Kol Nidre  -  Battling Evil

Kol Nidre (Hebrew: כל נדרי) is a Jewish prayer recited in the synagogue at the beginning of the evening service on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. Its name is taken from the opening words, meaning "All vows".

"Kol Nidre" has had an eventful history, both in itself and in its influence on the legal status of the Jews. Introduced into the liturgy despite the opposition of some rabbinic authorities, attacked in the course of time by some rabbis, and in the nineteenth century expunged from the prayer-book by many communities of western Europe, this prayer has often been employed out of context by anti-Semites to support their claims that Jews cannot be trusted.

Kol Nidre sometimes does not only refer to the actual prayer, but sometimes to the entire Yom Kippur evening service. (wiki)

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We are in a battle against evil.

The media present it very simply.  We are the good guys, freedom loving, democratic, compassionate Americans.  “They” are the bad guys: radical Muslims of “Middle Eastern descent” intent on destroying the American way of life and everything we stand for.  And of course they also seek the destruction of Israel.

 

At times like this, it can be very tempting to turn to fire and brimstone type quotations from the Torah to justify pursuing a harsh justice, even vengeance.  In many places in the Torah it is written that we should “purge the evil from your midst,” or to “put the evil away from you” by imposing the death penalty.  Regarding the seven Canaanite nations that were dwelling in Israel when our ancestors arrived Deuteronomy commands us “But of the cities of these people, which the Lord your Elohim does give you for an inheritance, you shall not keep alive anything that breathes; But you shall completely destroy them: the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord your Elohim has commanded you.”

 

But what is “evil?”  The English translations of the Tanach we use are often somewhat misleading.  They frequently translate one word as “evil” when if fact it could mean something completely different.  English has three times as many words as Hebrew: this allows English to be much more precise.  In Hebrew many words have to serve multiple purposes, with their meaning understood from the context.

 

In English, we have the word “evil,” which means “morally bad or wicked; harmful, intending to do harm.”  Clearly in English, the word “evil” implies a negative intention.  In Hebrew there are two words often translated as evil: ra and ra’ah.  However, ra is not ALWAYS evil; sometimes it simply means bad, without the implication of a negative intention.

 

If someone runs you over with a car intending to kill you because he doesn’t like the way you look, it is evil.  If someone runs you over with a car because he’s not paying attention to his driving, it’s a bad thing, but not necessarily evil.  In Hebrew the same word, ra, might be used to describe either event.  You have to understand from the context whether bad or evil is meant.  While it might be tempting to say that this implies there is no distinction between bad and evil—that after all, the person is equally damaged regardless of the intent behind the act—the evidence is that intentions do matter, and matter a great deal in Judaism.

 

The problems of translation are very evident in a passage we find in the book of Exodus.  After the Israelites sinned with the Golden Calf, Elohim was ready to wipe them all out and start over with just Moses.  Moses intervened, and Elohim changed his mind.  A typical translation of Exodus 32:14 is “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.”

 

Does it make any sense whatsoever to say that Elohim repented of evil?  My theology, and it’s pretty mainstream among Jews, does not allow for a god who is evil.  “Yenachem”, the word translated as “repent,” according to Rashi means reconsidered.  Rashi further says that when it says evil, it means Elohim reconsidered his thinking Israel was evil.  Therefore according to Rashi, the translation should be “Elohim reconsidered his idea that Israel was evil.”  Another simpler explanation might be to translate ra’ah here as bad instead of evil, so our translation would be “Elohim reconsidered the bad thing—the punishment—he was going to deliver to Israel.”  Being punished for your sins may be bad, but it’s not evil.

 

 

I’ve heard several calls in the media over the last two weeks speaking of the need to “eradicate the evil,” bringing to mind the biblical passages about “eradicating the evil from our midst.”  Yet when the Torah speaks of eradicating the evil from our midst, it is not talking about destroying evil nations.  Where the Torah says to “eradicate the evil from your midst” it is always talking about individual sins: idol worship, a rebellious son, kidnapping, false prophecy.  Sins of a wayward individual.  Never does the Torah tell us regarding another group of people that we should “eradicate the evil from our midst.”  In fact the word “evil” is not used in conjunction with other nations that are bad: the word rasha, wicked, is used instead.

