Morality in Times of Fear
Donniel Hartman
Credit: Joel Carillet, Getty Images
Donniel Hartman is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute.
For I have singled [Abraham] out, so that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right. (Gen. 18:19)
Since its inception, Judaism has identified doing what is just and right as the foundation for our covenant with God, and viewed moral behavior as its most important value: “You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what God requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God” (Micah 6:8). In the Talmud, Hillel the Elder consecrates this idea in his famous principle: “What is hateful unto you do not do to others, that is the whole Torah, and the rest is but commentary. Go and study” (bShabbat 31a). Moral behavior is not merely central—it is “the whole Torah.” When all is said and done, there is no validity to a Judaism that does not concern itself constantly with the question how to act in a way that is just and right.
While essential to our tradition, acting in a way that is just and right is easier said than done, particularly during times of abject fear, and abject fear is now an integral part of the Jewish experience around the world. For many of us, this is our first experience with this level of fear. In Israel, our myth of stability and safety, founded on our faith in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their ability to confine the conflict with Palestinians to periodic operations in Gaza and the West Bank with limited casualties, was shattered. Since October 7, 2023, Israelis feel a new level of vulnerability and insecurity as, on that day, Hamas was able to penetrate our “insurmountable” defenses, best the IDF, and unleash an unprecedented pogrom on Israeli citizens. The status quo that enabled us to believe we could pursue a normal life, even be the “start-up nation,” despite the presence of enemies all around who had declared their intent to destroy us, is no more. Israeli society currently finds itself scrambling to get its bearings and reclaim a measure of stability and safety.
The events of October 7 activated deep empathy and concern for Israel around the Jewish world. Shock, solidarity, and mourning were the predominant emotions—until October 8, when Jews woke up to campus and street celebrations of Hamas’s so-called “heroism” and validations of their “right” to murder Israelis. On October 8, the North American Jewish myth of stability and safety was also shattered. North American Jews had thought that antisemitism, even though it was always present to some degree—especially on the Right—was manageable, and it didn't undermine their sense of the United States or Canada as home. But the scope and maliciousness of antisemitic attacks on Israel and Jews that emerged from the Left—including from allies, ideological partners, and political colleagues—on October 8 shook many to their core. That, coupled with increased manifestations of and anxiety about antisemitism on the Right leading up to and in the aftermath of the U.S. elections, has destabilized the Jewish community and thrown the North American Jewish experience of privilege and protection into doubt.
In the year-and-a-half since October 7 and 8, as I travel and teach across Israel and North America, what is most palpable to me is how much we have all changed, and the extent to which existential fear and instability are now common to the Jewish experience. No matter the subject of the talk I am giving, students and audiences filter my remarks through their experience of fear and want to know how what was said relates to and impacts this experience.
What is also evident to me is that this newfound fear is accompanied by a reassessment of individual and collective priorities. Jews who had spent much of their efforts on the upper levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in search of meaning and of moral, cultural, and economic self-actualization, now find themselves descending the Maslow pyramid, focusing on the more basic needs of safety and security. Moral standards and concerns regarding the way the war in Gaza is being waged, the disposition of humanitarian aid, or the future of Gaza and the West Bank, are now second-tier concerns at best, perceived as luxuries that we can no longer afford.
In this context, in Israel, it has become commonplace to view morality and security as mutually exclusive. In North America, the Jewish community’s once robust critical discourse about Israel’s policies towards Palestinians and the Occupation is more muted, as the community is now focused on defending Israel and supporting its rehabilitation, and on combatting antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel, especially on college campuses. The fact that so much of the October 8 criticism of Israel was blatantly antisemitic has caused many Jews to feel uncomfortable with being associated with Israel’s critics, who are now classified as enemies of the Jewish people.
Today, I am finding it increasingly difficult to raise moral concerns and engage people in Israel and North America in aspirational ethical discourse regarding Israel’s policies and the future of Zionism. The fact that some 70 percent of Israeli Jews support the Trump-inspired “voluntary” relocation of 2 million Gazans to an unspecified location—where they will supposedly experience “new levels of prosperity”—is a profound testimony to this absence of moral discourse and concern. In prior years, such talk of transfer, even when presented as voluntary, was the sole domain of extremist Kahanists, who were viewed as moral pariahs and relegated to the fringes of Israeli political life. Today, however, the broad sentiment in Israel seems to be that if the resettlement of Gazans anywhere else will make us safe and protect our family members in the army, it is desirable, despite the moral flaws inherent in the suggestion.
