From Rabbi Black - January 2006

I write this article on a day that marks a significant and frightening milestone in our nation's history: December 2, 2005. Early this morning, Kenneth Boyd was executed in Raleigh, NC for the heinous crime of murdering his estranged wife Julie and her father, Thomas Dillard, in 1988. This was the 1000th execution in the United States since the use of capital punishment resumed in 1976.

I have been an active and vocal opponent of the Death Penalty for many years. I fervently believe that any nation that executes its citizens is morally flawed. The central issue surrounding the death penalty is not how we see the most evil elements of society, but how we perceive ourselves. Can we afford to allow our fear of crime and our desire for vengeance to be the driving forces behind our legal system? Ultimately, a society is judged not only on how it treats its best citizens, but also on how it views its worst elements. The price we pay for living in a free, civilized, moral community is accepting the fact that we cannot totally eliminate evil. But we can assert that we will not allow ourselves to stoop to the level of those who wreak havoc, fear and despair on our lives. We should not allow ourselves to become like them.

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 person has committed murder or not, we diminish 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 atone for another.

Killing human beings can never be a just punishment, for who are we to act in God's stead?

B'shalom,
Rabbi Joseph R. Black

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