That's the title of an OpEd in the Saturday Tallahassee Democrat written by Rabbi Jack Romberg of Temple Israel.
Jonah Goldberg accuses opponents of the death penalty of cherry-picking the cases they use to support their view. He then turns around and cherry-picks a case, the recent slaughter of 12 people in Aurora, Colo., to argue for the death penalty.
Nowhere does he address the issues that are truly at stake. . Allow me to quote a discussion about the death penalty from the Talmud, the Jewish commentary on the Torah that discusses and elucidates the application of law.
“A Sanhedrin (court) that executes once in seven years is called a destroyer. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says, ‘even once in seventy years.’ Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva said, ‘Had we been on a Sanhedrin (at the time they ruled) no person would ever have been executed.’ Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel says, ‘They would have increased the number of murderers in Israel.’ ” (Makkot 7a)
This discussion was recorded approximately 1,800 years ago. The sages operate under certain assumptions. First, the death penalty is prescribed by the Torah for several types of crime. Second, the sages are clearly not comfortable with a liberal application of the death penalty. They are aware of the tendency for human error and are concerned about an innocent person being wrongfully convicted.
However, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel is clearly worried about the effectiveness of deterring crime if it were known the death penalty would never be used.
The central question, whether it is an 1,800-year-old rabbinic discussion or a contemporary discussion, needs to be: What kind of justice system do we really desire?
And:
Clearly the Talmudic sages do not feel comfortable with taking decisions of life and death out of God’s hands. They understood the human propensity for error in the rush for revenge. Perhaps we can learn just a little bit from them.
More on the Goldberg syndicated column, at the link.
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