Shabbat Shofetim

Written by Rabbi Deborah Kahn Harris Tuesday, 22 August 2006

Shofetim

In Deuteronomy 19: 21 we read, “And your eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” This verse is oft quoted and even more often misunderstood. Matthew began the misunderstanding of this verse when he recounts Jesus as saying, ““You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;” [Matthew 5: 38-39]. For here Jesus reads Deuteronomy as meaning the law of talion, where punishment mirrors exactly the offence. For centuries many presumed talion to be the meaning of this verse. Even in modern times we find the saying “An eye for eye makes the whole world blind” attributed to the great peace activist, Mahatma Gandhi.

But the rabbis knew for centuries that ‘eye for eye’ could not be interpreted literally. In B. Baba Kama 83b we read, “Does the Divine Law not say ‘Eye for eye’? Why not take this literally to mean [putting out] the eye [of the offender]? — Let not this enter your mind…” What ensues is a lengthy discussion of what is meant by ‘eye for eye’ and many cases are brought to point out the absurdity of a literal interpretation here. How, for example, would the taking of a blind man’s eye compensate for the loss of a sighted man’s eye? And so, for the rabbis there could be only one way of interpreting an ‘eye for eye’ – pecuniary compensation.

Yet in the matter of ‘life for life’, where ‘life for life’ means intentional homicide (and not some form of manslaughter or accidental death), then the death penalty can be enacted and a life can be demanded to compensate for the loss of a life. Though the Torah and latter rabbinic law placed many stipulations on the successful prosecution of a capital case, a life could still be demanded for life. And while some scholars believe these stipulations made trying a capital case successfully virtually impossible, the principle remains intact.

How then, do we, at this moment in history when the subject of proportionality is so much on everyone’s lips, balance the literal and figurative interpretations of Dt. 19: 21? Do we require a life to compensate us for the loss of a life or can we make do with the pecuniary (and, perhaps, political) option?

Rabbi Deborah Kahn Harris