Jewish texts permit celebrating the death of enemies - opinion

In a remarkable display of precision, real-time intelligence, and a daring operation in the heart of enemy territory, someone has succeeded in knocking off Ismail Haniyeh, a truly evil person and an archenemy of the Jewish people. 

Unlike the celebratory handing out of candy in Gaza when innocent Jews are massacred, Jews do not celebrate when innocent Arabs die. However, that is not necessarily the case when a wicked person who directs a terrorist organization, is responsible for heinous crimes, and intends to murder more Jews is eliminated.

Strangely, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach missed that distinction, and in a Jerusalem Post article (“Hate Ismail Haniyeh, but don’t celebrate his death,” August 1), he claims that Judaism frowns on celebrating Haniyeh’s demise. This is the second time Boteach has made this erroneous claim on the pages of The Jerusalem Post, utilizing the same misquotes. The previous time was in a nearly identical article in October 2019, regarding the raid by US Special Forces that saved the world from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the then-leader and self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State terrorist organization.

As the appropriate Jewish reaction to the death of an evil individual or group of people is indeed complex, here I will merely address the sources misused by Boteach, as misrepresentation of Jewish sources in and of itself warrants a response and correction.

Boteach begins with a biblical quote from Proverbs 24:17: “When your enemy falls, do not rejoice...” He fails to note and reconcile the apparently contradictory verse, Proverbs 11:10 – “... when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy,” which the Talmud (Sanhedrin 39b) applies to the Jews rejoicing when the evil king Ahab ben Omri was killed in battle. Furthermore, the Talmud (Megillah 16a) places into wicked Haman’s mouth the very verse cited by Rabbi Boteach when the Talmud portrays Mordechai kicking Haman as Mordechai steps upon Haman to mount a horse. Haman is portrayed as citing Proverbs 24:17 to Mordechai, to which Mordechai responded that the verse applies only to Jewish enemies, i.e. personal enemies, but not to non-Jewish enemies of God and the Jewish people.

When a person has a personal conflict with another individual it is not proper to rejoice at their failing. But when a truly evil person who is an enemy of the Jewish people is defeated, there are appropriate “shouts of joy.” 

Tosafot (Baba Kama 17a) says that when evil King Ahab died, the righteous of the generation were glad. This is the same distinction that Rabbi Boteach nicely made to his “Christian brothers and sisters” when discussing whom he thinks Jesus would forgive and whom not.

We do not raise a glass to the suffering of Egyptians

Boteach informs the reader that Jews pour out some wine at the Seder as the 10 plagues are mentioned: “to demonstrate that we will not raise a glass to the suffering of the Egyptians.” This widespread explanation is of quite recent vintage and not the only understanding of the custom. The original motivation for the practice, as explained by the early 13th-century Rokeach, was as a silent prayer to God that God should “save us from all these and they should fall upon our enemies.”

As recently as 1937, the explanation given was that the removal of drops represents that the plagues are only a small drop from the cups of retribution and punishment that the nations that persecute Israel will drink from in the future. And the request at the Seder that plagues continue to torment our enemies is not only this subtle request; we explicitly request at the Seder: “Pour out Your wrath...”

Boteach then misquotes a Talmudic passage. He asserts “ Likewise, after the Red Sea split and drowned the Egyptians, Moses and the Jewish people sang, Shirat Hayam, “The Song of the Sea,” yet, the Talmud says God rebuked the Israelites, saying: “My creatures are drowning in the sea, yet you have now decided to sing about it?” The Talmudic passage he is referencing (Megillah 10b) says no such thing. It says that God restrained the angels from singing. There is no hint there nor in other sources that the Jews were rebuked for the Song of the Sea; the opposite idea is actually true.

The Song of the Sea is recited daily; it is traditionally a paradigm of praise to God, an epitome of mass prophecy. It was a positive reaction to the Jews being saved as well as to the Egyptians being drowned – as is evident from the content of the song. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 94a) tells us that God wanted to make King Hezekiah the messiah but refrained from doing so because, unlike what the Jews did at the Red Sea, he did not sing praise to God when the Jews were saved by the miraculous demise of 185,000 Assyrian troops killed.

Furthermore, the hesitation at the song of the angels might not even relate to the Egyptians, as the phrase “My creatures” likely refers to the Israelites and the danger they were in, as evidenced by the parallel passage in Pirkei D’Rebbi Eliezar and Tanhuma which explicitly refers to the Jews.

It is correct that the joy will be greater with the freeing of the hostages, with true peace, or with (as Bruriah is quoted (Brachot 10a) saying based on Psalms 104:35) the eradication of evil rather than of the evildoer. 

But in the meantime, one fewer mass murderer in the world is a step in the right direction. If Rabbi Boteach does not want to rejoice at the demise of one of humankind’s evilest men, whether it be Ismail Haniyeh, al-Baghdadi, Mohammed Deif, or Fuad Shukr (unfortunately there are many of them), that is his prerogative, but the Jewish sources as they actually appear (and not as Rabbi Boteach presents them) give the green light to one who desires to celebrate.

The writer is a neuroscience professor at Bar-Ilan University.