Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

The death of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il raises some interesting moral and religious questions as to how we—as individuals—and as a nation ought to respond. It is most unfortunate that this rogue seems to be the talk of the hour, while scant attention has been given to one of humanity’s truly great heroes of the 20th century, the Czechoslovakian President and champion of democracy, Vaclav Havel, whose Velvet Revolution stood of the might of the Soviet Communist machine; his legacy is the democracy he created for the two countries of Czech and Slovakia. Jewish tradition teaches that the death of the righteous is a like the destruction of the Temple (BT Rosh Hashanah 18b).

What a dramatic contrast . . .

Jewish tradition teaches us that “The death of the wicked benefits themselves and the world” (BT Sanhedrin 72a), but some scriptural texts seem to adopt a different attitude, “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble (Prov. 24:17). Now compare this passage with another biblical verse where King David is believed to have said, “Do I not hate, LORD, those who hate you? Those who rise against you, do I not loathe?With fierce hatred I hate them, enemies I count as my own” (Psalms 139:22).

For Christians, the question becomes even more acute: One might easily ask, “How does one reconcile the famous prescription of Jesus found in NT Matthew 5:43-48:

• [Y]ou shall love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Heavenly Father, for He makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Don’t the tax collectors do the same?[1]And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Don’t the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.

These sundry passages seem to be in conflict with one another. One could argue that since the Bible was written by different individuals over time, it is only natural that some writers might have strong opinions about the death of the wicked.[2] This is certainly a plausible way of looking at our texts. On the other hand, a more organic approach is certainly not only conceivable, but I would argue represents a clearer way of harmonizing the above cited texts.

With respect to Psalm 139:22, let’s be blunt: for many people, the verse certainly offends the liberal propensities and moral values of our times. Obviously, this is not a warm and fuzzy type of passage we might expect to encounter in the Psalms, but do not underestimate its contemporary message. Besides, there are numerous other passages in both Testaments that reflect the same animus toward “God’s enemies.” [3]

More specifically, would it be too farfetched to suggest that when Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” he was merely referring to the garden variety of people who behave more like a nuisance in our lives, or people who simply don’t like us, rather than individuals who pose a certain existential threat to whole societies or even civilization itself? Put in different words, would Jesus consider the likes of a Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-il, and Osama bin Ladin as “enemies of God” because of their genocidal behavior? Are such villains of history beyond even the periphery of forgiveness?

Most Americans probably don’t remember how Kim Jong-il’s policies directly created the mass starvation of the 1990s, where famine devastated North Korea, killing anywhere between 2.5 million and possibly 3.7 million victims. Imagine people living off of approximately 1 cup of food, the equivalent to 25% of the 25 percent of the internationally-recommended minimum calorie intake.[4] Beyond the incalculable damage this man has committed against his own people, Kim Jong-il has done to proliferate nuclear technology to the most unstable region of the world—the Middle East. If the day should arrive when Iran and its consort of terrorist groups gain access to any of these nuclear weapons, humanity may soon find itself standing at the precipice of non-existence. ‘

In practical terms, how should leaders of the free world remember Kim Jong-il?

There are two ways of responding; one approach is championed by diplomats; the other method comes from real people who have faced evil in their lives.

For an example of the former, take the former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright; in an interview with Larry King, where she admires certain qualities Ki Jong-il displayed in their meeting:

• He said that he would really have loved to have been a movie director. He knew a lot about American movies and had suggestions for Oscar nominations and, you know, he also liked American sports, he liked Michael Jordan. It was possible to talk with him. He’s not a nut. I think that’s the main kind of point. I think that it’s important actually not to make fun. He wanted me to e-mail with him. I think the thing that’s interesting, Larry, is I do not believe that he’s crazy. I know a lot of people have said that. I don’t think so.” One must wonder: Had she been the Secretary of State during WWII, would she have had the gull to say something similar about Hitler too?

And then there is Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, who said with enthusiastic glee, “I actually met Kim Jong-il.” I would like to ask Ms. Mitchell, “Did you manage to get his autograph, too?”

When you consider the amount of human suffering and evil this one man has contributed to the world, it is amazing to hear any American diplomat sing his praises as though Kim Jong-il was some Hollywood “bad boy” celebrity.

As I was reading the media’s reaction to the death of Kim Jong-il, I decided to compare the media’s reaction with the kind of reactions seen when the world first discovered about the death of Adolf Hitler, on June 1^st, 1945. If nothing else, it is offers a remarkable contrast to how our society has changed over the last 67 years.

• Lt. William J. Cullerton of Chicago, a fighter pilot who was left for dead a few weeks after a German SS man fired a .35-slug through his stomach, said, “I thought I’d had it, now they say Hitler is dead. Maybe he is. If he is, I don’t believe he died heroically. Mussolini died at least like a dictator, but somehow I can’t figure Hitler dying in action . . .”

• Sgt. Allan Pettit of Verndale, Minnesota, said, “Why waste words on Hitler?” he said. “And how do you know for sure? Anyway, he picked a damn good Nazi to take his place . . .”

• Another soldier said, “I wish I was the guy who killed him . . . I’d kill him a little slower. Awful slow . . .” One infantry captain said, “Yeah, I guess he’s dead, but so are a lot of other good guys. And you just remember that.

What a contrast . . .

