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The other day I discussed with a group of Muslim high school
students the Islamic principle that one must make 70 excuses for a friend who
appears to have done the wrong thing.[i] It is an interesting variation of the Jewish
principle of judging everyone favourably.[ii] I wonder to what extent these ideals are
applied in either community when it comes to judging people outside our own
faith communities. Giving the benefit of the doubt can also inhibit fighting
evil, if we offer excuses when it would be more useful to name the problem and
address it. These considerations are
relevant to judgements regarding terrorism.
This issue of judging others plays out in the discussion of the description
of Joseph by Pharaoh’s chief butler in Genesis. The Pharaoh was distressed
about a dream that no one could interpret. The chief butler told him that in
prison there was a ‚“youth, a Hebrew slave”, who can
interpret dreams.[iii] This description has been interpreted as malicious – “Cursed are the
wicked that even the good that they do, is done with evil intentions!” – because Joseph’s Hebrew ethnicity calls attention to his
membership of a hated people, his youth to his foolishness and his status as a
slave to a restriction on Joseph ever holding high office.[iv]
An alternative interpretation suggests that the description was
motivated by fear rather than malice. Joseph had interpreted the chief butler’s
own dream two years earlier, when they were both prisoners, and had requested
that the chief butler mention his unjust imprisonment to the king. The chief
butler had forgotten about Joseph. He was now worried that if Joseph succeeded
in interpreting the king’s dream he would be appointed to high office and would
then take revenge against the chief butler for letting him down.[v]
Considering these two interpretations together, I suggest that:
a. Fear is a big motivating factor in denigrating the other. We need to resist excessive fear.
a. Fear is a big motivating factor in denigrating the other. We need to resist excessive fear.
b. It is sometimes absolutely right to judge. The tradition calls out the prejudice and mean spiritedness of the chief butler. Muslim leaders have publicly called out prejudice and injustice where they believed it was at play in the way the “war on terror” is being prosecuted and have suggested that this injustice can contribute to radicalisation. The latter opinion is widely held by counter terrorism experts.[vi] Equally, it is right for Muslim leaders and others to make crystal clear that there are no excuses for perpetrators of terrorism or for advocates of extremist ideology and generalised anti-Western, “conflict-of-civilisations” or other “us & them” narratives.
c. There is a temptation for religious people and members of
in-groups to assume the most negative interpretation of the character and
motives of the “other”. One of the Muslim teenagers made the observation in our
session that misjudgement goes both ways. “Some non-Muslims judge
Muslims in general based on the actions of a minority of extremists, while some
Muslims judge non-Muslims in general based on a minority of people who are
prejudiced against Muslims, but the truth is that most people are not
prejudiced.” I think he is right.
d. One flaw of reasoning is the assumption that if I don’t know
about it, then it did not happen. Muslims I know and trust assure me that their
religious leaders have been very clear in their condemnation of terrorism as
absolutely unjustified. Yet, people who don’t have first-hand knowledge of
these efforts assume they are not happening.
I fell into that kind of trap in 2010 when I wrote[vii] about Reuben in the story
of Joseph and his brothers. Reuben
castigated his brothers for selling Joseph: “Did I not say to you, do
not sin with the boy and you did not listen?! And now his blood is being
demanded (we are being held accountable for it).”[viii] At the time I asserted that Reuben “might have wanted
to say that, it seems clear that he certainly meant to say that[ix], but he did not quite tell
them that. Compare his record of what he told them with his actual words at the
time, ’let us not kill his soul, do not spill his blood, (instead just)
throw him into this pit in the desert (filled with snakes and scorpions[x]) but do not send your hand
against him’.”[xi]
Two prominent commentators disagree with my judgement of Reuben. “There is no
doubt…that all of these words [that Reuben claimed to have said, he in fact]
spoke to them at the time, but the Torah abbreviated the story.”[xii]
Perhaps, rather than judging Muslim leaders for failing to condemn,
when we don’t really know how much they do or don’t condemn, we can ask them
about their efforts to ensure their followers are well educated about positive
messages from within their own tradition about conflict and generosity. For example, a prominent Muslim leader who
attended the session with the Muslim teenagers where I raised the teaching
about the 70 excuses expressed concern that not one of the boys knew of this
teaching. Equally it would be worth asking: how well educated are Jewish teenagers,
or adults for that matter, about positive messages in their own traditions that
can contribute to peaceful relations between people who believe differently?
[i] “If a friend among your friends
errs, make seventy excuses for them. If your hearts are unable to do this, then
know that the shortcoming is in your own selves.” [Imam Bayhaqi, Shu`ab
al-Iman, 7.522] cited on http://seekershub.org/blog/2010/02/making-70-excuses-for-others-in-islam-a-key-duty-of-brotherhood/
[ii] Pirkei Avot 1:6
[iii] Genesis 41:12
[iv] Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit Rabba 89 cited in Rashi
[v] Chizkuni, alternatively the butler might also have been afraid of
the King, who could be angry about why the chief butler never bothered to tell
him until now about such a wise person as Joseph being in the land
[vi] Professor Boaz Ganor in a public lecture in Sydney on 27 July 2015
talked about the art of counter terrorism which involves the need to tackle
capability and motivation, but the efforts to address the former through
arrests etc. negatively impacts the attempt to win hearts and minds and
decrease motivation for terrorism
[vii]
http://torahforsociallyawarehasid.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/shame-pride-striving-case-of-reuben.html
[viii] Genesis 42:22
[ix] Yefat Toar, cited in Torah Shlaima p 1584, note 79, suggests that
the meaning of what Reuben said was not to sin with the boy. However, the tone
of the words he later claims to have said with those he said a the time differ
significantly, which led me to wonder whether there was a discrepancy between
what he felt like saying and the weaker words he actually used, perhaps out of
fear of fully confronting the wrongful mindset of his brothers.
[x] Rashi
[xi] Genesis 37:22
[xii] Abarbanel in agreement with Ramban on Genesis 42:22
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