A Time for Cruelty

For years, one phrase from ancient Jewish wisdom has troubled me. Here’s a literal translation:

“If you are kind in place of being cruel, you will be cruel in place of being kind.”

I’m not the only one that this millennia-old statement disturbs. I have seen many English translations that inaccurately soften these words, such as:

“If you are kind to the cruel, you will be cruel to the kind,”

“He Who is Compassionate to the Cruel Will Ultimately Become Cruel to the Compassionate,’’

“To be lenient when you should be firm is to be cruel when you could be kind.”

I understand the urge to mistranslate the words.

The notion that misplaced compassion can cause lasting damage is easy to understand. A surgeon regularly musters fortitude to cut open a human body. A judge recognizes that letting a young person entirely off the hook will lead the miscreant to worse behavior and correspondingly more danger. A teacher does not excuse a crying child from completing an assignment. Choosing discipline over laxity is often necessary.

For this reason, had the sentence employed the word strict, firm, or stern, I would have passed over it. But cruel? Really? Doesn’t cruelty imply an unnecessary level of harshness?

Making this maxim harder to comprehend is that ancient Jewish wisdom regards exhibiting compassion as a marker of a good soul. These two ideas seem contradictory.

The passage of the New York Medical Aid in Dying Act that awaits the governor’s signature helped me knit these concepts together. Though not the first law of its kind, passage in the Empire State presents a major cultural leap.

Like other euthanasia bills passed around the world, the emotional tug to approve this bill is huge and hits home. So many of us have watched loved ones suffer, physically and psychologically at the end of their lives. Who would not want to skip over weeks or months of excruciating pain or increasing helplessness for us or those we love?

In fact, a long-serving rabbi that I know and respect once commented that if God offered him the opportunity to change one Heavenly Law, he would beg God to allow euthanasia. Having accompanied so many individuals and families through prolonged suffering, he was well aware of the toll. Yet, he acknowledged that God was not asking his advice and, as such, he needed to accept the Divine rulings, “Choose life” and “Do not murder.”

In the Western world, we are heirs to thousands of years of religious heritage that says that killing oneself or assisting to kill another innocent person is a sin. As recently as 1990, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was roundly condemned and imprisoned for helping about one hundred terminally ill people die. In a shockingly small slice of time since then, similar actions are being lauded and encouraged.

Over the decades as abortion became accepted and then celebrated, I watched women become increasingly involved in heinous violent attacks of the severity that only men used to perpetrate. I do not think those trends are unrelated.

Over the years since no-fault divorce became the norm, compassionately not demanding proof of an action such as adultery, I watched divorce rates spike and marriage rates plummet. I do not think those trends are unrelated.

Over the years I watched society pivot from viewing unwed mothers as shameful to them becoming an uncontroversial and honored cohort. We now have increasing levels of children with anxiety and mental illness. I do not think those trends are unrelated.

I am not a prophet. Nonetheless, I predict that as we rely on our limited human understanding rather than on God’s eternal vision, compassionately supported euthanasia will lead to even further devaluing of life and lack of respect for the lives of others. Many innocent people will suffer.

Next week marks a year since our beloved daughter passed away. With guidance from a partnership of rabbinical and medical wisdom we navigated the fine line between alleviating pain and protecting her life. We were guided not by our emotions, but by our values. When the end came, we bid her farewell with clear consciences.

I know that others have watched their loved ones undergo even more severe suffering. Hardening one’s heart to not assist in death is one of the most challenging trials that we can undergo. It calls on us to do more than be strict, firm, or stern. We need to reach into our depths and access a spot of cruelty.

Yet, that is what we are called to do. For if we fail to make that flinty choice, the effect on society and the world around us will be increased cruelty when kindness should be our response.

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