The real issue that bothers me is the feeling of moral relativism that has become a part of our modern culture. Lines of demarcation differentiating between good and evil has become passé; in its place we are now seeing a new lexicon of political correctness that no longer refers to evil leaders as “evil,” but “opinionated,” or some other vacuous metaphors that trivialize evil in the world.

Religious minded people of the Christian and Jewish communities routinely avoid speaking about “evil,” as if it has any kind of ontological existence. Manifestations of evil, we are taught, are “privations of natural good” [5] (Augustine).

The Hall of Fame has special honors for baseball athletes who have accomplished great feats of athleticism. Very few people in our lifetime will ever manage to hit 700 or more homeruns in a baseball career. There ought to be a Hall of Infamy, where only the greatest enemies of humankind ought to be remembered for the evil they have unleashed unto the innocents of their countries and other places these rogues have invaded. When one looks at the human carnage caused by

Talaat Pasha, the “Turkish Hitler,” who killed at least 1.5 million Armenians during WWI; Béla Kun’s ethnic cleansing against Turkish and Crimean Tatars and other minorities in 1921-22; White and Red Terrors; Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge; Mao Zedong’s Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries; Pol Pot’s Killing Fields; massacres at the partition of India, or the Hama, Jallianwala Bagh; Tlatelolco massacres; and the mass killing of communists by Suharto’s New Order; and Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who killed between 500,000 and 1 million of the Tutsi people. Kim Jong-il is directly responsible for allowing 3.6 million of his own people to die.[6]

Genocidal people will forever be remembered as the true enemies of God and civilization. We would be wise to remember not to sugarcoat their legacy of mayhem, which will only serve to perpetuate the existence of evil in our world today and in the future.

Instead of speaking positively about this monster as others have done, they would be wise to simply be quiet and say, humanity has been greatly impoverished by the life of this one demented individual, who chose the values of necrophilia over the values of biophilia. That is our great struggle today, and we would be wise to recognize this elementary fact before it’s too late for all civilization.

Our world needs more heroes like Vaclav Havel.

Notes:

[1] Jesus may have been referring to anyone who was working for the ancient Roman equivalent of the IRS, e.g., tool collectors, customs and the like.

[2] Peter C. Craigie addresses the practical moral problems raised by our text:

• Nevertheless, the modern reader may find a number of problems, which are broadly identified as theological problems, in reading the Book of Psalms and in the attempt to make the theological content of the psalms relevant and meaningful. There are many places in the Psalter, particularly in the so-called individual laments, where the sentiments of the psalmists seem to be harsh, unloving and vindictive, and they are thus hard to relate to the gospel and to Jesus’ injunction that we love even our enemies. Of many such problematic passages in the psalms, there are few more difficult than Ps 137:8–9, in which the psalmist, crying for vengeance, declares the happy estate of those who kill Babylonian babies by dashing them upon the rocks. There are no simple solutions to problems such as these. But these psalms are not the oracles of God; they are Israel’s response to God’s revelation emerging from the painful realities of human life, and thus they open a window into the soul of the psalmist. The psalmists in ancient times were bound to the same commitment of love for enemies as is the modern Christian or Jew (cf. Lev 19:17–18; Exod 23:4–5), and their expressions of vindictiveness and hatred are not “purified” or “holy” simply by virtue of being present in Scripture. They are the real and natural reactions to the experience of evil and pain, and though the sentiments are in themselves evil, they are a part of the life of the soul which is bared before God in worship and prayer. The psalmist may hate his oppressor; God hates the oppression. Thus the words of the psalmist are often natural and spontaneous, not always pure and good, and yet they reflect the intimacy of the relationship between psalmist and God. The expression of hatred is in a way a confession of sin, though it is not phrased as such; it is a part of the inner life of a person which may be cleansed and transformed through the relationship with God. (For further perspectives on these and related problems, C. S. Lewis’ book, Reflections on the Psalms, is highly recommended. Peter C. Craigie, Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 1-50 (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 41.

[3] There is a plethora of other Psalms where enemies are liturgically eviscerated: Psalms 35:4-8; 40:14-15; 56:7; 79:6; 109:6-15; Pss. 5:10; 6:10; 7:6; 9:19-20; 10:2,15; 17:13; 28:4; 31:17-18; 35:1,4-8,19,24-26; 40:14-15; 41:10; 54:5; 55:9,15; 56:7; 58:6-10; 59:5,11-14; 63:9-10; 68:1-2; 69:22-28; 70:2-3; 71:13; 79:6,10-12; 83:9; 94:1-4; 97:7; 104:35; 109:6-19,29; 119:84; 129:5-7; 137:7-9; 139:19-22; 140:8-11; 141:10; 143:12. There are also problematic Christian passages that are no less provocative in tone: cf. Matthew 23:13,15-16, 23-24, 27, 29, 23:33; 26:23-24; Luke 10:10-16; 14:26; Gal. 1:8; 5:12; 1 Co. 16:21-22; 2 Thes. 1:6-10; 2 Tim. 1:19-20; 4:14; Re. 6:10; 19:1-2; 22:18, 19.

[4] Havel, Bondevik, Wiesel, Failure to Protect, 2006, 34; WFP, DPRK, 2006; WFP, DPRK, 2006; WFP Website, 2008.

[5] Augustine, Enchiridion, 10-12.

[6] Most of these stats come from Wikepedia’s entry on Mass Murderers.