Timeless Wisdom: Bin Laden - Can We Celebrate the Death of an Evil Man?

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.

I want to talk to you about an event that took place, but it's already now history. Even though it was 3 weeks ago, and we move on in life. The news cycle is such that it's both a blessing and a curse. All blessings are also curses, and the amount of news that we take in is partially a curse in that the big issues are forgotten so rapidly. Bin Laden was killed just 3 weeks ago. And I want to talk to you about reactions to the celebrations that took place in the United States of America as a result of the killing of bin Laden, how rabbis, priests, ministers, and others have reacted, and how, in my opinion, the world is truly morally upside down. I daily pinch myself. I guess I have to put it this way: if my views on these matters are accurate, we're in bad shape, and if they're not accurate, we're in bad shape. Because there are— the dominant ideas today are so morally odd and different from the past, And I am specifically referring, and I will read you examples from Christianity and Judaism, the number of rabbis and Christian clergy who are angry at people who celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden. I would say the bulk of Christian and Jewish clergy are opposed to celebrating the death of bin Laden. And I will give you examples in all of these cases. Here is a pastor, Brian McLaren. Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America a few years ago. Reacting to television images of young Americans chanting "USA, USA," The night bin Laden's death was announced, the pastor wrote, quote, "I can only say that this image does not reflect well on my country. Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us." Get that? So those who celebrate Bin Laden's death are morally equivalent to the people who celebrated 9/11. Get it? They celebrated death, and they celebrated death, and there you go. And I'm a pastor. And I'm one of the 25 most influential according to Time. Are we learning anything or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence? Now, a word on the phrase "cycle of violence." There are a few phrases that, in the course of my lifetime, as soon as I see, I know the person doesn't think clearly. "Cycle of violence" is a giveaway. It is like— forgive me if this is on your car, I never mean to be insulting, and I'm not insulting these— I know that people I differ with have wonderful intentions, and I never attack their motives. But it is like the bumper sticker, what is it? No, the one, not tolerance, what's the word again? With all the symbols of the religions. Coexist. Coexist, okay. The message coexist needs to be on a bumper sticker in Saudi Arabia, not the United States. This is the land of coexistence. Religions get along great in the United States. It's a useless bumper sticker in America. The places where you need to put it up, you would be killed if you put it up. The place where you don't need to put it up, it is meaningless. So too cycle of violence. World War II was a cycle of violence, right? The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and then we bombed the Japanese. Why wasn't that just a cycle of violence? Cycle of violence means that all violence is morally equivalent. But that's what I mean by the decline of clarity and moral thinking in our time. Not all violence is morally equal. Some violence is moral, some violence is immoral. We are so anti-violence, we should be anti-evil. This is the message that I want to bring to you today. Judaism is anti-evil, not anti-violence. There isn't a shred of pacifism in Judaism. Not a shred. Pacifism has no place in Judaism, never did. Until the era we live in now. There are pacifist rabbis. This is brand new in Jewish history. The idea that it is always wrong to kill is a brand new idea, and it is not one that is found anywhere in Judaism. Nowhere. But Dennis, how about the Red Sea? Okay, I promise I'll deal with that, and if I don't, just raise your hand. But it's on my list.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

