Chinese evil and Maimonidean demons

Can humans ever sink to such depths of depravity that they effectively lose their humanity? Or worse?

Last week’s UN report published last week once again directed world attention to the mass incarceration and horrific abuses being carried out in the Xinjiang region of Northwest China. The indescribable horrors which are being inflicted on an entire population as well as the highly advanced technology that makes this oppression possible prompted me to recall a passage that I wrote in Judaism Reclaimed.

The Torah describes Adam’s son Shet as being in the image of Adam — a term which Rambam (Moreh 1:7) links to the earlier description of Adam as having been created "betzelem Elokim" (in the image of God). Rambam then cites a Gemara which states that, from the moment of his sin until the birth of Shet, Adam bore offspring which were not in his image but rather were "ruchot" or demons.

Tzelem Elokim — the element of humanity that can be said to be Godly — is identified with the intellect. It is through this uniquely human intelligence that people can make moral judgments to distinguish right from wrong, subdue their negative impulses and thereby direct their sophisticated intellectual capabilities so as to benefit the world around them.

In Rambam’s understanding, those who ignore their human calling to use their intellect to refine and control the animalistic aspects of their personality are considered behema betzurat adam (an animal in human form) rather than betzelem Elokim. Membership of this unesteemed group therefore can cause people to forfeit their human privileges such as divine providence and a share in the World to Come.

Far worse than this, however, are those who take this divine gift to humanity of a powerful intellect and use it to subdue and oppress others. As history repeatedly demonstrates, the greatest misery and hardship experienced by mankind is caused by people who have used their intellect to devise ways of furthering human suffering. These are the sorts of “demons” that, in Rambam’s understanding of the Gemara, were said to have been sired by Adam prior to Shet. It can be presumed that Rambam would offer a similar interpretation of Talmudic accounts of demons who dwell in uninhabited areas, damage unguarded buildings, and attack those who travel unaccompanied at night.

Tragically, the powerful Chinese government embodies this latter category of people, using their human intelligence to devise ever more effective methods for spying on their citizens and then seeking to control not only their behaviour but even their thoughts. Instead of utilising the gift of a divinely-granted intellect to improve the world by refining and elevating humanity – instead of channelling their science to the cause of alleviating hunger and disease – the atheist state implements a hideous mass-experiment in “re-education” to manipulate and subdue the tzelem Elokim of its religious citizens.

At the other end of the scale, world governments using their tzelem Elokim to build and improve the state of humanity is considered a key requirement for the onset of the Messianic era. Rambam writes later in the Moreh Nevuchim (3:11):

For through awareness of the truth, enmity and hatred are removed and the inflicting of harm by people on one another is abolished. It [Tanach] holds out this promise, saying “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb…”. Then it gives the reason for this, saying that the cause of the abolition of these enmities, these discords and these tyrannies, will be humanity’s knowledge of God…

The primary and perhaps exclusive causes of warfare and misery are obsession with and competition over material possessions, power and pride. Once humanity is taught or becomes aware of this folly, its energies and capabilities will be channelled towards achieving universal happiness and spiritual fulfilment, thus “they will beat their swords into ploughshares…” and “your sons and daughters will prophesy”.

First posted to Facebook 4 September 2022, here.

Humans, demons and the depths of depravity

The indescribably brutal terrorist atrocities inflicted on Israeli communities a week ago are the sort of unfathomable events which leave many of us lost for words, despairing of humanity and the depths to which it is capable of plummeting.

Can people ever sink to such depths of depravity that they effectively lose their humanity? Or worse?

Such questions prompted me to recall a passage that I wrote in Judaism Reclaimed.

In yesterday’s parashah, the Torah describes Adam’s son Shet as being in the image of Adam — a term which Rambam (Moreh 1:7) links to the earlier description of Adam as having been created "betzelem Elokim" (in the image of God). Rambam then cites a Gemara which states that, from the moment of his sin until the birth of Shet, Adam bore offspring which were not in his image but rather were "ruchot" or demons.

