This is not a political column. Like every other American, I hope the killers of the US ambassador to Libya will be caught, tried, convicted and punished. Likewise, I am pleased that the terrible danger posed by Osama bin Laden was eliminated.
But bin Laden was not brought to justice. Nor will the killers of Amb. Stevens be brought to justice.
This is a theological column, not a political one.
There is no justice for a murderer, let alone a mass murderer. Yes, there is punishment. There is the rule of law. There is revenge. There is hatred. But there is no justice.
Justice is the restoration of an unjust taking. If I steal $100, and then am forced to return that $100 to my victim, plus whatever additional pain I caused my victim by virtue of the theft, that is justice.
Rape is an unjust taking, but there is no justice for it. There is no restoration of what was lost.
Murder is the ultimate, unjust taking. For it, there is no justice.
Jewish law (Halachah) speaks about gezel shainah theft of sleep as the classic case of a crime for which there is no justice. If I noisily cause a person to lose sleep, there is no way I can pay back the victim. His sleep, his rest, is gone forever. It can never be restored.
That which Ambassador Stevens lost his life cannot be restored. Associatively, the love and guidance that his family lost, and the professional contributions that his colleagues lost, cannot be restored. His killers cannot be brought to justice.
All the more so with Osama bin Laden. He robbed countless thousands of people his victims and their families and friends of something that can never be restored.
All the more so the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, or of the Holocaust. What possible justice is there for Adolf Eichmann, who orchestrated the deaths of millions of people? Or of Stalin? Or Hitler? Or Pol Pot?
The three main perpetrators of the Armenian genocide were leaders of the Turkish Committee of Unity and Progress: Jamal Pasha, Taalat Pasha, Enver Pasha. After WW I, all three were assassinated by Armenian survivors of unspeakable, intentional brutalities.
Revenge?
Yes.
A small measure of satisfaction?
Yes.
The only proper end to the lives of these beasts?
Yes.
But justice? Nothing less than the revival of the dead millions of dead could begin to introduce the word and the idea of justice into the fates of these evil men.
I do not mean to make light of the judiciary. The judiciary is essential to the functioning of a free society. Morever, it is precisely in the prosecution of murderers and mass murderers that the judicary plays one of its most critical roles. Without an honest and a fair judiciary, society falls into chaos and mayhem.
But let us not kid ourselves. There are inherent limits to the outcome that any judicary can achieve, no matter how fair and scrupulous.
So much for this world.
What about the next world?
Is there eternal justice that G-d can mete out to the likes of Hitler or Stalin? We certainly hope so, but we must be candid and confess: There is no way we can even imagine any justice that is proportional to their crimes.
As for the next world, we must leave justice there to G-d and His unknowable ways. Indeed, His ways must be unknowable when it comes to an appropriate response to Nazis and to other mass murderers, since there is nothing that any human being can conceive of that can bring them to justice.
It is difficult enough to seek justice from G-d in a single life our own. The nuances and limitless details in our own relationship to G-d, to right and wrong, and to holiness occupy us for 10 straight days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur and we see how difficult it is to bring ourselves to justice, let alone to pray convincingly to G-d to agree with our verdict.
As for the ultimate justice for those evil people whose acts wither our imagination and conquer our very sense of possibility, that is for G-d. He alone, we hope, shall bring them to justice.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