So number one, what this pastor says, the entire thing the pastor says is upside down morally. Uh, and so he was, uh, again, the image does not reflect well on my country. Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. So you get it? Bin Laden celebrated 9/11, we celebrate his death, we're all the same, isn't that ironic? I don't see any irony here, I see moral clarity on the part of those who know what the difference between good and evil is. 9/11 is not the same as killing Osama bin Laden. And then again, the cycle of violence nonsense. Next. CNN reported the reaction of an Episcopal priest, a woman, Danielle Tumminio, whose Long Island neighborhood lost scores of people in the 9/11 attacks. So they went to her because so many people were killed in her neighborhood, 9/11, including church members. Quote from CNN: When she saw images of Americans celebrating, "My first reaction was, I wish I was with them." My second reaction was, "This is disgusting. We shouldn't be celebrating the death—" Excuse me. "We shouldn't be celebrating the death of anybody." It felt gross. We shouldn't be celebrating the death of anybody? Had Hitler died in 1941, do you know how many people would still have lived? What kind of moral brain is it that would say you can't celebrate the death of anyone. I'm telling you, you don't know how morally confused this generation is. And I don't know if it could be undone. I don't know. It takes eons to build moral clarity, and it takes one generation to undo it all. Now I'll give you a rabbi. This is one of many rabbis, by the way. This is just an example. This is a rabbi, the senior rabbi, Temple Emanuel, Denver, Colorado, Rabbi Joe Black. And in his blog, and it was carried on Facebook, so it's easily found, Reflections on the Death of Bin Laden on Yom HaShoah. He was killed on Yom HaShoah, by the way. Last night, like most of us, My family and I were transfixed by the scenes playing out on our TV screens. The celebrations that were taking place outside of the White House, at Times Square, at Ground Zero, and throughout the world following confirmation by President Obama that Osama bin Laden had been killed were spellbinding. It was as if a cloud had been lifted from our national consciousness. The jubilation and spontaneous demonstrations of national pride that these mostly young revelers were displaying was both wonderful and disconcerting. Chants of "USA, USA" filled the air, and reporters were interviewing survivors of the 9/11 rescue operations that are indelibly linked in our consciousness. At last, we had some positive news in the war on terror. American commandos had broken through the seemingly impenetrable wall of invincibility that al-Qaeda had created. Created. The mass murderer of thousands had finally been eliminated. And yet, waking up this morning, however, I don't feel too much like celebrating. Bin Laden died a violent death. He deserved to die. But while I am relieved that bin Laden no longer poses a threat, I have no illusions that his death will put an end to terror. On the contrary, most of us are bracing ourselves for the inevitable reaction of al-Qaeda and the myriad of terrorist offshoots that it has spawned. Now, just let me comment on that, though this is not the subject. My subject is the moral issue. Nobody claimed that it's the end of terror, killing Osama bin Laden. So he's making a claim that doesn't matter. Nobody says that ends terror. It's just a good thing that he died. It's better than not. And every expert that I have read says it is a real blow to al-Qaeda. That symbolically his death is a major thing. Alright? So, I don't know, he's arguing with a straw man, but alright. In addition, and here comes the moral issue, the image of celebrating the death of another human being, no matter how evil he may have been, doesn't fit my image of the highest ideals for which we as a nation stand. See? We're not supposed to celebrate the death of any other person. I remember the Los Angeles Police Department shot a man who was about to rape a woman, to kidnap the woman, rape her, and by all indications was going to kill her with a gun after he raped her. And they killed him in time. I was thrilled. I mean, and did I go outside and party? No, but that's only because that's not my style. But the world is a better place because that guy got shot before he did that to that woman. This is a type of thinking that I don't understand. It's new. Where does this idea, you never celebrate the death of another human, come from? Now, I'll deal with all the sources. He, for example, says, his next sentence: "In the book of Proverbs we find the following: 'Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.'" Then he writes— this is another thing I'm never a big fan of, but it's My son Ethan— when people quote their young kids, you know, most people have young kids who say cute things, but we don't necessarily write them in our blogs. But okay, my son Ethan beautifully captured this duality of feeling in his Facebook when he wrote, "Regardless of how despicable or evil an individual might be, we as Americans never celebrate the death of a terrorist." death of another. Where did he get this from? Where did Ethan, his son, get it from? The answer is he got it from his father. Exactly, right. But he didn't get it from American history. We instead celebrate the end to an era of fear and terror. But it's not over. The father just said it's not over. We're going to have more terror than ever. I guess