must not be abused in any way, including our parents, our spouses, and our children. As we leave, they are meant to remind us that God’s law must be observed wherever we go — especially the part that demands respect for all whom we encounter outside the house.
Missiles do not respect anyone or anything, and neither do B-2 stealth bombers nor their massive payload. They are about death and destruction.
Said Moses to the people in Deuteronomy (30:13-15), “See, I have put before you this day life and good, and death and evil…; choose life.”
And choose a mezuzah case that celebrates life.
Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.