Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Fearless flying: 10 rights vs. 613 duties

LAST week I flew across the country and once again was confronted with the annoying delays and inconveniences that airport security imposes on travelers.

The safety of our nation, especially from potential terrorist attacks, has been on the minds of many citizens, government agencies and the Supreme Court since that horrific day in September almost nine years ago when we lost so many people to senseless brutality.

But national security is more than deciding how best to protect our country; it involves the personal freedom and rights that will be curtailed or even denied.

The law is a reflection of the values of the society that creates it. Law becomes, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “a magic mirror wherein we see reflected not only our own lives, but the lives of all men that have been.”

When we look at any legal system, we have an opportunity to explore the values, social conflicts, moral imperatives and human condition of those who created it and came before us.

We are privileged to live in a democratic nation, founded on principles established in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which guarantees certain rights for its citizens.

The First Amendment gives us the right of free speech, the right to practice our religion without government intervention and the right to assemble freely.

The Second Amendment establishes the right to keep and bear arms, while the Fourth secures the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fifth affords  due process of law and the right against self-incrimination.

The list goes on, undeniably grounding American law in a system based on rights, privileges and entitlements.

JEWISH law, or Halachah, is a complex and comprehensive legal system touching every aspect of life, from the personal and private to the communal and global. It governs everything from the proper way to dress, eat, speak and pray to how you should treat your employees, mourn for your family and care for the needy. Perhaps most important, it establishes how we are to be in relationship with each other, with nature and with G-d.

Unlike American law, Halachah is not based on the individual’s rights and entitlements, but on the duties and responsibilities we owe to ourselves, to each other and to G-d.

These duties emanate from the Torah in the form of 613 commandments or mitzvot, and have been expounded upon by the rabbis and sages throughout Jewish history.

They articulate and reflect Jewish values that govern the way Jews have thought, lived and acted. Values like piku’ach nefesh (the duty to save life), bikkur cholim (the duty to visit the sick) and kevod ha-met (the duty to honor the dead) are just a few.

Because the Jewish lexicon does not speak in terms of rights, it does not frame contemporary issues, such as a woman’s decision to have an abortion, in terms of a “right to privacy.” The Jewish discussion stems from the duties a woman has — to herself, the unborn fetus and G-d — when making that decision.

Similarly, the decision to terminate life support, or passive euthanasia, is not addressed in terms of “the right to die with dignity” but rather, the duty to preserve and save a life.

THE laws and regulations that have addressed our nation’s need to protect against terrorist attacks have required us to give up some of the rights we previously enjoyed, such as being free to board an airplane without first removing our shoes or relinquishing shampoo bottles that exceed three ounces.

As the risk to our security increases, so does the loss of the rights we have come to expect.

We may dislike the extent to which our rights have been altered, but it cannot be denied that ensuring security requires a trade off. We must be willing to relinquish some of our personal freedoms in order to provide for the greater needs of the nation.

Would we feel differently if we viewed this issue through a Jewish lens? Rather than thinking of a loss of our personal freedoms, perhaps we should think of ways that protect and save as many lives as possible.

When we elevate life above all else, our focus shifts from what we lose to what we preserve.

This makes the inevitable loss of freedom easier to tolerate.



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IJN Columnist | Reflections


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