he didn't get that part from his dad. We celebrate the individuals who keep us safe from those who want to harm us. Most importantly, we celebrate the universal ideals of freedom and justice. Okay, I celebrate the ideal of killing evil people. I'm a big fan of that. I just want to go on record as saying that. This morning the world is a different place— this is the rabbi now, his final paragraph— this morning the world is a different place than it was last night, not because a terrorist has been killed, but rather Now listen to this. This is unbelievable. This I truly don't understand. So why is the world different from last night? Not because the leading terrorist on earth was killed. Nope. But rather because we have been given an opportunity to heal. To heal from what? I don't— an opportunity to heal. One man's death, however justified, will not bring back the thousands upon thousands who have died due to hatred. See, due to hatred, it's like, due to his hatred. He didn't say that, notice that? He's anti-hatred. I'm not anti-hatred. I think I've told you that Berkeley, the city of Berkeley, many years ago, passed a resolution that Berkeley is a hate-free zone. And I immediately announced on the radio, I will never be allowed to visit Berkeley, I do hate. And I'm commanded by my religion to hate. Ohave Adonai sin'ura. Those of you who love God must hate evil. It's said every Shabbat at Kabbalat Shabbat from the Psalms. But they're against hatred disembodied from morality. This is the one I'm worried about. We don't think morally now, we think with feelings. I hate hatred. I don't hate hatred. I hate evil. There's a very big difference. The rabbis were geniuses in this matter. Why was the temple destroyed and why did we have a sort of Holocaust? The number of Jews killed was unbelievable in the first and second destructions of the temple and the Jewish state. Why did the rabbis say was the reason we were killed? Nearly all of you know this, because of sinat chinam. They were brilliant. Sinat chinam means gratuitous hatred, baseless hatred. They never said because of sinah. It wasn't because of Jews hating, it was because of Jews hating for no good reason. There's a huge difference between hating for no good reason and hating for good reason. You damn well should hate for good reason. Then if you really want to get depressed, you read the comments on the rabbi's blog. "I couldn't agree more. I found the celebration, the wild celebrations of the death, very disconcerting." "Thank you. You articulated well my feelings this day." "So well said." "Thank you for clearing up the mixed emotions I was feeling. Well done." Beautiful, thank you Rabbi, and so on. Now, let me deal with all the verses in the Talmud and in the Bible on this issue, and then I will explain to you what they mean and why they are misunderstood. So first— Oh good, that's great. First here, you have the Talmudic statement, and all of you know these statements by the way, When the Egyptians were drowning in the Sea of Reeds, the angels wanted to sing, but God said to them, "The work of my hands is drowning in the sea, and you want to sing?" All of the rabbis who are anti-celebrating Bin Laden's death bring this verse. I have heard this verse cited since I was in yeshiva. It's very important, however, to understand whom God addressed. God addressed the angels, not people. Angels have different criteria for how they should behave. And first of all, it's all allegorical, okay? It's all allegorical. The rabbis made up a beautiful little story, and I understand that. God isn't going to go jubilant over the entire Egyptian army drowning in the sea. God is the Father of all creatures, and even if your child is rotten, you're still sad that your child dies. But I'm not sad your child dies if you're Mr. Bin Laden Senior. There's a big difference between being God or an angel and being a person. God never rebuked the Jews for singing, and as you brought up, and indeed as I point out in the article I wrote on this, which is in if you want to see in the Jewish Journal this week. The, uh, "Ozi yashir Moshe ben Yisrael v'sayra hazot." What did Moses and Israel do after the Egyptians drowned? They sang a song. Did God rebuke them? Is there a hint, a hint of God being dissatisfied with this song? Moses was wrong, but Rabbi so-and-so at Temple Emanuel is right? I'll take Moses personally. You know, we are living in an age of non-Judaism Jews. It's the worst age we've ever lived in. I can live with non-Jewish Jews. The non-Jewish Jew is the person who completely is alienated from Jewish identity, secular or religious. I respect that person. It's a free world, you can identify with what you want. You want to be a Buddhist, you want to be an atheist, That's your business. I respect that. I respect Jews to the right of me. I respect Jews to the left of me. The only Jew I don't respect is the Jew who turns Judaism upside down. Who says, "This is what a Jew should act like," when there is no basis for it in Judaism. We sang, "God did not rebuke." And if you read the whole thing, Adonai ish milchama, God is a God is a man of war. Just read it. It's the most famous— I mean, I know it by heart because we said it every day in yeshiva, and to this day Jews who pray every day say it every day. It's in the Shacharit service. And then when they got to the other side and the Egyptians drowned, Moses and the children of Israel sang the following song.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

