It is hard to figure out where the truth lies in political controversies, at least if the truth is one’s goal. As Jews, we look to the Torah for guidance, but the Torah is famously complex and multi-faceted, allowing for many perspectives and opinions to partially participate in the truth.
The word “partially” is important, there. If any political or worldly philosophy was to completely agree with the Torah, it simply would be Torah, and of course, few political movements advocate bringing about a perfect world through not wearing wool and linen together or, for that matter, loving the King of Kings. All philosophies conceived by man, political or otherwise, are as imperfect and limited as man himself, whereas Torah simply is the infinite and perfect divine intellect.
While the knowledge that all politics is human and imperfect may not directly help us choose whether to vote Democrat or Republican (and, as the Rebbe Rayatz points out, the good in each side has its source in Torah), it does help us understand a new and popular idea called “There Is Only One Side.”
“There is only one side,” we are told with a straight face, “in the fight against injustice/fascists/leftists/Nazis/Trump/SJWs/etc.” This violates not only centuries of Jewish taste (“Every stick has two ends” is a Yiddish saying for a reason) and millennia of Jewish scholarship (“Oh,” cries Shammai, “there’s only one side! What a fool I’ve been!”), but also one of the deep, sacred truths of Judaism. “There’s only one side” is a reserved parking space, and it’s not reserved for us.
Why is a Nazi evil?
Let me ask a different question. Why is Amalek evil? Perhaps the Torah gives some reasons. But do those reasons apply to their women and children? The whole nation was our enemy and deserved to be wiped out. Is this based on some rational calculus? What rationale is there for killing children?
No, that’s not how it works. They had to be destroyed because G-d their creator commanded it. Amalek is “evil” because the Torah says so; in fact, that’s all that’s meant in this case by the word “evil”; no other definition of the term could sentence the entire tribe to death.
This makes me uncomfortable. Does this make you uncomfortable? Does it challenge your sense of Justice?
Good. Because declaring an entire tribe evil at essence as an unquestionable absolute is a grave moral undertaking even when the command comes from G-d Himself.
So why is a Nazi evil? Why is [insert group] evil?
Some seem to think a Nazi is evil because they practice Nazism, and Nazism is evil because Nazis practice it. They gesture toward historical atrocities without naming them and allow those stories to simplify and foreshorten and shrink into a single point. They become angry that they should even have to answer the question. No explanations are needed. Nazis are just evil because they are, like Amalek. There is, we are assured, only one side – with the evil, or against it.
But of course, there is no divine authority that says anyone who throws a Nazis salute is simply pure evil. Divine authority says more that murder of innocents is evil, that theft is evil, that ruling without courts or law is evil, that chaos and barbarism is wrong. We are to love our fellow as ourselves and know that we will one day have to explain our actions before our Creator. We are to pursue truth, justice, and peace. We are to be magnanimous toward defeated enemies, we are to be humble before G-d, we are to view man as created in the image of G-d. All of this, and much more makes the Nazis evil.
But if there are reasons the Nazis are evil, we now have three problems.
The first is that the emotional weight of the story of their evil seems much more important and powerful to us than any pathetic words about right and wrong. This indicates that we have contemplated the story of the Nazis and their victims, but not the story of G-d, righteousness, and reason, which, if told correctly, should lend emotional ballast to good and evil.
The second problem is that if Nazis are evil for a reason, people can be proportionately or relatively evil in comparison for participating in the same crimes and horrors. This necessarily entails that rather than being purely wicked through-and-through as a group, individual Nazis are really only evil inasmuch as they are responsible for the reasons Nazis are evil. (Of course, being part of the group is itself participation in the Nazi evil to some extent; morality is complicated.)
The third problem is that the path to the Manichaean contrast of good vs. evil is now much more difficult. If Nazis aren’t evil by definition but only evil by performing, participating in, and representing evil, then anti-Nazism is not good by definition but only good by performing, participating in, and representing countervailing goods. “Good Guys vs. Bad Guys” is an appropriate and perhaps necessary narrative assessment to make, but of course cannot be the foundation of determining who the good guys and bad guys actually are, or, even more maturely, to what extent they are actually good or bad.
These aren’t really problems for me. I’m a Jew, and so, for me, there is only one side – the Torah. It is the only thing in this world that is infinitely true without context or qualification. I think this makes sense; the Torah does come from G-d, after all.
But to apply the same logic to your own political position – what’s your excuse?