In North America, many leaders and institutions have doubled down on policing the boundaries of permissible conversation about Israel. The search for answers to the questions of “why be Jewish?” and “why have a relationship with Israel?” have often been replaced by concentrated efforts to keep Jews and Israel safe at any cost. Israel, to quote my colleague Yehuda Kurtzer, has become almost exclusively a discourse of loyalty.
It is understandable that fear has led us to focus principally on our own well-being, setting aside our moral obligations to others. But survival alone has never exhausted our goals as a people. We are not commanded to walk in the ways of God and do that which is just and right only in times of safety and prosperity. We are expected to have moral concerns and aspirations even in this time of existential fear. The fact that it is difficult, that for many it feels unnatural or like a luxury, or that it might even be dangerous, cannot absolve us of the obligation to understand and at least aspire to live up to our ethical standards.
We need to reengage with moral discourse and bring it back into our private and public lives. We need to find a way to resume talking about who we are and who we ought to be. When moral discourse is vibrant, moral behavior follows. Writing this article is my attempt to strengthen this conversation in the hope that it will help reinforce our commitment to our essence and mission as Jews.
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Morality and doing what is just and right are abstract concepts. Turning them into policy requires clarifying what they demand of us more specifically. In the current context of war, antisemitism, and fear, I believe it is critical to focus on two foundational preconditions for moral behavior, and to articulate three central principles that can help guide us in moving from moral theory to practice.
The two preconditions I have in mind are: a) moral failure, including our own, is inevitable, and b) remember that self-defense is a moral duty. When either is absent, moral discourse is profoundly impaired. The three central principles are: a) we are our fellow’s keepers, and the core of our moral obligations is to never be indifferent to the pain and suffering of others; b) our “fellow” must also include “the other,” the non-member; and c) moral commitments must entail moral courage in the face of adversity. These three encompass the meaning of what our tradition requires when it challenges us to do what is just and right. To paraphrase Hillel, all the rest is commentary, now go and practice.
Let’s begin with the preconditions. First, we must recognize that all of us, including the Jewish people and Isreal, will at times fail at fulfilling our moral obligations. There is a huge gap between knowing the good and doing the good, and as a result, moral underachieving is commonplace. This is one of the first lessons of the Bible. After eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil—whatever that means—humans leave the Garden of Eden and commit murder. Our moral decline continues from there until the whole world is filled with violence.
While God initially assesses all of creation as very good, the Bible subsequently portrays a different reality. Judaism does not believe that humans are evil from birth, but the Bible declares that as we mature, we become inclined towards evil (Gen. 8:21). All of Judaism’s laws, narratives, and prophetic exhortations are attempts to alter this inclination, with only, as the Bible testifies, limited results.
Recognizing our propensity for moral failure is critical, for in its absence, moral self-righteousness takes over, and leads us to view all our actions as inherently just. In times of war and conflict, whether in the battlefields of Gaza or on North American campuses, this self-righteousness threatens to lead us into moral mediocrity by undermining the need for self-evaluation and delegitimizing criticism. As evidence, one need look no further than Hamas and its supporters. By emphasizing their narrative of victimhood and sense of themselves as subjects of colonial oppression, they deem themselves immune from moral failure, and they and their supporters view their actions, no matter how heinous and depraved, as morally justified.
We cannot allow our own victimhood and fear to have similar consequences. The current war is rightfully understood as a war of self-defense, but if we ignore our capacity for moral failure, we risk viewing all our military actions as inherently just and legitimate. This, in turn, risks blurring the boundaries between self-defense and revenge. When combatting evil, it is critical to remember that as human beings, we are all destined to get it wrong sometimes; that even when our intent is to do good, we will often fail. Only those who embrace this reality have the capacity for self-correction, and the opportunity to get it right. Particularly in times of fear, it is critical to remember that victimhood does not generate moral righteousness. Being moral is an obligation, not an inheritance.