 

Eradicating our individual evils is, of course, a major part of what Yom Kippur is about: working to do repentance and receive atonement for the bad and evil things we may have done during the last year.

 

One of the problems we face in our battle against external evil today is simply identifying the enemy.  We don’t know who the enemy really is.  Our government keeps declaring Osama bin Laden as “the leading suspect.”  Do you go to war against a “leading suspect?” Or do you go to war against a known enemy?  The enemy we face today wears no uniforms and doesn’t attack in neat columns.  We can’t just send in a large army and air strikes, because we don’t know exactly where and against whom to direct it.  A huge part of the battle is simply finding and identifying the enemy.

 

We have a similar problem in our battle against our internal evil, the yetzer ha ra, the evil inclination.  Sometimes it is very difficult to “identify the enemy.”  Sometimes the yetzer ha ra will camouflage itself, try to present itself as a mitzvah to mislead us.  Perhaps a person will tell himself I’m working very hard to make money; since I’ll give some of that money to charity, to tzedaka, that’s enough, I don’t need to study Torah, or pray or do any of those other things.  I’m busy doing good already.  Or they may say I need to make a lot of money to provide good things for my family, which excuses me from taking a break, and spending time with them on Shabbat; when the truth is it’s their own egos driving them to work so hard, they want a bigger SUV, or a bigger house, so they can display their success.  I’m sure the kids would rather have a used Toyota and more time with Mom or Dad. 

 

There have been shameful cases where rabbis, who really should know better, were caught fraudulently acquiring funds to support their institutions of Torah learning.  I’m sure this wickedness hid itself as a mitzvah at first—I need to support this school which is bringing Torah to many young people who otherwise might not have it, if I divert some funds, especially government money, I’m not hurting anyone. . .

 

Just like the terrorists who are able to hide out in mountains and conceal themselves by looking like “normal” people, our evil inclination is an expert at hiding itself, and then coming out looking like something “normal,” or even something good.  We must be ever vigilant, and we must learn how to distinguish good from bad.  We have to have radar that detects our rationalizations, our attempts to disguise selfishness in a mitzvah.

 

Once we’ve learned to pay attention and identify evil, how do we fight it?  What guidance can we find in Torah for our battle against evil, against evil outside and evil inside?

 

The yetzer ha ra, the evil inclination, is a part of every one of us.  In Genesis 2:7 it is written Elohim “yitzar,” Elohim formed man of dust from the ground.  Yitzar is written with two yuds, which is unusual; in other places the word is written with only one yud.  The rabbis interpret this to mean that man is created with two “yetzars,” two inclinations, a good inclination and a bad inclination.  This yetzar ha ra is not really evil per se; it’s more what Freud would have described as the id, or what might be described as libido.  It’s the blind selfish instinct in us that wants what it wants and wants it NOW.

 

You might think our goal is to eradicate all traces of this yetzer ha ra; after all, it’s “ra,” if not evil at least bad, isn’t it?  We learn otherwise from a story in the Talmud, tractate Yoma 69b.  The sages of Israel had succeeded in dominating the evil impulse toward idol worship.  They felt they were on a roll.  They said: Since this is a time of Grace, let us pray for mercy for the Tempter to evil, the inclination to sin.  They prayed for mercy, and he was handed over to them. The prophet said to the sages: Realize that if you kill the tempter to evil, the world goes down. They imprisoned him for three days, then looked in the whole land of Israel for a fresh egg and could not find it.  They said: What shall we do now? Should we kill him? The world would then go down. Should we beg for half-mercy—remove enough of the inclination that we won’t want to sin, but not so much that we won’t want our wives?  But they do not grant ‘halves’ in heaven.  They put out the eyes of the tempter and let him go. It helped inasmuch as he no more entices men to commit incest.

 

Not only are we told that we don’t need to eradicate the evil inclination, we learn that if we eradicate it, we won’t survive: instead we are instructed that we need to channel our yetzer ha ra, that selfish instinctual drive, to holy purposes.  If it is our nature to compete, compete to give the most money to a worthy cause.  Compete to build the best schools.  The same sexual instinct directed toward the wrong person is evil, directed toward the right person is holy.  We are taught that we cannot eradicate our evil impulse, and we don’t want to eradicate it—instead we need to channel it in appropriate directions.

