1.
A man crossing a bridge late at night sees a young woman leaning over the railing, as if looking into the river. After a moment's hesitation, he continues on his way. Then he hears the sound of a body falling into the water. He hears cries swept away by the current, then suddenly cut off. He trembles but does not move, telling himself he must hurry, but weakness overtakes him. "Too late," he thinks, and walks away without calling for help.
This is the kernel from which Albert Camus' final novel, The Fall, develops. It is not only the fall of the wretched woman into the water, but also the moral fall of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, the story's protagonist. Camus published the book about a decade after World War II, and it can be read as an indictment of European society, which at best stood by while its Jews were being destroyed and, at worst, collaborated.
2.
At the heart of the Torah portions Aharei Mot-Kedoshim lies Leviticus 19, the richest chapter in commandments in the entire Torah. It contains social commandments, among them the categorical imperative: "Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19:16). You may not remain passive when your fellow man's life is in danger. The Talmud expands on this: "From where is it derived that if one sees another drowning in a river, or being dragged away by a wild animal, or attacked by bandits, one is obligated to save him? The verse states: 'Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor'" (Sanhedrin 73a).
Camus' book contains his hero's long confession, born of precisely this failure. After all, he did not push the woman, he "only" failed to stop her fall. In his profound way, Camus hinted that Western morality is sick: it knows how to say what must not be done, but freezes when it is time to rise and act. One can see this in the moral hesitation, to the point of opposition, toward the current war against the blood-soaked regime in Iran.
3.
The slaves who left Egypt on their way to the land of their forefathers were meant to establish a kingdom with structures of government. A society cannot survive without mutual responsibility, and the commandments between man and God cannot come at the expense of the duty to sustain a just model society. Again and again, Moses stresses the distinction between the Hebrews and their masters. Those who were swallowed up in the Egyptian womb struggle to shed the mistaken notions and beliefs they absorbed there. The young nation could also be influenced by the culture of Canaan. So, Moses emphasizes: "You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you dwelt, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you; neither shall you walk in their statutes" (Leviticus 18:3).
Therefore, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). Holy in the sense of separate, distinct, different. How? Among other ways, through the social commandments between one person and another. Social justice is the mortar that holds together the structure of the national body, just as the commandments between man and God build the structure of the spirit, as a soul to the body. Moses' Torah introduced a radical idea: faith is incomplete without the national body. We are the only civilization that requires a quorum of people as a precondition for certain religious rituals. Even the totality of the commandments is not fulfilled by isolated individuals alone; all contribute to the completion of the nation's spiritual world.
4.
A few verses later, comes the famous commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19:18). Are there limits to love of one's fellow man? Not in the New Testament, where it says: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). The Torah commanded that one must not ignore "your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray," but rather "you shall surely return it to him" (Exodus 23:4); likewise, one must not ignore the case in which "you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden," but is commanded to help raise it up (Exodus 23:5). But Jesus went even further: "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also" (Matthew 5:39).
Still, he was speaking of enemies and foes among his own people, a quarrel among brothers. Christianity, by contrast, came to understand this also as a political instruction toward an enemy threatening national existence. Otherwise, it is hard to explain Europe's feeble conduct toward its enemies. The fixed refrain on the lips of European statesmen is: "A diplomatic solution is required." They postpone confronting evil, and in the end plead for others to come save them.
5.
The Talmud offers a test case: "Two people were walking on the road, and one of them had a flask of water" (Bava Metzia 62a). What should they do? "If both drink, both will die; if only one drinks, he can reach civilization" (Bava Metzia 62a). One may assume this is a hypothetical "pure" case, since no additional parameters for judgment are given. "Ben Petura taught: It is better that both should drink and die, and that one should not witness the death of the other; until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: 'And your brother shall live with you' - your life takes precedence over your fellow's life" (Bava Metzia 62a; Leviticus 25:36).
It seems that more than Ben Petura sought to save lives, he was thinking about man's moral purity. That is why he preferred that both souls die, so long as no one would "dirty his hands" with responsibility for the other's death. Is this not also the outlook of elements within the European elite? They would rather allow their civilization to sink, so long as they are not accused of "intolerance," "Islamophobia" or "militarism." For them, a war against Iran that threatens their wellbeing, or a determined struggle for national and Christian identity against migrants seeking to conquer them and impose their faith on Europe, is moral "uncleanness." Worse still, they do not seek to die together, in Ben Petura's formulation, but choose to offer the second cheek, sacrificing themselves so as not to lose moral innocence in war.
Rabbi Akiva, by contrast, understood the matter in an entirely different way. He, who declared, "Love your neighbor as yourself - this is a great principle of the Torah" (Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12), understood that if there is no "self," there can be no "as yourself." If a person does not love himself, how can he love another "as yourself"? He is first obligated to preserve his own life, just as one entrusted with a deposit must first safeguard what has been placed in his own hands before guarding another person's deposit.
6.
In his book The Opium of the Intellectuals, Raymond Aron wondered why it is precisely "those devoted to noble pursuits - scientists, philosophers, writers - who enjoy prestige and almost absolute freedom" who so despise the society that so generously grants them privileged rights.
The West suffers from toxic altruism, to borrow an idea from Ahad Ha'am's 1910 essay On Two Branches. The Ben Petura of our age believes that if national sovereignty hurts the feelings of the other, even if he is an enemy, then it is best to suppress that sovereignty to the point of suicide. Rabbi Akiva, by contrast, answers across the generations of Torah scholars and warriors: Your life comes first. Not out of hatred for the other, heaven forbid, but out of responsibility for the continued existence of good in the world, a responsibility that does not morally blur the nature of the enemy. Without a strong Israel and a resilient Western civilization, the free world may die of thirst, so long as it does not have to see its enemies die before it.
Not for nothing does this chapter, so full of commandments, end with the declaration: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:36). That is why we came out: to illuminate the world. Alongside Israel's military achievements, scientific accomplishments and economic prosperity, the world wants to hear this message from us too, like the pillar of cloud and fire lighting the way for the entire camp.
