There are Martyrs and There are Martyrs

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor 

March 26, 2004

We, the Jewish people, have our martyrs. It began with our very first people, Abraham and Isaac. God commanded the father to sacrifice his son, and the son willingly offered his life on the altar of the ultimate summons. We don't really know Isaac's age, but the general impression is that he is already a young man. Later in the Torah, when Judah stands before his brother Joseph, though not yet knowing who he is, Judah offers his life in place of his brother Benjamin's. While not typically portrayed in this manner, Moses and Aaron, entering into Pharaoh's court to demand the Israelite's release was also an act of martyrdom, for all they knew; he could have killed them on the spot. When the Israelites were caught between Pharaoh's army chasing them from behind and Yam Suf before them, one person, Nachson be Amindav, jumped into the water. He had no way of knowing what would happen next, perhaps dying in the attempt to inspire his people to have faith and go forward. In the episode of the Golden Calf, God offers Moses to erase them all and begin our history from Moses. Moses responds to God: "If you are going to kill them, kill me too." We, the Jewish people, have a history of martyrdom, which runs as a thread through our history from our very beginning.

It is clear what has provoked me to preach on this subject tonight. There are several issues that are obligatory in my mind and heart to address, and with the assistance of our listserv and those who forward on these words, to further disseminate. The first one which I have just begun and will continue, is for us to recognize, respect and place into exceedingly proper context, that from the outset of our existence, Hebrews, Israelites, Jews, have been prepared to die for the faith, have been prepared to die in defense of the Jewish people. We have not been, ever, never, a bunch of wimps. Yet the episodes of our martyrdom are instructive and illuminating. Most particularly, we have not sent our children out to fight our battles. We, the adults, have offered our lives, most importantly, to protect our children, to protect our wives, to protect our parents. Most frequently throughout our long history, it has been the adult men who were prepared and did sacrifice the ultimate, on behalf of the ultimate, to protect the ultimate.

To return to the historical record, skipping to the Hellenistic Age, Mattathias, a small priest in the distance from Jerusalem recognized the threat of compulsion to worship a Greek god. His shout to his fellow Jews, "Whosoever is for the Lord follow me" echoed in many chords. It was a call to rebellion. It was a call to defend the faith. It was a call to war. It was a call to martyrdom, and his sons, grown men, responded to the call. That call and their response, has echoed in our history, by generation after generation of adults. It is in that context that we have the lone, singular saga of children in martyrdom - the story of Hannah and her seven sons. Yet even here there is a difference. Their act was passive defense - they refused to perform an act of idolatry, and so were murdered. Antiochus tried every ploy to get them to bow down to him, and they refused, from the oldest to the youngest. Perhaps it was the echo of this story, of this legend, that fortified the defenders of Masada to perform the act of martyrdom and not be forced into Roman slavery, idolatry, or murdered in the lion dens of Rome .

From this bloody period in our history arose the question in Jewish law: When, for what reasons, should a person commit martyrdom, Kiddush HaShem, sanctifying God's name in public? It is phrased; shall you transgress a commandment and not be killed, or not transgress, and be killed? 
Before addressing the question, let me return to conclude the historical record with another leap of time to the Warsaw Ghetto and all the other uprisings during the Holocaust. Historians, analyzing the questions of why, when, whom, where, about the Jewish revolts against the Nazis revealed that they occurred predominantly when there was no one left to protect, after the old, the young and the sick were gone. Until then, the instinct, and the passion - I use that word specifically - the inborn and innate reflex was to harbor, shelter, save and preserve life. Rebellion acknowledged that there was nothing left to save. It was the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate martyrdom offered at the end. Until then, we protected our wives, our parents and our children. With them there was hope. Without them, there wasn't. With them, life was worth living. Without them, life was worthless.

So precious is life in our conception of existence that God in the Torah commands us to "live by the commandments." When quoting this the Rabbis add their words: "And don't die by them." From this understanding, the Rabbis enumerated three responses to the question of martyrdom, which I mentioned above. Accordingly, in the first response in Jewish law, which was probed, adapted and reassessed continually, one should be a martyr and not transgress three commandments: if told to commit idolatry, sexual sins, or to commit murder. If so ordered, even on the penalty of death, we refuse. For all others, we should save our lives in order to live, to dream, to have a future, a destiny, and transgress the law.

So precious is life. So precious is a child. So laden with hope. So laden with promise. So filled with possibilities. So filled with opportunities. Herein lay the pain and the anguish in looking at this fourteen-year-old, confused little Palestinian boy who was used by adults to kill himself, besides killing Israelis. Who stood there saying, he didn't want to die. 
Is this not the compelling argument to stop the slaughter of innocents? 
Is this not the ultimate picture commanding the combatants to an instrument made of wood, a table for peace instead of a coffin for the dead? 
Is it not time for the world to end its hypocrisy of motions at the United Nations and see the indisputable confrontation of life and death? 
Would it not have been easier for the Israeli soldiers to just shoot him? 
Did they have to take any risks to save his life? 
Is there some vision by anybody that the continual terrorization and traumatization of Palestinian children and the brutalization of Israeli children as they ride their buses to school has only one ultimate conclusion in history: to return the sands to barrenness, that the Dead Sea shall be the only water, no matter whose flag waves wherever, regardless of any fence.

From here, so far away I cry out: Make peace! Come to the table for peace! 
If not for us, then for yourselves! Should you be successful in achieving anything, there will be nothing worth having, for you will have destroyed the living and the dead. Suicide and martyrdom are extreme statements that this is the end. There is no greater purpose for which to live. It is the abdication of the self. It is the abdication of the future. It is the abdication of a dream. It is the end of those who might dream, the children, the most natural dreamers of all. Why not listen instead to that source which is common ground and same sacred text to Moslem and Jew, the story of Abraham, father of Isaac and Ishmael. For when Isaac was prepared to be a martyr and Abraham was prepared to martyr him, the angel came from God and said: "Do not extend your hand upon the child! Don't do any harm to him!" 
Stay your hand from upon the children, yours besides ours. 
Listen to the words of Hagar mother of Ishmael who cried out: "Let me not look upon the death of the child." Both the angel and Hagar from across the expanse of history: 
Cry out: the death of our children achieves nothing but to destroy the future. 
Scream: nothing matters when life is rendered worthless, by killing the one entity 
That is the greatest promise 
The greatest hope, children. 
From this morass from this madness, all must withdraw or all is lost, no matter whatever is whenever won.

In Moslem and Jewish traditions two mothers cry for their children from across the millennium, Hagar for Ishmael and Rachel for the exiles. 
May a miracle occur from this insanity, 
May their tears be dried. 
May their children live. 
May the mothers rest in peace. Amen.