THREE MORALITIES

 By  David Einhorn

When one goes to measure with a "moral yardstick" the events of our sinful and chaotic times, one finds that there are three kinds of measures: a Jewish, a Christian and a Gentile.

I call "Gentiles" all those who believe in power and interests; be it national, party, church or class interests. I also want to emphasise that, when I say Jewish, Christian or Gentile, I don't mean especially, Jews, Christians 'and Gentiles. Because there are many Jews, even orthodox Jews, who use the Gentile yardstick, and there are Christians who employ the Jewish measure and Jews using the Christian meter. Gentiles, as a rule, use only their own measure.

The Jewish morality is a morality of justice. It is, par excellence, an earthly one. It is a law, a "must," whosoever breaks the laws of morality must receive punishment, or will in the end be punished. The morality of Judaism teaches us to love our neighbour and friend as we love ourselves. Hillel has formulated it in one phrase: "You shall not do to others that which you don't want others to do unto yourself." We are commanded not to steal, not to misconduct ourselves with the wives of others, not to commit robbery, not to bear false witness, not to covet what belongs to others. Morality of Judaism does not put to men unnatural demands as does Christianity. Our morality is not a heavenly one. The Talmud teaches not to introduce a law which the majority of the people has not approved. Nobody is allowed the special right to break the laws of justice. Everybody is bound to fight with all his strength against those who defy justice.

The Christian morality is a supernatural, a heavenly one. It is more a wish than a law. While Jewish morality demands that you love your neighbour like yourself, the Christian morality commands to love your enemy like yourself. When Judaism demands opposition and fight against stealing, robbery, against the power of the mighty, Christianity teaches to turn the left cheek after one has been struck on the right, to give up the shirt after one has been deprived of his coat. Be good yourself, but don't oppose evil! Christian morality leaves justice in the hands of God. In the other world the evil ones will be punished, and the good ones—for the injustices suffered and pains endured—will sit on the right side of Jesus.

The Gentile, so called, morality states that might is right, and that the end justifies the means and deeds. Decency behoves only the individual, the country, the party, the nation as a whole; the collective stands above morality. If the interests of the country, nation or party demand it—the higher institutions who look after the welfare of the collective may commit all crimes and injustices, robbery and murder included. And strangely, when we look at the present day events of our valley of despair, we observe how very frequently the Christian and Gentile moralities run parallel, how the stronger, the immoral, the man of might abuses the Christian passivity and idealism for his own purposes. The saying of the apostle Paul: "For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.”—(Romans, 13)—leads, in a direct line to the declaration of the German reformer, Martin Luther, that the “common man” must be subjected to his magistrates and he must not oppose the powers, even if they commit all mortal sins and break all moral laws. Because it is a matter for God to punish. The subject must be obedient! No wonder the Nazis boasted that Luther was their first member. Lutheranism was responsible for the blind obedience of the Prussians, and the committal of all crimes, when ordered to do so by their superiors. "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, bearing God”—(Colossians, 3). "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour . . . and they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit"—(Timothy, 1:6). That passivity, that voluntary resignation of human rights on earth for the future life, gave justification to the whole system of slavery of the peasants to their masters in the feudal Middle Ages. In one word the heavenly morality of the Christians served very well all tyrants, barons, counts, and rulers, all the mighty and dictators that themselves did not believe in Christian morality but in the Gentile creed that might is right. They could not have accepted Jewish teaching that condemns slavery as an injustice and prohibits the return of a slave that ran away from his master.

Strangely enough the two extremes meet very frequently in the fields of politics. The Christian principle of forgiveness dictates: Pardon the thief and the robber, give up your shirt. The principle of Gentile morality says: When one needs the criminal one takes him off the gallows. The result is that the thief remains unpunished by both!

