Opinion & Commentary:
What 'an eye for an eye' really means
By Debbie Israel 

May 23, 2008

Celebrated Indian leader the late Mohandas K. Gandhi once said, "An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind."

I understand what Mr. Gandhi was trying to say with this statement, and to some degree I agree with his perspective, but by using the biblical phrase "an eye for an eye" in this sense, he showed that he didn't understand the biblical meaning of the phrase at all.

To Gandhi, as well as many people, the biblical line is a statement of vengeance, that people should avenge themselves when wronged.

To believe that "an eye for an eye" is a call for vengeance goes against Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32:35 which says, basically, that God reserves for Himself the job of vengeance. So what, in essence, does "an eye for an eye" mean?

First of all, we need to see the context of the phrase. It is in a section of Vayikrah (Leviticus) that begins with criminal law, but dovetails into civil law. Verse 25:17 states that anyone who kills another should be put to death. Then verse 25:18 moves on to anyone who kills an animal that belongs to someone else must compensate him for the loss of his animal. Verse 25:19 states that anyone who causes an injury to another should have "it" done. The next verse contains the "eye for an eye" phrase.

What does "it" done mean? What is "it" referring to? Is "it" referring to the injury? Or is "it" referring back to the previous verse where compensation is the rule?

Since the Torah is discussing civil law and not criminal law, the judgments rendered will be civil in nature. Only criminal cases in Jewish courts include physical punishment. In civil cases, in which one person has injured (without malice) another either physically or emotionally, the judgment is monetary, not physical. So the Torah's version of "an eye for an eye" doesn't leave the whole world blind. It provides for a person injured recompense for his injury.

But there is another level of meaning to "an eye for an eye" which is even stronger and shows the wisdom and compassion of Torah law.

In ancient times, rich people would bribe judges to get judgments in their favor. So what happened in some ancient judicial systems was a lack of balance -- a poor person who caused physical harm to a rich person would be punished severely while a rich person who caused physical harm to a poor person would "get off" with a slap on the wrist. This system made a rich person's "eye" more important than a poor person's "eye".

When the Torah says "an eye for an eye" it means "equal justice under the law". What the Torah is advocating is pretty much what the Torah requires of gentiles (as part of the 7 Noahide Laws -- the laws required of the descendents of Noah) as well as Jews -- a justice system that treats people the same way no matter who they are. This is the basis of a modern civilized society. Any society where people are not equal in the eyes of the law is a society that we, as modern civilized people would consider "backwards".

Mind you, court systems often fall short of the ideal. There is unfortunately still corruption. But at least the intention of the American and Israeli/Jewish court systems is that everyone is entitled to his day in court and everyone has the same opportunity to plead his case.

Sharia (Islamic) law doesn't quite work that way. Under Sharia law, men who kill their daughters ("honor killings") get off with a slap on the wrist. But if a daughter so much as talks back to her father, she leaves herself open to all sorts of punishment. The same is true of gay sons -- a man who kills his gay son will also get off with just a slap on the wrist.

This attitude should not be spilling over into Israel, but apparently it has. A judge's ruling in a case pending in Israel against two "honor killers" who murdered their sister points to this spillover. In a trial that began two years ago, Salame Abu Ghanem and Mohammed Abu Ghanem are on trial in Israel for murdering their 19-year-old sister Reem (the seventh female family member murdered; an eighth victim, 18-year-old Hamda Abu Ghanem, was murdered in early 2007). The trial has been delayed through tactics perfected by the defense in an attempt to keep the brothers from being convicted (they have not only admitted to the crime, they even reenacted it). Reem's "crime against her family," by the way, was in refusing to marry a man her family had promised her to rather than a man she had fallen in love with.

The judge ruled that the two brothers could not be held in prison longer than 45 more days even though the trial is only about half over. Their release could lead to more murders.

Prosecution officials and others who are trying to protect the Abu Ghanem women have protested the ruling. The pattern of "honor killing" in this family should horrify all civilized people. These women's "eyes" are not being protected.

As a Torah observant Jew, I can't look at this and dismiss it as a cultural difference. From my perspective, this is against God's laws. This goes against the ideal of equal justice, the ideal of "an eye for an eye" -- that your eye is equal to my eye and a daughter's eye is equal to her father's eye, a sister's eye is equal to her brothers' eyes. And from my perspective, this is unacceptable in my Jewish community and also in the world at large. The only "blindness" is in seeing other people and not seeing that we are all the same in the "eyes" of God.

Debbie Israel is a graphic artist (see https://www.cafepress.com/compugraphd2 for some of her work) and tutor living in Highland Park.