The Issue of Revenge : Thoughts on Parashat Matot – Masei

By: Rabbi Yehiel Grenimann

This week’s Torah reading highlights an important and challenging question for me: What are the limits of revenge in our Torah? When is it legitimate, and when is it not?

My father, Boris Grenimann, was a Holocaust survivor who initiated a Jewish partisan group called “Nekome – Vengeance”. In 2021- 2022, I participated in the filming of a documentary entitled “Revenge: Our Dad, the Nazi Killer?”, to be released in October 2023, which explored the likelihood that he, like Abba Kovner and other former partisans, was involved in hunting down war criminals after the war in the country to which he migrated, Australia. 

The intimate exploration of this subject, on camera, made this issue very personal for me. Eight hundred and forty suspected war criminals lived in freedom in Australia, and not one was ever extradited. 

Was it morally acceptable for those whose families had been slaughtered by such men to take justice into their own hands?

I have been active for many years in RHR, speaking out against acts of revenge taken by extremist individuals against Palestinians living in our midst in Israel/Palestine. There are verses in the parashat “Matot”, that refer directly to revenge against the Midianites as a divine commandment. Yet, this very parasha specifies the need to set aside cities of refuge to protect people suspected of unintentional manslaughter from personal revenge.

On the one hand, God tells Moshe: “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin” (Numbers 31, 2), and on the other hand, we are commanded: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge …” (Leviticus 19,18).

In light of the traditional interpretations of these verses, there might seem to be no problem here. Individual vengeance is forbidden, while national vengeance is permitted in very limited circumstances, in wartime, in response to a direct divine command. Moreover, the verse forbidding individual revenge seems to refer to one’s fellow Jew, and not to others.

Many have written on this issue, in the past and today, as Jews have faced the dilemma of whether it is permitted to take revenge against enemies. 

One such response may be found in the halachic teshuva written by my teacher, Rabbi Professor David Golinkin, in response to the vigilante killing of a Palestinian boy. 

Rabbi Golinkin argues powerfully that revenge killings of noncombatant Palestinians is clearly considered murder. (See: WHAT DOES JEWISH LAW SAY ABOUT THE MURDER OF MOHAMMED ABU KHDEIR AND OTHER ATTACKS AGAINST INNOCENT ARABS? Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin, Responsa in a Moment (Machon Schecter) Volume 8, Issue No. 9, July 2014).

Rabbi Golinkin brings many sources showing that both the written Torah and the oral Torah clearly forbade individual acts of vengeance. As he points out: “The word “nakam” or “nekama” (revenge, vengeance) appears 44 times in the Bible. Some verses talk about human vengeance (see Judges 16:28; Psalms 18:48; II Samuel 22:48; Psalms 149:7), but in most cases, the Bible talks about revenge that was taken or will be taken by God, not by human beings”. He goes on to explain that the sages were clear in their condemnation of individual zealotry and saw it as “Hillul Hashem” (“Desecration of God’s Name”).

But what if the murder by a zealous individual was not of someone innocent, but rather of someone who had committed a murder – or was intending to commit one – him/herself?  Is it legitimate to act in vengeance in such circumstances? I believe we must distinguish between the act of an individual pursuing mass murderers of their people, taking vengeance in a situation where they have no other recourse, as there is no justice in sight, and a soldier or policeman who shoots a disarmed man or woman lying on the ground. 

As we have seen, our parasha’s emphasis on the importance of setting aside  cities of refuge highlights the Torah’s preference for pursuing justice, wherever possible, in a court of law, and not via personal acts of vengeance. Since the disarmed killer can be brought to justice through due judicial process, anyone carrying out such a killing when not themselves in immediate danger of being killed is abusing the power given them to enforce the law and protect the population. Acting otherwise is tantamount to a war crime. Beyond that, it is also a “Hillul Hashem”, for any act of vengeance risks arrogating the place of God, the ultimate Judge of life and death for all.  As the Torah teaches us:

“To Me (i.e. God) belongeth vengeance and recompense” (Deuteronomy 32, 35), and “For it is God’s day of retribution, the year of vindication for Zion’s cause” (Isaiah 34, 8).

In the context of our ongoing occupation and repression of the Palestinian people and our struggle with terrorism, this is a moral issue worthy of serious discussion. 

————————————————————————————————Rabbi Yehiel Grenimann is a board member of RHR and Tag Meir, an Author (see: http://www.farawayfromwhere.com), and  a veteran of Kehilat Yedidya.