As celebratory crowds continue to gather around the country, especially near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, and in front of the White House, Americans are sending a message about who we are.\u00a0 Is it the one we want to send?\u00a0 Is it the one we should be sending?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Religious leaders, like many others, are weighing in on the issue of the propriety of celebrating Osama Bin Laden\u2019s death.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, they tend to cherry pick those portions of their respective traditions for the passages which \u201cprove\u201d what they already believe.\u00a0 But is it really as simple as all that?<\/p>\n
What does it mean to cheer another person\u2019s death, even if they are a genuine enemy?\u00a0 Is it appropriate?\u00a0 Is it inevitable?\u00a0 Is it necessary?<\/p>\n
The answers to these questions are not resolved with a few well-chosen quotes from whatever scripture one happens to hold dear.\u00a0 From a Jewish perspective, there is plenty of material which supports both those who choose to celebrate Bin Laden\u2019s demise, and plenty of other material which suggests that such celebration is inappropriate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suggesting otherwise \u2013 that the tradition supports only one of these reactions, misreads the tradition and makes it small.\u00a0 The greatness of the Jewish canon, at least, is that it holds out a range of responses as wide as the range of human emotions which arise at such moments as the demise of a hated and\/or feared enemy.<\/p>\n
Examples abound, but one need look no further than the Exodus accounts of the parting of the Red Sea.\u00a0 Pharaoh and his armies drown in the sea.\u00a0 Moses and Miriam lead the people in song, celebrating God as a \u201cman of war\u201d.\u00a0 Later rabbis however teach that as angels in heaven joined the earthly song, God demanded that they cease their singing, rebuking them with the words, \u201chow dare you angels sing as My creations are drowning!\u201d<\/p>\n
Interestingly, God rebukes the angels, not the people, for singing.\u00a0 In that seeming contradiction, along with the tradition\u2019s refusal to settle on a single acceptable response to such events, we find a stirring message about the appropriateness of both celebration and sobriety in the phase of recent events.<\/p>\n
The measure of one\u2019s response to such events seems to lie in one\u2019s proximity to the suffering caused by the one who is now beaten or dead.\u00a0 The Israelites, who suffered the agony of hundreds of years of slavery, celebrate the death of their oppressors.\u00a0 The angels, whose delight is purely theoretical \u2013 the joy of seeing good win out over evil, have no such right to celebrate.<\/p>\n
People directly touched by the events of 9\/11 or other acts of terror have a right to respond differently than those whose lives were not similarly shattered.\u00a0 For many, especially those who have suffered directly as a result of Bin Laden\u2019s terror, the catharsis of celebration may not only be appropriate, but actually necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those who lost loved ones in the war against terror, or those who support loved ones wounded in that war, will and should respond differently than those of us who have not.\u00a0 How could it be otherwise?<\/p>\n
The question is not which is the right response to Osama Bin Laden\u2019s death; the question is who each of us is in relation to Osama Bin Laden.\u00a0\u00a0 The task at hand is not to figure out how God would want us to respond; the task at hand is to figure out how, whatever our chosen response may be, we will move forward in life and empower ourselves to build a world which in which all people are safer and more secure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As celebratory crowds continue to gather around the country, especially near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, and in front of the White House, Americans are sending a message about who we are.\u00a0 Is it the one we want to send?\u00a0 Is it the one we should be sending?\u00a0 Religious leaders, like many others, are weighing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,1,3,4],"tags":[39,38,36,37,17,35,12],"class_list":["post-844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-news","category-politics","category-pop-culture","category-religion","tag-celebrating-death","tag-death-of-ones-enemies","tag-death-of-osama-bin-laden","tag-jewish-ethics","tag-judaism-2","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-politics-2"],"yoast_head":"\n