The second precondition is to recognize that self-defense is a moral duty. This is critical for many reasons. If we fail to internalize our moral right to self-defense and become intimidated by the morally vacuous narrative of the radical left whereby the powerless have the right to kill and terrorize us by virtue of their perception of Israel as a white colonizing power, or because of the prolongation of the Occupation, we are pulled into a world of moral relativism and chaos. In a world where evil is whitewashed as righteousness and where the massacre of October 7 is valorized, one ceases to have moral expectations of others. When all moral standards are set aside, abiding by self-defined and self-imposed standards of morality feels meaningless and out of touch with reality. Why then should we maintain and strive to uphold moral expectations from ourselves alone?
When self-defense ceases to be perceived as a moral value, and we begin to instead view morality and safety as mutually exclusive, a zero-sum game, morality will almost always lose, self-preservation will trump self-actualization, and morality will cease to maintain its primacy in our hierarchy of values. As the Jewish tradition teaches: “If one comes to kill you, kill them first” (bSanhedrin 72a). When I look out for my life and the safety of my people, I am not engaging in an immoral or amoral exercise. It is my moral duty to do so, and it, too, is an expression of moral self-actualization. This precondition has immense practical ramifications, for when self-defense is seen as an expression of one’s moral commitments, there is no competition between the two.
In times of war and danger, we naturally fear anything that may limit our ability to defend ourselves and hinder our capacity to fight and win. However, when our actions are motivated and limited by the need for self-defense, morality can be our ally and guide. It legitimizes our right to defend ourselves, and at the same time, brings moral concerns into the battlefield. In short, it means that our war is just, and it challenges us to fight our just war justly. It demands that we distinguish between combatants and non-combatants; that we facilitate humanitarian aid in a way that recognizes the human rights of non-combatants; that we treat all prisoners with dignity; and that we cease war the minute it is no longer the exclusive and necessary means to enhance our right to life and safety. When we perceive war as a manifestation of our base concerns for survival alone, the enterprise of war is emptied of moral objectives and standards, and moral failure inevitably follows.
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I don’t believe that Israelis have deleted or altered their moral consciences. But as I reflect on the dramatic shift I have experienced in the level and content of moral discourse in Israel since the start of the war, I think that the trauma of October 7 activated an unprecedented sense of victimhood and fear that has, in turn, diminished the place of these two preconditions in our collective consciousness and public discourse. Victimhood generates self-righteousness which precludes self-criticism and awareness of one's potential moral failures, especially when engaging so nefarious an enemy as Hamas. Fear has propelled Israelis to reject anything that may curtail our ability to win what we believe to be an existential war. While understandable, the consequences of this are critical for the future of our country.
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How do we rebuild and reclaim our moral future? In addition to reengaging with the above preconditions, we also need to begin to talk again about what being a moral human being demands of us. Let’s now turn to our three principles of justice and righteousness.
We Are Our Fellow’s Keeper
The core articulation of moral obligation outlined in the Jewish tradition is the responsibility to see our fellow human being’s needs and to not remain indifferent. It is precisely this foundational moral sensibility that is challenged in times of fear, as our moral gaze becomes limited, focused principally on ourselves and our own needs.
The Jewish tradition's account of the ethics of seeing suffering and rejecting indifference begins already in the fourth chapter of the Bible. There, after Cain kills Abel, God turns to him and asks: “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain answers: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9), revealing his limited understanding of his moral obligations. Through his negative example and God's condemnation of him, our tradition teaches that morality begins with the understanding that we are our fellows’ keepers and that the ethics of seeing and not remaining indifferent requires that we continually seek to be an antidote to pain and suffering. This is the meaning of doing what is just and right.
The verse that appears as this essay’s epigraph, Genesis 18:19, sets forth this moral principle. It captures a moment of divine self-reflection in which God decides to share with Abraham the plan to destroy the city of Sodom. Abraham would have been justified to look the other way and say: What business is it of mine? Maybe they deserve it. Who am I to know better than God? However, rather than absolving himself, rather than offering a Cain-like response, Abraham chooses the path of seeing and acting; he responds with an impassioned defense of Sodom. In so doing, he provides the Bible’s first example of what it means to “keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right.”
This exhortation is translated over and again into Jewish law. The Torah commands us to “not stand by the blood of your neighbor” (Lev. 19:16), which the rabbinic tradition interpreted in the sense of not failing to act when your neighbor is in danger (bSanhedrin 73a). Similarly, the obligation to return lost property expressed in the book of Deuteronomy explicitly challenges us to overcome any Cain-like inclination we might have to refuse to care when our neighbor is about to incur loss: “You shall not see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray and remain indifferent. You must take it back to your fellow… you must not remain indifferent” (Deut. 22:1-3).
The principle of seeing and caring is also foundational for the myriad of Jewish laws associated with tzedakah, which grow out of this commandment:
If there be among you a needy person, one of your kinsman, within any of your gates, in your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your needy kinsman; but you shall surely open your hand unto them, and lend them sufficient for their need in that which they lack.… For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land. (Deut. 15:7-11)
The basic reality of need makes the obligation to care for our fellows self-evident. This commandment ultimately turns into a comprehensive and intricate system of assistance manifested through tithing, giving the poor access to the corners of one’s field, interest-free loans, and by the rabbinic period, direct almsgiving.
The rabbis also worked to counter any tendency toward indifference through an innovative zoning policy. At the time, urban homes were built around a common courtyard, with one central gate opening into the main thoroughfare. In order to attain a higher level of privacy and security, people were inclined to build a gatehouse at this gate. Building it was even deemed an expense that could be forced upon all the residents. It comes as a surprise, then, to find the Talmud raising an objection, as it asks: “But is a gatehouse really a benefit? What about that pious man, with whom Elijah the prophet would regularly converse? When he built a gatehouse, Elijah did not converse with him further” (bBava Batra 7b).
Elijah the prophet, who in rabbinic literature often appears to communicate a divine perspective on human affairs, seems to disapprove of these gatehouses quite strongly. The medieval commentator Rashi explains that Elijah severed ties with the gatehouse builder because gatehouses “cut off from view those calling out [i.e., the needy, out in the street, asking for tzedakah], and their voices are not heard.” While the values of privacy and security undergird reasonable arguments for closing others out, they nevertheless cannot be permitted to impinge on the responsibility of being our fellows’ keepers, which we can only fulfill if we are able to see and hear those in need.
War, fear, and danger can function as emotional gatehouses. They can affect what we choose to see and whose cries we choose to hear. When self-preservation becomes our exclusive concern, when it becomes a gatehouse obscuring the needs of others, we are failing the first principle of Jewish ethics: to be our fellows’ keepers.
“Our Fellow” Must Include “the Other”
National, ideological, and ethnic communities demand loyalty and expect members to prioritize the needs of their fellow members. This may be natural, but it inevitably results in varying degrees of moral blindness and indifference to those who are not members, whether refugees and migrants, other countries, or those we encounter in the battlefield. Prioritizing one’s own does not legitimize indifference toward others. The Jewish tradition demands both a heightened sensitivity to the needs of your brother and sister, and sensitivity to the needs of the poor—whether one of your people or a stranger who lives in your midst. Setting the stage is the biblical story of creation, wherein all human beings are presented as being created in the image of God, and as a result, the taking of any life, whether Jew or non-Jew, is deemed a capital offense, for “in the image of God was humankind made” (Gen. 9:6). In that vein, the rabbinic tradition famously teaches:
It is for this reason that only a single person was first created in the world, to teach that if any person takes a single soul, they are deemed by Scripture as if they had destroyed a whole world; and... anyone who saves a single soul, they are deemed by Scripture as if they had saved a whole world.... Again [but a single person was first created] for the sake of peace among humankind, so that one cannot say to another, “My parent was greater than your parent. (mSanhedrin 4:5)
A tradition that teaches the fundamental equality of all humankind and endows all life with equal and infinite value, requires that we define “fellow” as encompassing all of humanity. In Genesis 12, at the moment of his election, Abraham is promised personal success: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great.” He is also charged with the responsibility of being a blessing to the world: “and you shall be a blessing… and through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2-3). Embracing this responsibility, Abraham later rises to defend the citizens of Sodom, individuals who are not his people, and to demand that the God of all the earth act justly toward all.
It is in this spirit that Maimonides defines the parameters of Jewish moral responsibility:
Cruelty and arrogance are found only among idol-worshippers. By contrast, the descendants of Abraham our patriarch, i.e., the Jews whom the Holy One, blessed be He, granted the goodness of the Torah and commanded to observe righteous statutes and judgments, are required to be merciful to all. And similarly, with regard to the attributes of the Holy One, which God commanded us to emulate, it is written: “God’s mercies are upon all of God’s works.” (Hilkhot Avadim 10:1)
For Maimonides, the absence of moral commitment to all, Jew and non-Jew alike, undermines our core Jewish identity and turns us into the people we are charged to overcome.
