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[ by Charles Cameron — vendetta, vengeance, an eye for an eye, compensation, forgiveness, and the question of limits ]
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I didn’t want this pair of events to slip by entirely unnoticed.

The first image above shows part of the “wanted” poster with which Rabbi Menachem Liebman offered a $100,000 reward to whoever would kill Huliad and Nidar Ramadan, recently released by Israeli authorities as part of the prisoner-swap for Gilad Shalit, who had previously been convicted of killing his own son, Shlomo Liebman, a settlement security guard.

The second, lower image is taken from the reciprocating offer of a $100,000 reward made by Dr Awad al-Qarni on Facebook, to whoever who would capture an(other) Israeli soldier.

These things tend to escalate.  According to this AllGov report, Prince Khaled bin Talal of Saudi Arabia commented that “Dr Awad al-Qarni said he was offering $100,000 to only take a prisoner but they [unnamed in the original Reuters report, but presumably Israelis] responded by offering $1 million to kill Awad al-Qarni” – and himself pledged an additional $900,000 to the bounty on the capture of Israeli soldiers, bringing the total to $1 million.

Accompanying this story on the AllGov site, appositely enough, was this illustrated quote from Mohandas Gandhi:

For those who have trouble killing Ramadan brothers or capturing Israeli soldiers, lesser rewards are also available in the United States: this article reports that a “$4,000 reward has been offered for the identity of the police officer who may have been responsible for the injuries sustained by former Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen” during the Oakland Occupy protests recently.

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Juvenal wrote Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas Ultio — “revenge is the weak pleasure of a narrow mind”.

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Let’s think about this for a moment.

Lex talionis is the law of limited retribution – one eye for one eye – found (following similar texts in the code of Hammurabi) in the Mosaic law, Exodus 21.23-25 requiring “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”  The rabbis, however, commented that “inasmuch as the law seeks equity, its literal enforcement would frequently lead to gross inequity” [W Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary, p 571. n. 6.] – and chose to interpret the text as mandating equivalent monetary compensation for value lost.

Tit for tat is a common expression of the same idea, and has also been used in a technical sense in strategies for the iterative playing of Prisoners Dilemma games referred to in my previous post.

Christ‘s injunction in Matthew 5.38-39 reads:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Similarly in the Qur’an, 41:34-35, Muslims are instructed:

Nor can goodness and Evil be equal. Repel (evil) with what is better: Then will he between whom and thee was hatred become as it were thy friend and intimate!

Joseph Smith, the first Mormon prophet, suggests in Journal of Discourses vol 2, pg 165-166 that such forbearance is appropriate the first time, but not thereafter:

Our enemies have prophesied that we would establish our religion by the sword; is it true? No, but if Missouri will not stay her cruel hand in her unhallowed persecutions against us, I restrain you not any longer: I say, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the authority of the Holy Priesthood, I this day turn the key that opens the heavens to restrain you no longer from this time forth. I will lead you to battle; and if you are not afraid to die, and feel disposed to spill your blood in your own defence, you will not offend me. Be not the aggressor—bear until they strike you on the one cheek; then offer the other and they will be sure to strike that then defend yourselves, and God will bear you off, and you shall stand forth clear before His tribunal.

The New Testament, however, suggests that this forbearance is not to be exercised only on the first occasion…  Thus in Matthew 18.21-22 we read:

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not to you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Also of interest is here the (possibly apocryphal) story of the Dalai Lama, who was asked how he would deal with a mosquito. “Brush it away,” he replied. “But what if it comes back?” “Brush it away again.” “But what if it comes back again?” “I crush it, and say ‘Come back as the Buddha!'”

For a detailed consideration of these issues in Islam, see Abdullah bin Hamid Ali‘s Islam and Turning the Other Cheek [.pdf], where this interesting discussion featuring the idea of forgiveness “seventy times” is also featured:

The Koran directs the Prophet — God’s mercy and peace be upon him — concerning the hypocrites, “Whether you ask for their forgiveness, or not, [their sin is unforgiveable]: if you ask seventy times for their forgiveness, Allah will not forgive them because they have rejected Allah and His messenger, and Allah guides not those who are perversely rebellious” (9: 80). After the death of the chief hypocrite, ‘Abd Allah ibn Ubayy, the Prophet — mercy and peace on him — saw no decisive prohibition in this verse against praying for hypocrites. This was, firstly, because outwardly the words give him a choice between asking forgiveness or not (Whether you ask for their forgiveness, or not…). Secondly, the verse mentions that God would not forgive even if he was to ask seventy times. His hope was that if he asked more than seventy times, it might be enough to secure forgiveness for Ibn Ubayy in spite of his open and insidious antagonism of the Prophet — mercy and peace on him. His companion, ‘Umar, contested this understanding of the Prophet’s — God’s mercy and peace be upon him. Later, the following verse was revealed confirming ‘Umar’s stance, “Nor do you ever pray for any of them that dies, nor stand at his grave; for they rejected Allah and His messenger, and died in a state of perverse rebellion” (9: 84)

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Perhaps Koholeth (Ecclesiastes 3.1) should have the last word:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 10th, 2011 at 12:56 am and is filed under Charles Cameron, counterpoint, game theory, philosophy, psychology, Religion, scriptures, Specs, symmetry, Talmud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.