 

What about our external enemies?  Do we aim to eradicate them, or to “channel” them?  It all depends; sometimes the answer is one way, sometimes the other way.

 

Let’s look at the case of Amalek.  In Deuteronomy it says “Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt;  How he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear Elohim.  Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your Elohim has given you rest from all your enemies around, in the land which the Lord your Elohim gives you for an inheritance to possess, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it.”  Amalek deserves special mention for being wiped out because they acted wickedly, attacking the weaker members of our society; not unlike suicide bombers who would attack teenage girls standing in line to go to a disco.

 

In the days of Joshua we did not succeed in driving out Amalek completely.  In the reign of Saul the opportunity presents itself again.  This time we won, and totally demolished the Amalekites.  Elohim, speaking to Saul through the prophet Samuel, told him to “strike down Amalek and destroy everything he has.  Have no pity on him.”  However, contrary to instructions, Saul kept booty from the Amalekites to offer at the Temple, and he spared Agag, the king of Amalek; perhaps it was “professional courtesy”—one king to another, maybe he thought you’re no longer a threat to me, I’ll let you stay where you are.  Elohim was very angry with Saul for failing to follow instructions; as a result the kingship is taken from Saul’s line and is instead given to David.  According to midrash, the folly of Saul’s decision shows up years later: they say Haman, who nearly succeeded in wiping out the Jews, was a descendant of this king that Saul spared.  Similarly, a modern day “king” has many problems to deal with because his father decided to spare Saddam Hussein, who has surely demonstrated himself to be the equal of Amalek in wickedness, aimed both at the Jews and his own people.

 

But this is not the only possible response to external evil.  What would be the point of repentance if it wasn’t available for the wicked?  We learn an important lesson from the greatest woman scholar in the entire Talmud: Beruriah, Rabbi Meir’s wife.  Rabbi Meir was one of the greatest of the scholars; however in the few cases where he argues with his wife, his wife has the right answer.  One time Beruriah heard her husband praying for the destruction of some wicked people who were taunting him.  She asks him “What are you thinking?  Are you thinking of Psalm 104 where it’s written ‘Sinners will cease from the earth, and the wicked will be no more.’  Do you think it is says ‘sinners will cease from the earth?’  It doesn’t say sinners, it says sins.  And what’s more, the end of the verse says ‘the wicked will be no more.’  If they stop their sinning, they aren’t wicked any more.  Don’t pray for their destruction, rather pray for their repentance.”  Beruriah could also have quoted the prophet Ezekiel who said “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? says the Lord Elohim; and not that he should return from his ways, and live?”  In other words, Elohim hates the sin, not the sinner.

 

In the story Rabbi Meir prays for their repentance, and they do indeed repent.  You might ask, if praying causes the sinners to repent, where’s their free will?  The answer is Elohim provided them with circumstances which led them to be able to do teshuva, to see for themselves the wrong of their ways and repent.

 

How does this fit into our current situation?  The first thing we have to do is to provide the opportunity for teshuva.  To try and make peace.  In Deuteronomy chapter 20 we are commanded that when we come near to a city to fight it, we should first offer peace to them, and if they accept peace, fine, but if not we besiege them, and kill all the men.  We first follow Beruriah’s advice, and pray for their repentance; we try and make it happen, by providing circumstances in which they might come to change their ways.  If all else fails, we then need to be thorough about destroying the evil.

 

Extrapolating to the current political situation is dangerous, and I do not want to get into debates about politics.  I just put out for your consideration, that President Bush has certainly offered peace, at least to Afghanistan, if they will hand over the individuals responsible for the recent horrible deeds of terrorism.  Many would argue that Ehud Barak bent over backwards in trying to give the Palestinians a set of conditions that would allow them to do teshuva and repent from violence.  Others would argue that Barak didn’t go far enough.  That’s not my debate for the moment; the point is, we must first sincerely give what we can and offer peace, and provide the opportunity for teshuva; if we have done that sincerely and it didn’t work, we have to be thorough in removing evil, and we must take care not to allow Amalek to remain on his throne.

