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Breaking: After Weeks of Rocket Attacks By Hamas, Israel Launches Major Military Response

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sliv_the_eli11/14/2012 12:28:38 pm PST

re: #18 Bob Levin

VB’s translation is correct both literally and conceptually in Jewish thought. The Torah does not prohibit killing as an absolute matter. The 6th of the “ten Commandments” prohibits murder, the wrongful taking of a life. One is always permitted to take a life when necessary, for example, when it is necessary in self-defense. (E.g., the tradition of the Oral Law, “hakam l’hargechah, hashkem l’hargo”, which translates as “He who rises to kill you, rise up and kill him [first]”). The Torah, like most modern legal systems, intentionally prohibits murder, not killing, in recognition of the qualitative difference between the two.

Which is not to say that taking a life is a positive thing — after all, every person is described in the Torah as being created in the image of the Lord — but sometimes it is unfortunately necessary in order to prevent a greater evil. And in those cases, the taking of the life is killing, nor murder.