Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik’s provocatively titled article, “The Virtue of Hate,” in the January 2003 issue of Fr. John Neuhaus’s journal, First Things, raises for Christians some serious questions. Rabbi Soloveichik relates the story of Simon Wiesenthal, a Jew who, while imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II, was summoned by a dying Nazi guard. “Exhibiting, or perhaps feigning, regret and remorse, he explains that he sought a Jew—any Jew—to whom to confess and from whom to beseech forgiveness. Wiesenthal silently contemplates the wretched creature lying before him and then, unable to comply but unable to condemn, walks out of the room.”
Wiesenthal raised this question later at a religious symposium: Was his conduct justified in refusing to forgive? Jewish respondents thought he was right in not forgiving the repentant Nazi mass murderer, and Christians thought he was wrong. From this apparently unanimous Jewish judgment, Rabbi Soloveichik draws the conclusion that hate is the due response to evil, hence it is a virtue. According to the rabbi, the Christian claim that we should forgive is revolting. It sins against justice. His reading of the Bible is that revenge is not only legitimate but also proper and right. Evil calls for punishment, and one should rejoice when the sinner suffers.
An Eye for an Eye
It is unclear whether the view that hate is in fact a virtue is a fundamental Jewish position or whether it is only the view of good many rabbis. As Judaism has no magisterium, it is conceivable that some rabbis would not endorse this interpretation of the Bible. To buttress his position, Rabbi Soloveichik mentions the Old Testament characters Samson and Esther. The former revenged himself for the loss of his eyes by bringing about the collapse of a building in which he himself perished along with his Philistine enemies. The latter, when asked by the king what more she wanted after Haman (the Hitler of his time) had been defeated, said, “If it pleases the king . . . let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.”
One Old Testament example Rabbi Soloveichik does not mention is Ezekiel—a prophet, and therefore one communicating God’s teaching to the Jews. (Neither Samson nor Esther ware teaching; they were acting or cooperating with an action). Through Ezekiel Yahweh says, “If a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him. . . . Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live” (Ez. 18:21ff.). This does not square with Rabbi Soloveichik who endorses the claim of a Catholic nun that hatred belongs essentially to the Jewish religion (p. 42).
Rabbi Soloveichik claims that “the Hebrew prophets not only hated their enemies but rather reveled in their suffering” (p. 42). One should not even hope for the repentance of the wicked. (It reminds one of Hamlet, tempted to murder his stepfather but delaying to do so because his stepfather was praying and, if killed at that moment, might be saved).
Rabbi Soloveichik is right in stating that here there is an abyss between Judaism (if what he describes is authentic Judaism) and Christianity. To a Jew, he claims, the words of Christ on the cross—”Forgive them, they know not what they are doing”—are shocking. To be commanded to love one’s enemies, makes no sense: God hates the sinner, and so does the good Jew.
He adds that a Jew “gags” when he hears Catholics pray at the end of a decade of the rosary, “Lead all souls into heaven, especially those most of need of thy mercy.” To him, if a man is wicked to the very core (Hitter, Stalin, and bin Laden are the names he mentions), they should be punished, they should suffer, and one is fully justified in rejoicing in their fate.
A Truth for a Truth
Rabbi Soloveichik fails to understand the Christian’s position. The Christian does not wish any of the monsters he mentioned to go unpunished: They deserve punishment. But he hopes and prays that, evil as these men have been, they repented at the last moment and begged God for forgiveness. As a matter of fact, if they truly repent, they will welcome punishment.
In this context, the beauty of the doctrine of purgatory (rejected by many Protestants) comes to the fore. Even though sinners should and will be punished according to the enormity of their crimes, they will not be damned. According to God’s justice, the terrible debts incurred by sin must be paid to the last penny; but what a joy when a sinner finds his way back to God.
To wish and hope that the evil man, the rasha in Hebrew, will not repent so that his punishment will be all the more severe is anti-Christian. And for two reasons; the first is that no one can wish that a creature made to God’s image and likeness should become a devil. But still more importantly, because sin is an offense against God, the man who is damned chooses to hate God eternally. How can anyone possibly wish that God be eternally cursed—he, the all-good and all-merciful?
And so the wounded heart forgives. A Christian who has been the victim of the most abominable crimes should be more deeply grieved by the fact that every evil deed offends God than by the fact that the Christian himself has suffered.
