We have an unfortunate tendency to conflate law and
morality. We assume that an action ruled
legal in our justice system is, by definition, ethical—and conversely, that
illegal acts are also immoral. This is a
mistake. As the examples of Gandhi and Martin
Luther King remind us, on occasion the most ethical path entails breaking the
law. Sometimes, too, an act may be
appropriately judged entirely legal—and still be deeply wrong.
I believe that the latter scenario applies to the Trayvon
Martin case. I do not question the
verdict rendered by the jury. They were
tasked with a legal decision, based on the limited available evidence and, more
importantly, the law of the State of Florida.
Given what they saw and heard, they did their duty and concluded that
George Zimmerman did not violate that law.
I am in no position to second-guess their verdict.
But legal innocence does not absolve George Zimmerman—or the
state of Florida and, for that matter, American society—of profound moral
failing. When, against the advice of the
police, George Zimmerman got out of his car and pursued Trayvon Martin, he was
looking for a fight—dangerously and lethally emboldened by the handgun he was
carrying. This sort of behavior, aggravated
by the sort of systemic racism that identifies young black men with
criminality, may be legal, but it is by no means ethical. Indeed, in my Jewish tradition, it is a
serious violation of core principles of decency.
Psalm 34 instructs us to “seek peace and pursue it.” Why the repetition of “seeking” and “pursuing”? The ancient Rabbis answer that with most
other commandments, it is enough that we do them when the opportunity comes our
way. But when it comes to making peace,
it is not acceptable to wait for opportunities; we must make an active
effort—seeking and pursuing—to create peace, even when it is inconvenient.
Based on this teaching, my colleague, Rabbi Fred Guttman
points out that upon concluding a traditional Jewish prayer for peace in the
synagogue service,
it is customary for
all of the worshippers to take three steps back and then bow to one's left and right. This teaches that in order to make peace, one
needs to be willing to “back up.” Why is this important you ask? The answer is
simple. For over a thousand years, we Jews have been reminded by the movements
of our prayers that in order to make peace, you are not allowed to “Stand Your
Ground!”
Our gun-crazed
culture may be perfectly legal, but morally, it is badly adrift and, at heart,
cowardly. Peacemaking demands far more
courage than shooting an unarmed black teenager. Isaiah knew this when he urged us all to beat
our swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. I pray that the Martin case—legally right but
an ethical travesty—might move us to look again at Isaiah’s vision and take
significant steps in its direction.