The challenge we are facing right now is that our fears are pushing us to limit the parameters of who we include under the category of “fellow.” In times of war, “the other” is your enemy, or your enemy's sympathizers and supporters. Right now, Gazan civilians are an important case in point for Israelis. There are no lovers of Jews in Gaza, and we are aware that the vast majority of Gazans supported the pogrom of October 7. It is therefore no wonder that Trump’s idea of relocation did not activate our moral condemnation. For years now—since the rise of Hamas—Gazans (and for that matter, Palestinians in the West Bank) have been largely outside the sphere of most Israelis’ care and concern; we do not generally see ourselves as the Palestinians’ keepers. The commonly cited notion, “There are no innocents in Gaza,” is shaping Israeli political and moral discourse.
Can we commit to defending our people, to being uncompromising on issues of security and safety, and still have moral compassion for Palestinians and their rights? Since the Second Intifada, this synthesis has become rare in Israeli society. Since October 7, it has become all but extinct. Several months ago, after some 120 Gazans were trampled to death trying to reach a food convoy, I wrote a Facebook post declaring that we (Israelis) are responsible for ensuring that Gazans, like all of God's creatures, have a right to access food safely, and that, as occupiers of Gaza at this moment, we are responsible to guarantee this. My post was met with almost universal condemnation in Israel, including death threats and accusations of betrayal.
Today, there are almost no voices of leadership in Israel who are willing to speak of our moral responsibilities at this time of war. Even those few who speak of the need to separate from Gaza and the Palestinian people almost never couch their positions in moral terms or speak of Palestinian human rights. At issue is only Israel’s self-interests, which for some involves not becoming occupiers or turning into a non-democratic state. It is about us, not them.
While, as I have stated, this is understandable, I do not believe it is who we are meant to be. Despite our fears, our Jewish obligations to our fellow must include the other. This is true even though translating it into policy is never simple or clear. It goes without saying that in each case, our right to safety and security must be prioritized. Self-defense, however, cannot be allowed to make us indifferent to our responsibility.
Moral Courage
The last principle I want to invoke is moral courage. Moral obligations are not a means to an end, but an end unto themselves, the essence of our calling as Jews. We don’t advocate moral behavior because it is good for public relations, or because it will make us popular, or because it enhances our security and our willingness to sacrifice for our country. We commit to doing good simply because it is good. That is enough. As an end, as the telos of Jewish life, morality is not merely an obligation to be fulfilled when possible. In the language of the Bible: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20). Pursue it even when it is hard. Pursue it even when an inclination to indifference is pulling you in the opposite direction. Pursue it when it is unconfutable or even dangerous. Moral commitment demands moral courage, the courage to overcome other inclinations and interests.
I want to return one last time to our hero, Abraham. Abraham chose to be his fellow’s keeper by refusing to be indifferent to the suffering of the citizens of Sodom and expanding the scope of his moral responsibilities to include the “other” who was not a member of his family or nation. In pursuit of justice and righteousness, he was also willing to take on none other than the God of infinite power. With immense courage and chutzpah, Abraham declares in a clear voice:
Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be fifty innocents within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? (Gen. 18:23-25)
Moral commitment inherently demands the willingness to prioritize this commitment in the face of anyone who seek to undermine it.
We need to find our moral courage today: a moral courage that commits to navigating the treacherous path between moral obligations and loyalty; a courage that refuses to allow others to own the category of “lover of Israel” or “Zionist.” In Israel we are in the midst of a cultural struggle over the soul of our people and our moral identity. Ultra-nationalists call for Israel to set aside morality in pursuit of an unencumbered national self-interest. But even many liberal Zionists who concur that doing that which is just and right is the essence of our identity are debating whether we can afford to do so now.
War is a reality that we must learn to survive without allowing it to redefine our core values. As we prepare our children for war, and try to grow another generation of Jews who are Zionists, we must also prepare them for moral discourse and responsibility. It is incumbent upon us to learn, to internalize the ethics of seeing and non-indifference, and to struggle and debate the ways we must apply it in our lives. For this, we were placed on earth. For this, we came home and established the State of Israel.