Tzelem Elokim — the element of humanity that can be said to be Godly — is identified with the intellect. It is through this uniquely human intelligence that people can make moral judgments to distinguish right from wrong, subdue their negative impulses and thereby direct their sophisticated intellectual capabilities so as to benefit the world around them.

In Rambam’s understanding, those who fail in their human calling to use their intellect to refine and control the animalistic aspects of their personality are considered behema betzurat adam (an animal in human form) rather than betzelem Elokim. Membership of this unesteemed group therefore can cause people to forfeit their human privileges such as divine providence and a share in the World to Come.

Far worse than this, however, are those who take this divine gift to humanity of a powerful intellect and use it to subdue and terrorise others. As history repeatedly demonstrates, the greatest misery and hardship experienced by mankind is caused by people who have used their intellect to devise ways of furthering human suffering. These are the sorts of “demons” that, in Rambam’s understanding of the Gemara, were said to have been sired by Adam prior to Shet. It can be presumed that Rambam would offer a similar interpretation of Talmudic accounts of demons who dwell in uninhabited areas, damage unguarded buildings, and attack those who travel unaccompanied at night.

Humans who have fallen to such depths might be viewed as even worse than animals who typically only catch and kill prey out of necessity.

Notwithstanding all this, Rabbi Yisrael Lau – Holocaust survivor and former Chief Rabbi of Israel – warns strongly against the inclination to regard these evil and brutal acts as the work of some kind of “inhuman monsters from another world. In his Out Of The Depths memoir, Rabbi Lau records his own passionate response to one of the witnesses from the Eichmann trial:

“If Auschwitz were indeed another planet, it would be easier to accept the Holocaust. But in truth, the disaster of Auschwitz is that it happened on the very same planet where we had lived before, where we live now, and where we will continue to live. Those who carried out the cruel murders of the innocent where ordinary people, who returned home from their murderous acts to water the flowers in their manicured gardens. They tended the flowers lovingly and carefully so they would blossom, just after they had torn infants to pieces and shattered the skulls of men and women.

Just after shoving thousands of people into the gas chambers to their deaths, they came home to play with dolls together with their little girls, and listen to classical music, eyes closed, engrossed in the uplifting spirituality of Bach and Beethoven…Those were people just like you and me, and that’s the whole problem. When you transfer all those horrors to another planet, you minimise the issue. You are saying that something like the Holocaust can never happen to us again. In my humble opinion, you are wrong…”

In responding to such an outrage – as we must – with full force, we must retain a clear and unrelenting distinction between our use of military power and that of our enemies. Despite the best efforts of foreign media and anti-Semitic critics abroad to blur the boundaries.

On the one hand we have those who idealise the power of the sword and turn it into a national ideology. Describing the traits that typify Amalek, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch writes that it bore a spirit which:

“chooses the sword as its lot, seeks renown in laurels of blood, and strives to realise the ambition of “Let us make for ourselves a name” with which Nimrod began world history. This ambition is realised by destroying the welfare of nations and the happiness of men.

This seeking renown by the force of arms is the first and last enemy of human happiness and Divine Kingship on earth…Amalek’s glory-seeking sword knows no rest as long as one free man’s heart keeps beating and pays no homage to it; as long as one modest abode and happy home remains standing whose residents do not tremble before its might.”

We must remember that our messianic utopia is not a bloodletting of our enemies – it is being privileged to live in a world peace – among nations – in such security that weapons will no longer be necessitated. While we must be uncompromising in responding to such attacks in order to wipe out the evil in our midst, we long for an era in which our swords can be beaten into ploughshares…

The Jewish use of military power, on the other hand is that of a necessary evil. A war to root out evil or defend ourselves against enemies is a great mitzva. But we truly years for a time when the world embraces the truths and teachings of God so that “no nation will lift up sword against nation” and allowing us therefore to beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hook.

Until then we continue to pray for the protection of our soldiers in battle, the full healing of our wounded and the return of our captured brethren.

First posted on Facebook 15 October 2023, here.