I’ve been thinking further on rabbinic hedges, a subject I broached a few months ago.

The principal is this [From my previous post]: “I don’t want to get booked by the speed camera at my intersection where it’s easy to break the limit of 60kph. What do I do? I drive at 50kph when I drive past the camera, to reduce my risk of breaking the law.” This is something Jewish rabbi’s of the time – Jesus – sometimes did.

But reading these two blogs (here and here), which discuss whether or not fighting for your country in WWII was the right thing to do, made me think. I would tend to agree with Mark at Pseudo-Polymath, who is “vehemently opposed to the notion that Christian pacifism is the solution for everyone in every situation”. However, the why is a bit messier.

You see, I suppose I would interpret, for example, ‘If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.‘ (Luke 6:29) as a rabbinic hedge, hence, allowing me to follow the defensive and not the pacifist viewpoint.  Basically, I’d interpret it as “Don’t act vengefully, but be forgiving and give freely as if no harm had been done”.

But I feel this is a slippery slope. I need to put more research into the tradition of rabbinic hedges, to find some defining features, because I this is an important distinction to make. I really don’t like the idea of interpreting something based only on my own opinions. I might think that Mark 9:43 (“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.“) is absurd if taken literally- but perhaps it wasn’t to the Jews of the day. Despite strong conviction to the contrary, I just don’t know.

Now, if hedges aren’t clearly defined, I am free to argue from context and absurdity – but if they’re used in specific circumstances, it might effect how I react if I’m ever called to war. The concept of rabbinic hedges has serious ethical (and orthopraxic )implications.