Deeds that you perform have life
like living beings. Every action
is virtually the deed’s midwife
whose job is to prevent retraction
of something that may either lead
to benefit or punishment,
the punishment part of the deed,
like an investment, spent
long after it has been performed.
We reap from deeds what we have sown
not as a measure made for measure,
but because the deed has grown,
and finally provides displeasure
if the deed was wrong, and when
correct and virtuous can provide
a benefit like interest men
deserve––and God does not deride.
Relationships are forms of deeds––
we reap what’s sown in them, the joy
or pain that they provide not seeds
but capital that we enjoy.
For what is wrong in them we must
not judge, but must remember they
are built with tendencies to bust,
When deeds or words of friends or allies
of Israel and the US cause displeasure,
we should not magnify their malice
with “eye for eye,” measure for measure,
but try humanely to avoid
this tactic since it often lacks
the balance that should be employed,
responding to all foes’ attacks.
Because of this Israel has been advised
by many friends and allies to restrain
responses to their foes, and are despised
for causing what can’t be prevented, pain,
to those who don’t deserve to suffer,
a problem that’s insoluble,
responses, seeming than their causes rougher,
opposed by cries that are more voluble,
in the media that are called
social, but are not towards the Jews,
not even seriously appalled
by genocidal anti-Jewish views.
Now opposition to the rule of “ayin
tahat ayin” mamash,
eye for eye, strongly succors
all Israel’s foes who are relyin’
on revenge refusing hate to banish,’
causing them to become martyr suckers.
Literal execution of the eye for eye rule by most rabbis long has been rejected,
but sadly since October 7 it has radically been renewed and resurrected.
Baba Qama 84a states:
תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: ״עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן״ – מַמָּשׁ.?! It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer says: The verse that states: “An eye for an eye” (Exodus 21:24), is referring to an actual, mamash, eye.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