So, uh, the, uh, this, this citation— oh, they're my children, angels, you shouldn't sing. Fine, any of you who are angels don't sing. However, if you're human, you have a perfect right to sing at the death of the truly evil. Next. The biblical book of Proverbs: "When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles, let your heart not exult." Okay, let me explain something about the word enemy. Christians and Jews get this wrong. And by the way, I was really delighted to see that the explanation I am about to give you for the word enemy is exactly what Adin Steinsaltz, one of the most revered Jewish scholars living today, Gives as well, you could check it on the internet. It is almost word for word what I wrote in my article and what I am about to tell you and what I have said to Christians in particular, and I feel, and I always say on the radio, I have a certain amount of chutzpah telling Christians what Jesus said because they get it wrong, but nevertheless I was endowed with chutzpah at birth and I use it. But, for example, he says love your enemy, right? And so therefore Christians say we have to love communists, we have to love Nazis, we have to love racists, we have to love bin Laden. That is not it, and it is not what Proverbs said: when your enemy falls, do not rejoice. We're talking, as Jesus was in his case with turn the other cheek and love your enemy, with you as an individual and the people you are antagonistic to in your life. That is perfectly accurate. Every— most people have enemies in the course of their life. In business, they have a terrible falling out. God forbid, in a divorce, somebody becomes an enemy. Whatever it might be, whatever the situation, that you don't celebrate their demise. That's correct. But that is not the same as the objectively evil. Osama bin Laden was not my enemy. I never met the man. He never personally hurt me at all. He had no real role in my life. My personal enemies, and I haven't had many, thank God, but my personal enemies have had a much bigger role in my daily life than Osama bin Laden did. Osama bin Laden was not my enemy. Osama bin Laden was an evil man. It doesn't say do not rejoice at the fall of evil. It has the opposite. That's the point. Here, let me give it to you. Yeah. The Talmud: When the wicked perish from the world, good comes to the world. Proverbs: When the wicked perish, there is joyful song. The Proverbs and the Talmud distinguish between enemy and evil. Get it? Your personal enemy is not the evil. That's your issue, and you shouldn't act toward that person as if that person is Osama bin Laden. Now, if your personal enemy is Osama bin Laden, that's a That's a separate issue. Is this clear, the distinction between enemy and evil? You do celebrate the fall of evil, the death of evil people. You don't celebrate the fall of a person that you are antagonistic to in your life. That's a big difference. And it's a great lesson. And the words of Proverbs are clear as a bell. We celebrate the fall of evil. We don't celebrate when our enemy falls. That's the difference. Let me summarize here. There's a British historian named Andrew Roberts. He's just come out with a history of World War II. I like this man because he has moral passion. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal the following. Remember, he's a British historian. My countrymen's reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden—that means my fellow Brits—have made me doubt my pride in being British. The foul outpouring of sneering anti-Americanism, legalistic quibbling—you know what the legalistic quibbling is about, right? Was it right to kill him? He may not have been armed at that moment. And concern for the supposed human rights of our modern Hitler have left me squirming in embarrassment and apology before my American friends. Britons utterly refuse to obey the natural instincts of the freeborn to celebrate the death of a tyrant. When the Mets-Phillies baseball game erupted into cheers on hearing the wonderful news, or the crowds chanted USA, USA outside the White House, they were manifesting the finest emotional responses of a great people. And now I will end with this. For every rabbi who says we shouldn't cheer the death of anyone, I want you to confront this person with a man named Ari Hassenberg. This was cited in Saul Friedlander's History of the Holocaust. I know of it because it was cited in the book that I am reading on the history of World War II by Andrew Roberts. Okay? Ari Hassenberg was a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau. As quoted by Holocaust historian Saul Friedlander, after one of the Auschwitz sub-camps, Monowitz, was bombed by the Allies, Hassenberg's reaction was, quote, "To see a killed German, that was why we enjoyed the bombing." Is Hassenberg un-Jewish in his reaction? Immoral in his reaction? According to virtually every rabbi cited on this issue, he would be— he would have to be considered— that his reaction would have to be considered un-Jewish. He shouldn't have been happy that SS guards were killed in the bombing of one of the sub-camps of Auschwitz. This is what we have come to.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Why have we come to this? Oh, this I've spoken on for all these years, but I'll tell you one reason: the utter paradise in which Western culture has raised a generation. Has made them completely unaware of what real evil is like. And when you don't experience what Ari Hassenberg has experienced, it's very easy to sit in your air-conditioned rabbinic office in LA, Denver, New York, and write on the internet how it's wrong to celebrate the death of anyone. But if you see what I know all of you know, went on in Auschwitz, and you know that one of those people who did any one of those things is now dead, you think it's wrong to celebrate that? What has happened? What has happened? This was a true smoking gun to me of the bankruptcy of much of Judaism today. That so many rabbis joined, and so many Christians. It's the same within Christianity. Have joined the bandwagon of you can't celebrate anyone's death. An embarrassment at people chanting USA, USA at the death of the man called by this historian our modern Hitler. If anybody would like to raise an issue. Yes, please, sir. I actually think there were two reasons why to celebrate that day. Why to celebrate? Yes, there were two different reasons. Remember, it's why. Well, you raise a very passionate issue to me, because we've been working for years now on a July 4th seder for Americans of all backgrounds to celebrate. I think it's more true about Memorial Day. I think that we should adopt, for example, what Israel has, that all traffic and all intercourse between people end for 1 minute on Memorial Day, a siren at noon in each time zone is played, or whatever time, you stop your car, you stand up outside, it would transform the society. The reason Jews have survived 3,600 years is ritual. Ritual preserves memory, not the brain. The brain does not remember. Actions cause the brain to remember.

