Rabbi Black Participates in State-Wide Press Conference on the Death Penalty - March 1999

On January 28, Rabbi Black participated in an interfaith press conference at the State Capital sponsored by the office of the Catholic Archbishop to address the issue of abolishing the Death Penalty. What follows is the text of his address.

As a Rabbi - as a person of faith I come this morning to state that I fear for the soul of our nation. Ours is a society in which violence is becoming so commonplace that the threshold for events which shock, which give us pause, which cause us to cry out in horror at the inhumanity of humanity is constantly on the rise.

Murder is commonplace - both on our streets, in our homes, and in our prisons.

The death penalty, some might argue, is a deterrent - is a way to show that we are in control of the most dangerous elements in our society. It is not.

The death penalty, some might argue, is the ultimate form of justice and punishment at our disposal. It is not.

I do not understand how one act of violence can possibly be a moral punishment for another act of violence.

Whenever I hear that our government deliberately plans to kill another human being - to commit murder - I fear for the soul of our country.

The death penalty is legally sanctioned murder - nothing more and nothing less.

There are those who may argue that the Bible does not prohibit Capital Punishment. This is true - to a point. And yet, as Judaism has evolved over the centuries, we have also developed a reticence to impose the death penalty. The Rabbis of my tradition made it practically impossible to impose the death penalty. In the 50 year history of the State of Israel only one person has ever been executed - Adolph Eichmann - the architect of Hitler’s Final Solution and even that execution was hotly debated within the courts and around the kitchen tables of every citizen in the Jewish State.

For me, the central issue is truly none of the above. For me the issue of Capital punishment revolves not around how we see the most evil elements of society - but how we perceive ourselves. Are we going to allow our fear of crime, our desire for vengeance, our "BOTTOM LINE" mentality to govern how we conduct ourselves? Capital punishment is a "quick fix" - it may make some of us feel good - or politicians look good as they get tough on crime - but ultimately, I believe that it lessens our own humanity when we take the life of another person.

In the book of Genesis we learn that we are all created in the Image of God. There is a spark of holiness inside every human being. All life is holy - even that of the most damaged and evil members of our society. When we take a life - whether that life has committed murder or not - we are diminishing the image of God. Yes, the murderer has done the same - but the fact that we claim to be a moral society calls us to rise above our desire for vengeance and understand that one act of murder does not make up for another.

Killing human beings can never be justified. Who are we to act in God’s stead?

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