Hang in there, Shabbat is coming! COMMENTARY: by Rabbi Ed Farber A colleague of mine told me about his sharing a question with his High School students in his synagogue. He gave them a hypothetical: Suppose there was an island where human sacrifice was the norm. It was the accepted practice by everybody, even the victims. Suppose you were to take over that island, and you had the power to put a stop to such sacrifices. Should you do so? Now heres the shocker. They were unanimous in their response. They all said that they would not stop it because it is the way they practice their religion and we cannot judge their religion just as we dont want them to judge our religion. All of the teens agreed that we have no right to stop people from killing innocent people if that is their religion, whether we agree or not. This is what we call moral relativism and it is what our next generation is being taught. I have no right to say that anything is right or wrong. It may be wrong for me in my particular culture but in another culture it may be right. Who am I to judge? And that will be reinforced when they go to the university campuses and listen to professors tell them that all values are relative to particular cultures. There are no absolutes. But this is a very dangerous idea. Imagine someone saying, From our point of view Hitler was wrong. But in his culture he was right. Or, I may think murder is wrong, stealing is wrong but others may think it is right. Who am I to judge? Could you imagine justifying the beheadings we have seen at the hand of ISIS or the terror attack in Israel this week that killed a 3 month old or the terror attack in Ottawa that cost a Canadian soldier his life? Well - as we all know many do in fact justify these attacks as legitimate forms of resistance. That is why this weeks parsha is especially important at this time. Parshat Noach teaches that the deliberate murder of innocents is wrong in every culture. It is an absolute wrong and any culture that condones it is an evil culture. The laws of Noah, which include this prohibition of the killing of innocents applies to all of humanity, regardless of culture or ethnicity. Remember the sign of the covenant between God and Noah? It was the rainbow, which as Rabbi Michael Gold points out is a natural phenomenon where many colors join together as one. This teaches that the covenant joins people of all races. God gave Noah a series of laws, the most basic being the prohibition of bloodshed. Whoever deliberately kills their fellow human being deserves to be put to death. This is for every human being of every race, ethnicity and culture for all humanity has been created in the image of God. The conclusion of the Noah story is that murder of innocents is wrong. It does not matter if that murder is being carried out by people in the west or the east - whether it is Arab terrorists, Muslim fundamentalists or people on an island carrying out human sacrifice. The deliberate taking of a human life is immoral and those who have the power to stop it must do so. And if we have the ability to put an end to the taking of innocent life that is our obligation. Moral relativism is very dangerous and a refusal to categorically declare murder as wrong and to accept the responsibility of fighting against such immorality will lead the world to a disaster which although will not reach the dimensions of Noahs flood, will still be extremely painful. If you have a teen at home give them the hypothetical and let me know how they respond. Shabbat Shalom!
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:20:50 +0000
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