{"id":54387,"date":"2017-03-15T17:22:10","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T17:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=54387"},"modified":"2017-03-15T17:23:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T17:23:12","slug":"talmud-for-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=54387","title":{"rendered":"Talmud for today?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; two brief surface readings in Talmud, with a request for deeper understanding ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>As someone brought up with more of a focus on the <strong>Beatitudes <\/strong>than the <strong>Torah <\/strong>(I know, a huge question with many potential shades of answer opens up when I say that), I was not familiar with this Talmudic aphorism until the drone strikes that killed <strong>Anwar al-Awlaki<\/strong> and shortly thereafter his son <strong>Abdulrahman<\/strong> brought it to my attention:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Ha-Ba le-Horgekha Hashkem le-Horgo<\/strong> is a teaching of increasing popularity among Israelis.  Taken from the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 72:1, its most precise translation is: \u2018If someone comes to kill you, get up early to kill him first.\u2019 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I imagine it also has relevance to the (presumed) Israeli targeted killing of (eg) <strong>Imad Mughniyah<\/strong>..<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I came across a second such Talmudic phrase, based on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Genesis%2050\">Genesis 50<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The sages derived a principle from this text. <strong>Mutar le-shanot mipnei ha-shalom<\/strong>: \u201cIt is permitted to tell an untruth (literally, \u201cto change\u201d the facts) for the sake of peace.\u201d A white lie is permitted in Jewish law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This aphorism may be of interest to bear in mind in the context of Israeli peace negotiations &#8212; but more directly (and literally) &#8220;it is permitted to change the facts&#8221; carries a sidelong resemblance to the concepts of alt-facts &#038; faux news currently infesting our politicians and media&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<li><strong>Jewish Quarterly<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/jewishquarterly.org\/2010\/11\/kill-him-first\/\">Kill him first<\/a>\n<li><strong>Rabbi Sacks<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/torah\/parsha\/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha\/permitted-tell-lie\/\">When is it Permitted to Tell a Lie?<\/a><\/li?><\/blockquote>\n<p>^^<\/p>\n<p>Knowing the Talmud to be deeper and richer than my own understanding by many orders of magnitude, I&#8217;d like to invite commentary on these or other aspects of Talmudic thought that may play, directly or indirectly, into national security issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; two brief surface readings in Talmud, with a request for deeper understanding ] . As someone brought up with more of a focus on the Beatitudes than the Torah (I know, a huge question with many potential shades of answer opens up when I say that), I was not familiar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1431,1463,526,707,635,717,779,522,676,646,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assassination","category-awlaki","category-charles-cameron","category-drones","category-israel","category-judaism","category-question","category-questions","category-scriptures","category-talmud","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54387"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54397,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54387\/revisions\/54397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}