We witness this phenomenon in relation to Germany and in the whole post-war political course. In relation to the German world murderers, robbers and despoilers both have united. The Christians preach: Forgiveness is the greatest virtue. Love your enemy. Therefore, we must forget the horror and crimes committed by the Germans in the past half century; the two world massacres that they initiated, the moral and material ruin that they brought on the world, the millions of innocent people that perished in fire, by the sword, through torture and slavery. According to the Gentiles: (a) The Russian Communist rules say forgive them, because with their help we will destroy the capitalist democracy and introduce communism in the world. (b) The Socialists say forgive them and they will become true Socialists. (c) The democratic countries say forgive, for they will serve as a barrier against the Russian impetus to dominate the world, besides one cannot rebuild Europe without German labour and enterprise. What all actually mean to say is, that when one needs the criminal one takes him off the gallows. None can comprehend that a robber must receive punishment that he ought not and must not be made strong again to go for the third time on a murder spree. All have forgotten that after the first German-made world war the devout Christians and the capitalists, together with the socialists and communists, helped to rebuild the German war potential, which later brought a still greater ruin on the world.

To the group of Christian moralists belong some real idealists, nice and decent people, but their morality is a heavenly one blind to earthly realities. Our Talmudic teachers had a name for that kind of moralists, they called them Fool Desciples (Chasid shote). Such a Desciple fool is the devout man who won't save a drowning woman because one must not look at a naked woman. Such Fool Desciples were the pacifists who propagated disarmament in France, Britain, and America while all the parties of the so called Weimar Republic armed themselves secretly, and helped to build up the German murder machine. Indeed, the same Republican Parties which in their own country brutally suppressed  all pacifists, always supported them in other countries. The famous German pacifist, Foerster, states that Kaiser Wilhelm's government did not prosecute him so intensely as the Weimar Republic. And to this day, his name is despised by all Germans, communists, socialists, protestants and catholics. All countries that arm themselves and believe in power politics prosecute the pacifists in their own and support pacifism in other lands. That means that pacifists in threatened countries are Fool Desciples of the sort of morals of the Christians that preach non-resistance to evil and to turn the left cheek. The result is that the one who smacks the face is encouraged to smack again; the robber gets a bigger appetite for robbery and the murderer for murder.

We see that over and over again. The Communists and Fascists in the democratic countries, whose avowed aim is to destroy Democracy, raise a cry, every time they receive a rebuff, that democratic principles have been violated. Russia, that arms herself up to the teeth and keeps the flame of militaristic spirit alive among her peoples, supports and acclaims every pacifist in America who preaches disarmament.  Those pacifists, Desciples' Fools, are like people who want to abolish Police, notwithstanding the fact that armed hold-ups take place and gangster bands are active. Such a Desciple Fool is H. Wallace, who believes that America should disarm and give Russia a say in the disposal of the millions of dollars Marshal Aid Plan.

If Morality is not only a wish, if Morality is a law of international justice and whoever breaks it must receive his due punishment, because it is a world law, then forgiveness for the offenders won't help. That is a principle of Jewish Morality. And may the Germans now lift their eyes to heaven and cry that Baruch and Morgentau are only personifications of the Old Testament lust for revenge; and may Communists, Socialists, and capitalist politicians,  together with Christian moralists, preach forgiveness for the Germans, it won't help! If they allow Germany to regain her strength they will be forced to destroy her again.

That is Jewish Morality—the Morality of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos. All men must not only themselves be just, honest and decent, but also oppose all injustice, battle against it and not acquiesce in it, no matter if committed by individual, party or nation. The power was not given of God; it is derived from the people and all individuals in the nation are responsible for it. The country and the collective are just as responsible to the laws of Morality as is the individual and there is no such collective or power that can put itself above justice. And that must be the only measure applicable to the events of our days if we want clarity and if we want to emerge from the moral swamp that has engulfed the world.

Translated from Yiddish for the Forum, by P.B. (Sydney).

Australian Jewish Forum ( NSW. ), 1948, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article266821096