In Parashat Beshalach, beyond the dramatic splitting of the Sea, lies a verse that speaks to our current moment. At Marah, when the people grumble for water, Gd responds with instruction: “Sham sam lo chok u’mishpat” (There [Gd] established for them statute and ordinance). Exodus 15:25
Our great sage Rashi teaches that at Marah, before Sinai, Gd gave Israel proactive commandments to guide righteous living, not reactive punishments after tragedy. This distinction resonates painfully today.
This week revealed our fractured understanding of lawful versus ethical conduct. When a driver repeatedly rammed the Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn last evening, we witnessed another attack on the Jewish community who find ourselves continuing to absorb hate crime after hate crime in a country, even world, growing with anger and resentment against Jews. It is in these purely evil and hateful actions that we seek justice without compromise. These behaviors must be stopped.
Simultaneously, in Minnesota's Twin Cities, immigration enforcement has now resulted in the deaths of two American citizens. And even if we accept the premise that these agents are lawfully executing their duty to apprehend undocumented individuals (a premise itself laden with legal and moral complexities currently being evaluated in the courts) any enforcement operation that produces civilian deaths crosses an ethical line according to our Jewish tradition that cannot be justified.
In 21st Century America, we have already learned this lesson in other law enforcement contexts. Police departments nationwide have fundamentally reformed their pursuit policies: officers who once engaged in high-speed chases after suspects wanted for homicide, grand theft auto, and other serious felonies are now trained to disengage when the pursuit itself endangers innocent lives. The criminal may escape temporarily, but the community's safety takes precedence. If we demand this restraint when pursuing murderers and violent felons, how can we possibly accept a standard that produces deaths during immigration enforcement operations? The asymmetry is morally indefensible.
Here lies our dilemma: both situations involve “following orders” and “enforcing the law,” yet produce vastly different ethical outcomes. There are many in the Jewish community who have compared the scenes from Minnesota to what the Nuremberg Principles sought to address. Tragically, the Nuremberg laws arose only after six million Jews perished. Nazi Germany's persecution was presumed to be “legal,” codified through these laws, executed by officers “just following orders.” Law became divorced from morality. And even though our Talmud teaches: “Dina d'malchuta dina” (the law of the land is the law). Our sages immediately qualified this: only when the law itself is righteous.
The Talmud teaches: “Dina d'malchuta dina” (the law of the land is the law). But our sages immediately qualified this: only when the law itself is just. An unlawful order, one that violates basic human dignity, must be refused, even at personal cost.
Yet here is our crisis: in a divided society, we cannot agree on what constitutes basic human dignity. One person's “public safety” is another's “ethnic persecution.” One community's “hate crime prosecution” is another's “government overreach.” When we lack shared moral vocabulary, we cannot discern together which orders cross from lawful to unconscionable.
Moses received the law at Marah before catastrophe struck, a model of proactive moral clarity. We, by contrast, have developed Nuremberg Principles and Geneva Conventions only after millions died, creating reactive frameworks we still struggle to apply.
The path forward requires what seems impossible: listening, especially across disagreement. Not to win arguments, but to discover shared values, the common ground of human dignity that might unite us before the next tragedy demands another reactive response. Only then can we build the proactive justice that Marah promised, and that our broken world desperately needs. This Shabbat, I challenge all of us to reach out to a friend, colleague, or even family member with whom we’ve recently disagreed, and make every sincere effort to level-set and reestablish the relationship… because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom,
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