Adonai and El are two words with similar meanings, often both translated as G-d. They appear next to each other in the Thirteen Attributes. Adonai, Adonai, El… The rabbis teach that Adonai is the G-d of mercy and compassion while Elohim is the G-d of judgment. Moses learned more of this when he stood awestruck at the burning bush and demanded to know G-d’s name. Gunther Plaut teaches, “The repetition of the attribute of mercy was taken to mean that God is merciful both before and after man has sinned and repented; it is man who changes, not God.” But it would appear that G-d does change to some extent. This week’s parsha says that “Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children who put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime. (Deut. 24:16)”
This seems to be in contrast with the end of the Thirteen Attributes, which state, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” (Ex. 34: 7; see also 20:5; Numbers 14: 18; Deut. 5: 8). This last part is left out of the rabbi’s liturgy for Selichot. Why the change? It is not a very comforting verse to include when we stand before G-d in judgment. It seems unfair to our children and grandchildren that something we did wrong would be attributed to them and they would be held responsible for our sins. Are there some sins that are visited upon the third and fourth generation? Sins that repeat in families perhaps? Domestic abuse, alcoholism? We stand now in the third and fourth generation after the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel. Is reconciliation ever possible?
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the retiring Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, helps us understand. There is a difference between divine judgment and human justice. Human justice can never be perfect. “We are not God. We can neither look into the hearts of wrongdoers nor assess the full consequences of their deeds. It is not given to us to execute perfect justice, matching the evil a person suffers to the evil he causes. We would not even know where to begin. How do you punish a dictator responsible for the deaths of millions of people? How do you weigh the full extent of a devastating injury caused by drunken driving, where not only the victim but his entire family are affected for the rest of their lives? How do we assess the degree of culpability of, say, those Germans who knew what was happening during the Holocaust but did or said nothing? Moral guilt is a far more difficult concept to apply than legal guilt.”
So the principle of justice is set out in this week’s Torah portion that the parents may not be killed for the sin of the children and visa versa. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. It is reiterated by two prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah who said, In those days people will no longer say, ”The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes-his own teeth will be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31: 29-30).
The Talmud, in Makot 24a asks this very question. If Ezekiel and Jeremiah are correct, what about the Torah teaching that the children are punished to the third and fourth generation?
“Said R. Jose ben Hanina: Our master Moses pronounced four [adverse] sentences on Israel, but four prophets came and revoked them . . . Moses said, “He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Ezekiel came and declared: “The soul that sins is the one who will die.”
Think about that. As Sacks teaches, “Moses decreed and Ezekiel came and annulled the decree!…How is that possible when it was not actually Moses but G-d himself who decreed?…Two things are clear from God’s words to Moses. First, He is a God of compassion but also of justice – since without justice, there is anarchy, but without compassion, there is neither humanity nor hope. Second, in the tension between these two values, God’s compassion vastly exceeds His justice. The former is forever (“to thousands [of generations]“). The latter is confined to the lifetime of the sinner: the “third and fourth generation” (grandchildren and great-grandchildren) are the limits of posterity one can expect to see in a human lifetime.”
Change does seem to be possible. Change can be scary. It is rarely fun. It can seem to shake the bedrock. But sometimes change is necessary, even in long established Biblical law. This Torah portion gives us a blueprint for how to carry out justice. Some of it was radical, ahead of its time. Women can get divorced. If a husband died and he had a brother, the brother had to marry the widow, in order to take care of her. Some of it feels old-fashioned, dated, and unjust. If a woman was raped in a city, she too was stoned to death because it was assumed she hadn’t cried out. I am glad the rabbis found ways to change this law. I am glad that even within the Biblical text we see a radical shift of not punishing the children and grand-children for the sins of the parents. Change can be good.
Even G-d changes G-d’s mind. This week’s haftarah says that G-d even though G-d was angry and “For a brief moment I abandoned you, with a deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you…To Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth.” (Isaiah 54)
G-d is a G-d of both justice and compassion. This is indeed a comforting thought as we move closer to the Days of Awe.