By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — Maimonides’ understanding of the Book of Exodus ought to have great relevance to people who study the weekly Torah portion. Although he did not write an exposition on this book of the Torah, he writes about it profusely in his Mishneh Torah and his Guide for the Perplexed; the same may be said about his other voluminous writings.
The Book of Exodus begins with the Bible’s first instance of peaceful civil disobedience against an oppressive empire. Two particular stories stand out: (1) Two Hebrew midwives refuse to carry out Pharaoh’s orders to kill the male babies from the enslaved Hebrew minority community (Exod. 1:8–22). Even Pharaoh’s own daughter disobeys her own father’s decrees (Exod. 2:1–10) and she became instrumental in rescuing baby Moses.
The second ethical issue concerns the limits of truth-telling; what is the antecedent for allowing the truth to be bent to save a human life? Shifra and Puah lied to protect the Hebrew male infants; the biblical narrator praises her for it! Issues regarding truth-telling abound in several Scriptural narratives. The third ethical problem involves the use of violence to defend the oppressed. After watching an Egyptian taskmaster beat a helpless slave, Moses secretly kills an Egyptian supervisor beating a Hebrew slave (Exod. 2:11–15). Maimonides will discuss several of the ethical and moral problems posed by this familiar story as we read ahead. Although Maimonides did not refer to this particular scriptural passage, his other writings can shed light on how he might have approached these ethical issues.
The question comes up in rabbinic tradition: If someone orders you to murder somebody, and he threatens to murder you—if you fail to carry out his orders, what should a moral person do? The ancient story is a familiar one in the Bible. One can never be a proxy to carry out a murder; one cannot claim “I was only carrying out orders,” a familiar response we heard at the Nuremberg Trials from Nazis who stood trial.
Maimonides ruled that murder is murder. After defining what constitutes homicide, he explains. “If someone hires a murderer to kill a colleague, sends his servants and kills him, or binds a colleague and leaves him before a lion or the like, the beast kills him. The sin of murder is upon their hands. They are subject to the death penalty, but only at the hands of God. They may not be subject to execution by an earthly court.” [1]
It follows that Shifra and Puah acted with great courage; they risked their lives to save innocents rather than commit or indirectly participate in murder. Based on Maimonides’ exposition of the Noahide prohibition against murder, the midwives could not act as agents to commit murder, for God holds every human being morally responsible for preserving the life of his fellow beings. Moreover, violating this ethical imperative would make them as accountable as Pharaoh, who commanded them to murder.
The subject of murder through a proxy has an antecedent in the Tanakh, concerning the instructions King David sent Joab a letter instructing him to leave Uriah at the frontline and abandon him there to face the enemy soldiers (2 Sam. 11:14-15). Although he did not physically kill Uriah, his orders effectively led to his death. The prophet Nathan minced no words, מַדּוּעַ בָּזִיתָ אֶת־דְּבַר יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת הָרַע (בְּעֵינָו) [בְּעֵינַי] אֵת אוּרִיָּה הַחִתִּי הִכִּיתָ בַחֶרֶב וְאֶת־אִשְׁתּוֹ לָקַחְתָּ לְּךָ לְאִשָּׁה וְאֹתוֹ הָרַגְתָּ בְּחֶרֶב בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן “Why have you spurned the Lord and done evil in his sight? You have cut down Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you took his wife as your own, and him you killed with the sword of the Ammonites” (2 Sam. 12:9). God held David responsible for his crimes and for the unlawful death of a good man.
The Talmud will sometimes say counterintuitive things. In BT Shabbat 56a, the R. Shmuel ben Nachmani quoted R. Jonathan: Anyone saying that David sinned is mistaken. David behaved himself wisely in all his ways: and the Lord was with him.
But the Talmud demurs: Is it possible that sin came to his hand, yet the Divine Presence was with him? Then how do I interpret, Why have you despised the LORD and done what is evil in his sight? You have cut down Uriah the Hittite with the sword; his wife you took as your own, and him you killed with the sword of the Ammonites. (2 Sam. 12:9) (2 Sam. 12:9)?… The Talmud further claims that technically, Bathsheba was not a “married woman” when David bedded her. After all, R. Jonathan said: “Everyone who went out to fight the Davidic wars wrote a bill of divorcement for his wife.” In addition, Uriah had the audacity to refer to Joab as “my lord” instead of King David.
How convenient!
Did not King David say to Uriah when he returned to see his wife, “Have you not come from a journey? Why, then, did you not go down to your house?” (2 Sam. 11:10), i.e., go have sex with your wife. Something seemed unkosher about this conversation.
Something inside Uriah felt enraged. He could not deny his feelings; he suspected the worse. He angrily replies: “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my lord Joab and my lord’s servants are encamped in the open field. Can I go home to eat and to drink and to sleep with my wife? As the LORD lives and as you live, I will do no such thing! (2 Sam. 11:10-11)
Almost immediately afterward, “David sent an order: “The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab, which Uriah sent. This is what he wrote in the letter: ‘Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.” (2 Sam. 11:14-15)
The moral of the story is that we should never deny the voice or conscience that urges us to do the right thing. Shifra and Puah honored their conscience in the Torah and defied the mighty Pharoah. But David’s passions got the better of him; ultimately, he compounded the sin of adultery with the sin of homicide.
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[1] MT Hilkhot Rotzeach 2:1-3. Cf. Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah: Terumot 6:3. According to Maimonides, the State reserves the right to execute its criminals, even though the evidence is circumstantial.