But another facet of this problem should be highlighted. The Pater Noster that Christ taught his disciples tells us to beg God to forgive our trespasses “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The moment one realizes how deeply one is in need of God’s mercy, as soon as we receive the grace of perceiving how indebted we are toward God, it becomes much easier to forgive others. The parable of the unforgiving servant comes to mind: After his master canceled the huge debt he owed him, the servant exacted a petty debt from a fellow servant.
An awareness of one’s own sinfulness is so deeply ingrained in Christian teaching—innumerable liturgical prayers remind man that he is a sinner—that a refusal to forgive is a self-condemnation. In ethics, we must distinguish between the evil character of a deed (e.g., murder) and the nature of the victim of this deed. To torture a dog is morally evil. To torture a man is much worse because he has a much greater metaphysical dignity.
The Christian realizes that, as abominable as certain actions are, the sin is primarily an offense against God. To offend him, who is the holy one, is infinitely worse than to hurt a human being, even though both are linked intrinsically. This is why, according to Catholic theology, the offense of our first parents could never be erased by man: God alone could mend it. Hence, the divine sacrifice of Christ alone could bridge the abyss that Adam’s sin created.
The Role of Humility
If the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews endorses Rabbi Soloveichik’s presentation, it highlights another crucial difference between Judaism and Christianity—the role of humility in one’s religious life. According to the rabbi, a Jew who is saved deserves to be saved. God has given him the means, and he has used them according to the divine will. For a Christian who has achieved salvation, the credit goes to God: It is thanks to God’s mercy. A non-Christian is likely to misunderstand the Christian position, as if man were a mere puppet in God’s hands—he is passive and God is active.
But this is not the Christian teaching. Christianity rejects Pelagianism, the claim that man does not need the help of grace and that the proper use of his free will suffices for salvation. But it also rejects Calvinism’s view that man’s nature is totally corrupted and that those who are saved are covered by Christ’s merit while remaining the filthy sinners that they are. Christ’s covers man’s ugliness, but man’s nature remains hopelessly flawed.
The authentic Catholic teaching is that there is a mysterious interplay of grace and free will: Because our nature has been wounded by original sin, it now needs grace in order to achieve salvation. This interaction between nature and supernature is mysterious, but one thing is certain: Man is not passive. His role is to be receptive to grace, and, like the holy Virgin Mary, he should pray; “Be it done to me.”
It is written in the Psalms, “With God’s help, I shall scale walls.” The end result is that when salvation is achieved, the soul is filled with immense gratitude toward God, for it knows that it is thanks to his merciful help that it can now enjoy eternal beatitude. The Christian position emphasizes two virtues: humility (without Christ we can do nothing), and gratitude (it is thanks to God’s kindness that we can enjoy the beatific vision).
Rabbi Soloveichik is right in emphasizing that love is the very core of Christianity. The saint is God’s great lover. A lover’s joy is to sing the praise of his loved one. To a true Christian, to give the full credit for his salvation to God is a source of joy. “Not to us, not to us, but to your name, give glory.” This is the Old Testament. The more we are indebted to God’s mercy, the more we rejoice.
According to Rabbi Soloveichik, the soul that is saved is enjoying a right: “The rabbis see the reward as a function of one’s eternal savings account” (p. 45). The Christian does not deny the reality of merits, but they are acquired through Christ our Lord.
God’s Undemocratic Relationship with Man
The question of forgiveness creates a chasm between Judaism and Christianity. Rabbi Soloveichik is right in claiming that this question and the divinity of Christ are intimately connected. According to him, the latter accepted to become incarnate, suffer, and die for people who never asked him to his help.
This once again underlines the abyss separating the two religious approaches. Rabbi Soloveichik tells us that, for the Jews, the great event in history is Moses at Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments from God. The point that he emphasizes is that, according to his reading of Exodus, “before forming this Covenant with the Hebrews, God first asked their permission to do so” (emphasis mine).
Rabbi Soloveichik writes that a prominent British rabbi draws the conclusion that the birth of the covenant between God and the Jewish people was “the first-ever democratic mandate” (p. 43). Without reciprocal agreement, there can be no valid contract. According to Rabbi Soloveichik, there is not a single statement in the Old Testament indicating that men wanted to be saved.
For Christians, Calvary is the event par excellence. But, as mentioned before, Christ was not asked to save man, the sinner. He did it on his own initiative, without any participation of those is need of salvation.
Reading the passage from Exodus presents a different picture for the Christian. According to the translation published by the Catholic Truth Society of London, the text reads as follows: God told Moses to tell the people of Israel, “If you wilt obey my law and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples . . . and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 10:5 ff).
