DECEMBER 8 • 2022 | 57

imprecisely, to mean a moral 
problem, a difficult ethical 
decision. 
 But a dilemma is not simply a 
conflict. There are many moral 
conflicts. May we perform an 
abortion to save the life of the 
mother? Should we obey a 
parent when he or she asks us 
to do something forbidden in 
Jewish law? May we desecrate 
the Shabbat to extend the life of 
a terminally ill patient? 
 These questions have answers. 
There is a right course of action 
and a wrong one. Two duties 
conflict and we have meta-hala-
chic principles to tell us which 
takes priority. There are some 
systems in which all moral 
conflicts are of this kind. There 
is always a decision procedure 
and thus a determinate answer 
to the question, “What should 
I do?”
A dilemma, however, is a 
situation in which there is no 
right answer. It arises in cases 
of conflict between right and 
right, or between wrong and 
wrong — where, whatever we 
do, we are doing something 
that in other circumstances we 
ought not to do.
The Talmud Yerushalmi 
(Terumot 8) describes one such 
case, where a fugitive from the 
Romans, Ulla bar Koshev, takes 
refuge in the town of Lod. The 
Romans surround the town, 
saying: Hand over the fugitive 
or we will kill you all. Rabbi 
Yehoshua ben Levi persuades 
the fugitive to give himself up. 
This is a complex case, much 
discussed in Jewish law, but it is 
one in which both alternatives 
are tragic. Rabbi Yehoshua 
ben Levi acts in accordance 
with halachah, but the prophet 
Eliyahu asks him: “Is this the 
way of the pious? [Vezu mishnat 
haHasidim]”
Moral dilemmas are situa-
tions in which doing the right 
thing is not the end of the 
matter. The conflict may be 
inherently tragic. Jacob, in this 

parshah, finds himself trapped 
in such a conflict: on the one 
hand, he ought not allow him-
self to be killed; on the other, he 
ought not kill someone else; but 
he must do one or the other. 
The fact that one principle 
(self-defense) overrides another 
(the prohibition against killing) 
does not mean that, faced with 
such a choice, he is without 
qualms, especially given the 
fact that Esau is his twin broth-
er. Despite their differences, 
they grew up together. They 
were kin. This intensifies the 
dilemma yet more. Sometimes 
being moral means that one 
experiences distress at having to 
make such a choice. Doing the 
right thing may mean that one 
does not feel remorse or guilt, 
but one still feels regret or grief 
about the action that needs to 
be taken.
A moral system which 
leaves room for the existence 
of dilemmas is one that does 
not attempt to eliminate the 
complexities of the moral life. 
In a conflict between two rights 
or two wrongs, there may be a 
proper way to act — the lesser 
of two evils, or the greater of 
two goods — but this does not 
cancel out all emotional pain. A 
righteous individual may some-
times be one who is capable of 

distress even while knowing 
that they have acted correctly. 
What the Midrash is telling us 
is that Judaism recognizes the 
existence of dilemmas. Despite 
the intricacy of Jewish law and 
its meta-halachic principles 
for deciding which of two 
duties takes priority, we may 
still be faced with situations in 
which there is an ineliminable 
cause for distress. It was Jacob’s 
greatness that he was capable 
of moral anxiety even at the 
prospect of doing something 
entirely justified, namely 
defending his life at the cost of 
his brother’s.
This characteristic — distress 
at violence and potential blood-
shed even when undertaken in 
self-defense — has stayed with 
the Jewish people ever since. 
One of the most remarkable 
phenomena in modern history 
was the reaction of Israeli sol-
diers after the Six-Day War in 
1967. In the weeks preceding 
the war, few Jews anywhere 
in the world were unaware 
that Israel and its people faced 
terrifying danger. Troops — 
Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian 
— were massing on all its 
borders. Israel was surrounded 
by enemies who had sworn to 
drive its people into the sea. 
And yet, it won one of the most 

stunning military victories of 
all time. The sense of relief was 
overwhelming, as was the exhil-
aration at the reunification of 
Jerusalem and the fact that Jews 
could now pray (as they had 
been unable to do for 19 years) 
at the Western Wall. Even the 
most secular Israelis admitted 
to feeling intense religious emo-
tion at what they knew was a 
historic triumph.
Yet, in the months after the 
war, as conversations took 
place throughout Israel, it 
became clear that the mood 
among those who had taken 
part in the war was anything 
but triumphal. It was somber, 
reflective, even anguished. That 
year, the Hebrew University in 
Jerusalem gave an honorary 
doctorate to Yitzhak Rabin, 
chief of staff during the war. 
During his speech of accep-
tance, he said:
“We find more and more a 
strange phenomenon among 
our fighters. Their joy is incom-
plete, and more than a small 
portion of sorrow and shock 
prevails in their festivities, and 
there are those who abstain 
from celebration. The warriors 
in the front lines saw with their 
own eyes not only the glory of 
victory but the price of victory: 
their comrades who fell beside 
them bleeding, and I know that 
even the terrible price which 
our enemies paid touched the 
hearts of many of our men. It 
may be that the Jewish people 
has never learned or accus-
tomed itself to feel the triumph 
of conquest and victory, and 
therefore we receive it with 
mixed feelings.
” 
These mixed feelings were 
born thousands of years earlier, 
when Jacob, father of the Jewish 
people, experienced not only 
the physical fear of defeat but 
the moral distress of victory. 
Only those who are capable of 
feeling both, can defend their 
bodies without endangering 
their souls. 

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

• Do you think Jacob’s fear about Esau at the 
beginning of our parshah is justified? Would Esau 
be justified if he did feel that way? 
• Would Jacob have been justified if he had killed 
Esau? 
• Do you believe it is ever ethically right to kill? If so, 
when? 
• What impact do you think killing can have, even 
when morally justified, on a person emotionally and 
spiritually? 
• What lessons do you think soldiers in an army could 
learn from this week’s parshah?