 

Battling evil thoroughly does not mean killing people or nations indiscriminately.  Many people are troubled by the verses in the Torah calling for the total destruction of the seven Canaanite nations, the Hittite, Amorite, Girgashite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivvite and the Jebusite; and of course we can add Amalek and Moab to the list.  There are those in the Jewish radical right wing faction who would like to use these verses to persecute Palestinians.  This is clearly forbidden by halacha, by Jewish law.  The halachic authorities are in 100% agreement that these seven nations no longer exist as independent nations or peoples.  Whoever the Palestinians are, they are clearly not one or more of these seven nations.  We have passed the test of time and are still here; the seven nations have already been destroyed, if not by us, by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and assimilation.

 

But even more important than this historical fact, we should not turn to those verses for guidance, to extrapolate to our situation today.  In Deuteronomy chapter 20 where a repetition of the list of the nations appear, the Girgashites are missing.  That is because they accepted Joshua’s proposal of peace.  Furthermore, the Torah says we should destroy them so that “they will not teach you to act according to all their abominations.”  Rashi explains that this means if they did repentance we are allowed to accept them, we don’t need to destroy all of them.

 

The evil we are battling is evil individuals, not evil nations.  We must not lose sight of this.  We must pray for their repentance, we must offer the nations terms of peace.  Failing that we must be steadfast in our resolve to bring the evil doers to justice.  We must not underestimate the importance of stopping these individuals.  As it is written in Ecclesiastes, “Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good.”  We have seen how one sinner, or a small number of sinners, can destroy a tremendous amount of good.  Proverbs contains advice on the need to improve security: “A prudent man foresees evil, and hides himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.”

 

And for battling the evil within us, our yetzer ha ra, I suppose it would come as no surprise that as a rabbi I recommend Torah and mitzvot.  Rebbe Nachman and others teach Torah as a literal antidote to the evil inclination; he suggests that if you feel aroused toward some evil, you should instead sit and study Torah, and by focusing on studying Torah the urge to sin will pass. 

 

Obeying the mitzvot, the commandments, is an excellent path for character improvement, IF done with the right intention.  The commandments between people, like not stealing, or giving charity, or doing good deeds are obvious paths to character improvement.  But even the ritual commandments are part of this process. Take keeping kosher as an example.  The ideal in Judaism is to be a vegetarian; eating meat is understood as a sort of compromise, and a lot of restrictions are put on it: the animal must be slaughtered in a painless way, a blessing must be said, we separate the symbols of life, blood and milk, from the dead meat.  We should be aware of the sanctity of life; by keeping kosher we are frequently reminded of this, and hopefully these reminders carry over into respecting the sanctity of other humans as well.

 

Whether or not you believe Elohim listens to or responds to individual prayers, praying is an excellent tool in the battle against your evil inclination, and the path for self-improvement.  If every day you recite the verse found in our siddur, the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” maybe you’ll act on that during the day.  If you say the Amidah every day with its blessing for health, maybe you’ll be reminded to call a sick friend or relative and help brighten their day.  If you say a prayer for peace three times a day, maybe you’ll be reminded to do something to help make that peace a reality.

 

In both our struggles against the evil in the world around us, and in our struggles against the evil inclination within us, let us remember the words of Psalm 34: “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.”

 

And be prepared for a long battle.  As I mentioned earlier, the yetzer ha ra, the evil inclination, is a part of our character; the battle to direct it to noble causes is a life long one.  The battle against terrorists will also be a long and difficult one.  As Harold Meyerson wrote in this weeks LA Weekly: “Never mind that Pearl Harbor is an imperfect analogy to our current situation.  The more serious problem is, can anyone envision an end to this conflict that resembles in the slightest the surrender on the battleship Missouri?  There is no Hirohito who can go on the radio and tell his people to stand down, and no people who would unquestionably follow his command.”  The battle against terrorism may be nearly as difficult to declare over at some point as the battle against the evil inclination.

 

Today is Yom Kippur.  Elohim may be the one to decide if we are to live in the coming year; how we live, however, is completely up to us.  May we all decide to choose good and to choose life.  To choose life and to choose good means doing mitzvot, especially caring for each other.  Rebbe Nachman teaches that when the Torah promises length of days for obeying the mitzvot, it doesn’t mean that we will add a certain number of days or years to our lives.  It means that if we choose right, we are able to make each day a “long” one, filled with love and good deeds.  May all your days be long ones.

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