Tough Jews
Jul 20th, 2010 | By admin | Category: 2007-8, Archivesby Rabbi Yisrael Rutman
Red Levine was a Jewish gangster, a professional killer, from Toledo, Ohio. He was also an Orthodox Jew who would not kill on the Sabbath.
This arresting tidbit of the history of Jews in America is to be found in a grimly fascinating work called Tough Jews by Rich Cohen. Although Cohen states repeatedly that he has not come to praise the likes of Louis Lepke, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegal and Dutch Shulz, his admiration for the boldness and ingenuity—but above all the toughness—of these notorious killers nevertheless shows through. He likes to compare them to the Israeli heroes of Entebbe and the Mideast wars, a modern Jew unafraid to fight to make his way in the world. The Jewish gangsters also fought Nazi Bund members, breaking up their rallies in the 1930s, and sometimes waged war on behalf of the trade unions against the strikebreakers (who also had their hired thugs).
But there is nothing admirable about these gangsters. All their toughness was directed at one thing: making money for themselves and their mob bosses. That they also broke the heads of some Nazis is a mere footnote next to all the decent people they terrorized throughout their careers of extortion, racketeering, drug running and every other form of organized crime.
That, anyway, is what what I would have thought had I not read Rabbi Eliayahu Dessler’s discussion of free will in Michtav MiEliyahu (Volume 1, Pp. 113-114, 291). For there he explains that every person has his nekudas habechira, that field of action in which he must exercise his free will. Beyond that point, there is no bechira. For example, someone who has been raised to observe Shabbat experiences no challenge in refraining from turning on a light on Shabbat, it would be unthinkable; whereas speaking lashon hara (gossip, slander) may be something he’s so habituated to, that it’s likewise beyond the scope of his free will, he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t even recognize it as a problem. His nekudas habechira will be somewhere in-between, where the rightness or wrongness of a certain act is not entirely clear. On the other hand, someone who has not had a Torah upbringing cannot be expected to observe the laws of Shabbos. His nisayon would pertain to more universal mores, such as refraining from lying, stealing or killing.
Rav Dessler gives a stunning illustration of the principle from Midrash HaNe’elam (Bereishit 118). It describes certain criminal bands in the time of Rabbi Yossi, who would rob their victims and then kill them in their mountain hideouts. Some of these robbers were Jewish, and they were just as dastardly as the others, but with a difference: they would interrogate their captives to determine their origins, and when the victims turned out to be Jewish, would set them free.
We might not be impressed by this minimal trace of Jewish fellow-feeling. However, Rabbi Yossi, one of the sages of the Talmudic period, was very impressed. In this way, he declared, they earned their Olam Haba, eternal life in the next world!
Rabbi Dessler sees in this an awesome teaching: that such low-lifes could merit eternal life when love of their fellow Jews overcame their murderous instincts. A person cannot be blamed for his background, education, socio-economic conditions. These are not of his choosing, but givens, which serve as the landscape of his free will. Yet, no matter how bleak that landscape, the hope of spiritual achievement is never completely eradicated. Because that is the purpose of existence, to make those moral choices; one would not exist if no free will were left to him.
The implications of nekudas habechira are far-reaching. Each one of us has his own nekudas habechira, determined by God, within which we must decide whether to cast our lot with the righteous or the wicked. Nor can we easily judge whether a person is destined for an eternal reward not, merely on the external evidence. He may be engaged in all sorts of unsavory business, and yet, in the eyes of the heavenly court may be a more likely candidate for olam haba than the most pious-looking Jew. Because the latter had advantages, a head start in life, that the former did not have, and relative to his station in life, has withstood his moral dilemmas better than his very religious neighbor. Rabbi Dessler’s outlook, if taken to heart, promotes genuine tolerance. Don’t judge another until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes, and on his streets.
I can’t say what the divine judgment was on Red Levine and his underworld colleagues. To be sure, the life of a gangster is not anything I would recommend for a nice Jewish boy. But to dismiss them as repulsive figures without any redeeming value would also be wrong.
As Rich Cohen says in his book, it’s just not that simple.
Related posts:
