44 | DECEMBER 12 • 2024 

J

acob, on his way home after 
an absence of 22 years, hears 
that Esau is coming to meet 
him with a force of 400 men. He is 
terrified. He knows 
that many years earlier, 
his brother was merely 
waiting for Isaac to die 
before he took revenge. 
His approach with 
so large a contingent 
suggested to Jacob that 
Esau was intent on 
violence. He prepares 
himself. As the Sages noted, he made 
three types of preparation. First, he 
made provisions for war, dividing his 
household into two camps in the hope 
that one at least would survive. Then 
he prayed to God to protect him. 
Then he sent gifts, hoping to allay 
Esau’s anger.
One sentence in particular caught the 
attention of the Sages: “Jacob was very 
afraid and distressed.
” Genesis 32:7 

One of these two phrases is surely 
superfluous. If Jacob was afraid, he 
was distressed; if he was distressed, he 
was afraid. Why use two descriptions 
if one would do? This provided the 
springboard for a highly significant 
Midrash:
“Jacob was very afraid — lest he be 
killed. He was distressed — lest he 
kill.” Rashi
Jacob’s fear was physical — the 
fear of death. His distress, though, 
was moral — the fear that he himself 
might be forced to kill his brother. But 
this, as the commentators note, is puz-
zling. There is a rule in Jewish law that 
if someone comes to kill you, you may 
kill him first (Sanhedrin 72a). This is a 
basic principle of self-defense, without 
which there can be no right to life.
Why then was Jacob distressed 
lest he kill? If, in the struggle, he was 
forced to kill Esau to protect his own 
life, he would be acting fully within 
his rights. This is the profound answer 

suggested by Rabbi Shabbatai Bass 
(Siftei Chachamim):
One might argue that Jacob surely 
should have had no qualms about 
killing Esau, for [the Talmud] states 
explicitly: “If one comes to kill you, 
forestall it by killing him.
” 
Nonetheless, Jacob did indeed 
have qualms. He feared that in the 
fray he might kill some of the Esau’s 
men, who were not intent on killing 
Jacob but were merely fighting against 
Jacob’s men. And even though Esau’s 
men were pursuing Jacob’s men, and 
every person has the right to save 
the life of the pursued at the cost of 
the life of the pursuer, nonetheless, 
there is a provision: If the pursued 
could have been saved by maiming a 
limb of the pursuer, but instead the 
rescuer killed the pursuer, the rescuer 
is liable to capital punishment on 
that account. Hence Jacob was rightly 
distressed about the possibility that, in 
the confusion of battle, he might kill 

some of Esau’s men outright when he 
might instead have restrained them by 
merely inflicting an injury.
The rules of defense and self-
defense are not an open-ended 
permission to kill. One is limited 
to the minimum force needed to 
protect yourself or another from 
danger. Jacob’s distress was that he 
might kill someone when mere injury 
would have sufficed. This is the law 
restricting what is nowadays called 
“collateral damage,
” the killing of 
innocent civilians even if undertaken 
in the course of self-defense.
The Sages heard something similar 
in the opening sentence of Genesis 
15. The previous chapter describes 
Abraham’s victorious war against the 
four kings, undertaken to rescue his 
nephew Lot. We then read:
“
After this, the word of God came to 
Abram in a vision. He said, “Do not be 
afraid, Abram, I am your shield. Your 
reward will be very great.
” Genesis 15:1

Moral Dilemmas

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH