The exception that defines the rule of Jewish morality

On October 15, 1982, in the shadow of the First Lebanon War, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein published an open letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the religious-Zionist newspaper Hatzofeh.

- • By KENNETH BRANDER

AN IDF soldier prays at the Western Wall earlier this month. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

(Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

He emphasized the importance of the State of Israel taking responsibility for its part in the massacres in Sabra and Shatila, two Beirut neighborhoods, where IDF-backed Lebanese Christian militias had killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. Begin was initially unwilling to conduct any investigation into the affair, and Rav Lichtenstein strongly criticized him for what he saw as an un-Jewish refusal to confront difficult truths.

Rav Lichtenstein's argument was not an accusation against the IDF but a moral call for those entrusted with power to uphold the highest standards of ethical accountability.

In the letter, he invoked the story of King Saul and Amalek, which we read this week as the haftarah for Shabbat Zachor.

Why, Rav Lichtenstein asked, was Saul punished for sparing the life of Agag, king of Amalek? Was it simply that he had left an Amalekite - any Amalekite - alive? Rav Lichtenstein suggested that the identity of the one victim spared was significant. Saul had left Agag alive because he identified with him, as one king to another. He had used his own human logic and values to decide whom to kill and whom to spare.

By doing so, Saul did not merely become guilty of disobeying a difficult divine command to kill all of the Amalekites; he assumed personal responsibility for all the Amalekites he had killed in the course of the battle.