Australia/Israel Review

Vengeance has been with us since the birth of humanity. The earliest record of murder in the Bible is an act of revenge – Cain kills his brother Abel as an act of fury at both his sibling and the God who favours him. 

Vengeance is a basic, primaeval human impulse. Nietzsche wisely said, “A small revenge is more human than no revenge at all.” Yet exercising revenge can be costly and harmful.

Since October 7, nekamah, or retribution, has emerged as one of the key words in Israeli public life, not only in popular culture, but in the media, the military, the Government and the Knesset. Shortly after October 7, Binyamin Netanyahu put it bluntly: “We will strike them until they are crippled, and we will avenge with full force this black day they inflicted upon the state of Israel and its citizens.”

As I write this piece, the world is anxiously awaiting Iran’s retaliation for Israel’s retribution – the targeted killings of some of its most deadly enemies from the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Retribution can be seen as an act of justice and as a way of stopping violence. It sends a message of strength to one’s enemy. 

Israel’s capacity to strike at the very heart of the capitals of terror has restored some of its battered pride and some deterrence against its opponents. Indeed, many analysts of the Middle East suggest that the only way to win a conflict in that part of the world is via displays of strength. 

On the other hand, vengeance can perpetuate a cycle of tit-for-tat, an endless pattern of attack and reprisal. Righteous indignation can lead to inhuman and unrighteous behaviour. 

Jewish wisdom has long pondered the value and limits of revenge and retribution. In the Bible, God both approves and disapproves of it. Early on in Jewish history, He calls on the Israelites to take revenge on their enemies, be they the Amalekites or the Midianites. The rabbis of the Talmud suggest that a righteous person should rejoice when they witness retribution. 

Yet alongside these sentiments, God explicitly forbids vengeance (Leviticus 19:18) and commands forgiveness, as Joseph forgave his brothers who sought to kill him. 

Some thinkers argue that it is only God, not man, who exercises vengeance and only in the past appointed human agents for this. Since the destruction of the Second Temple, says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Jews may and perhaps should appeal to God for justice and retribution, but not become advocates of revenge. 

This is not to say we should not seek to destroy the enemies who seek to annihilate us. Jewish Law clearly states that it is just and right to pre-emptively kill those who want to kill you. 

On the fast of Tisha B’Av (August 12 in 2024), Jews recall their communities throughout the ages who were helpless in the face of their murderers and marauders and cried out in their fear and agony – including those who etched onto the walls of the gas chambers, “Take revenge for our deaths.”

In the collective Jewish psyche, October 7 channelled the collective trauma of the Holocaust, just as the Shoah animated many Zionist leaders in the 1940s; partisan leader Abba Kovner, for example, led a group called “The Avengers”.

The mood of so many, if not most, in Israel and across the Jewish world is therefore understandably for payback against the genocidal Hamas leaders and their followers. 

However, blind vengeance is also a path that can lead to a dead end of violence and despair, and Jews have long distinguished between justice and vengeance. Jewish teaching says we should not celebrate the fall of our enemies. 

We may hate the way they have besmirched the soul that God gave them, but as King Solomon (Proverbs 24:17) recommended, we should not gloat (or hand out sweets) or rejoice in their destruction.

We are urged to stand for life and the careful calibration of justice.