Yes? Actually, I was very angry, not at the celebration, but at the fact that this monster was given a funeral.

Oh, that he was— you mean, you were angry that he was buried according to Muslim law? Your best guess? I don't have a position on that. I'm just happy that he was buried at sea. There is no shrine. I thought that they handled it, frankly, quite well. Did he not deserve— I'll tell you the one thing that is interesting. Any Muslim who does say he should have been given proper rites should be asked this question. I thought the argument of nearly all Muslim spokesmen is that he was not a Muslim. Why then should he be given any proper Muslim rites? You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "Oh, he's not a Muslim, he's just a terrorist, he has nothing to do with Islam," and then demand that he be given proper rites of burial. That's the question I would like to pose. Yes? Please stand.

I really believe it, and the thing that bothers me most is what I read, and I don't know if it's true, that when a Muslim passes away, their prayer is to curse the Jews and to curse the Christians. So by giving him his right of dying as a Muslim, somebody said that curse on us and our brothers.

Yeah, I never heard that, that there's that part of the official rite of prayer upon burial is curse the Jews and curse the Christians. Christians. That's more while living that is said, and certainly not by all Muslims by any means. It would be dishonest and wrong to say that. But certainly there is a percentage that believe that, and certainly Hamas would be an example of that.

Yes. What comes to mind is various—

I'll repeat in case you can't hear at the back.

There are various political groups like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Aren't they motivated by hatred for drunk drivers? Wasn't the Civil Rights Movement motivated by hatred for injustice and discrimination? Isn't hatred behind a lot of major political movements in our country?

I think it's a very fine point. She said, and correctly, isn't hatred a motivator for a lot of the good that happened? Well, you don't hate racism, right? You don't hate drunk driving. Now, you could say drunk drivers might be, you know, drunk drivers are not Bin Ladens. I mean, that we all recognize. On the other hand, they kill a hell of a lot more than Bin Laden killed, in total. But you're absolutely right, that's why I said there's moral hatred and immoral hatred. We should be against immoral hatred, but your kids at college, at $40,000 a year if you're if you're lucky, is our learning that hatred is wrong. Hatred is not wrong. It depends what you hate. Let me take one more. Yes. Please stand. The rabbi that you quoted of the plot? Yes. What part of the Bible says an eye for an eye? Yeah, what about the issue of an eye for an eye? An eye for an eye is actually justice. It's not hatred. It was one of the great steps forward in human history. What it said was that the eye of a nobleman and the eye of a serf are equal. Never take more. And of course it was always understood as monetary compensation. I said one more, so that would be it. Forgive me.

Shabbat shalom, everybody. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.