There is that all-important if. The Jews will be granted an extraordinary dignity in the history of salvation—on the condition that they accept the terms set by God. He, being the Creator, can set any condition he pleases, and his one request is that the Jewish people keep his law. They accept the condition and become God’s chosen people.
Rabbi Soloveichik’s text can readily give the impression that God and the Jewish people are on the same plane. But to a Christian, the relationship between God and his creatures can never be a democratic one. Between God and man there is a metaphysical abyss that God alone can bridge.
As close as a Christian can come to God, God’s transcendence is never lost sight of. Even the privileged ones called brides of Christ remain creatures, but creatures partaking of the divine nature through God’s infinite mercy and condescension. Let me repeat emphatically: To a Christian, the glorification of God should be the source of his joy; the more he can praise him, the happier he is.
This does not deny the fact that God in his infinite goodness invites man to a dialogue and asks for man’s full collaboration. The most striking example is the Annunciation. The holy Virgin is offered the most overwhelming privilege: to become the mother of the Savior. But she is free to accept or to reject this divine offer. After having ascertained that she will keep her virginity, she declares herself to be “the handmaid of the Lord” (definitely undemocratic). Mary humbly accepts to receive: “Be it done to me according to thy word” (emphasis mine).
Love Is at the Core
No doubt Rabbi Soloveichik is right that love is at the very core of the Christian message: “Love one another as I have loved you.” But he is wrong is claiming that salvation is a primary issue. According to Catholic teaching, the first duty of man is the glorification of God (finis primarius ultimis); salvation is the finis secondarius ultimis.
Man is saved because he has—in his life, thoughts, and actions—given the precedence to the glorification of God. God should be adored, served, and loved, not as a means for salvation but because of who he is: God, the king of the universe. Salvation flows out of it, but it should not be the primary Christian motivation. These may seem to be details, but they are crucial in order to shed light on what the authentic message of Christianity is.
The passage that Rabbi Soloveichik devotes to the afterlife also aims at highlighting the disparity existing between the Old and the New Testament. According to his presentation, the Christian is primarily concerned about fulfilling ethical exhortations, whereas, for the Jew, the crucial duty is to perform sacred acts and actions. According to the rabbi, “One hour of obeying God’s commandments in this world is more glorious than an eternity in the world to come” (p. 44).
This point is one of the most crucial in the whole discussion. According to Rabbi Soloveichik, God has given the faithful Jew the means of saving himself, and it is his responsibility to use these means. If he fails to do so, he deserves his fate. It is a question of justice, just as the punishment inflicted on the wicked is an act of justice.
For the Christian, the situation is clearly different. Because of original sin, the Christian needs divine help in order to reach his eternal end. This help is called grace. This is the meaning of Christ’s saying, “Without me you can do nothing.”
The admirable collaboration between man’s free will and grace is the key to a Catholic understanding of salvation. Divine mercy is crucial, and God is always ready to forgive the sinner who repents and begs for forgiveness. It is the Christian’s ardent prayer that, as abominable as the sinner’s crimes may be, he will repent and turn to God. Alas, being free, the sinner may refuse to do. But by this refusal he adds another sin to his crimes and seals his own doom.
Rabbi Soloveichik is shocked by Christ’s words on the cross and offers an alternative prayer: “Father, forgive them not; they know full well what they are doing.” He does not seem to be acquainted with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which speaks about invincible ignorance.
There are cases—rare as they might be—when a person condemns another, even though the latter, without any fault on his part, is blind to certain demands of the moral law. He may do or say things that are objectively evil, but Christ’s prayer begs God to forgive him “for he knows not what he is doing.”
For instance, there are some people who nurture a vitriolic hatred of the pope. While drinking their mother’s milk, they have heard the refrain: The pope is the Antichrist and therefore should be hated. Prejudice can be so ingrained in a person’s soul that it creates a psychological or intellectual paralysis that in some literal spiritual sense blinds him. No doubt there are cases of anti-Semitism that can be explained by such ingrained prejudices.
The conclusion we can draw is that, as much as moral evil is to be hated, the Christian should hope and pray that the sinner will repent for the glorification of God and for his own good. Forgiveness is at loggerheads with man’s fallen nature; the words “I shall not forgive” are too often heard. But the Christian—aware of his own misery and relying upon divine help—should always be willing to forgive the harm done him.