As Israel’s Knesset advances a bill mandating death sentences for those convicted of killing Israelis with “racist” motives and “with the aim of harming the State of Israel and the revival of the Jewish people in its land,” I find myself contemplating not the political ramifications, but the spiritual ones. What does Jewish mystical tradition teach us about the cosmic consequences when a Jewish state takes a life—even the life of a terrorist?

This question haunts me not from a place of naivety about evil or denial of Israel’s security needs. I write as someone who appreciates the pain terror inflicts, who understands viscerally why many Israelis feel that executing terrorists serves justice. But I also write as a student of Kabbalah, and from that perspective, the proposed law presents a spiritual crisis that transcends politics.

What the Rabbis Really Said

Before examining the mystical dimension, we must acknowledge what traditional Jewish law actually teaches about capital punishment. The contrast with the current political moment could not be starker.

The Mishnah states that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years—or seventy years, according to Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah—is considered bloodthirsty. Rabbis Tarfon and Akiva went further, declaring that had they served on the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been put to death.

Why such extreme reluctance? The rabbis of the Talmud erected significant legal bulwarks to make capital punishment exceedingly rare, requiring a 23-judge court, two eyewitnesses who warned the perpetrator immediately prior to committing the act, and unanimous agreement that wasn’t reached too quickly—lest the judges fail to adequately consider innocence.

Maimonides articulated the principle clearly: “It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.” He understood that executing someone on anything less than absolute certainty creates a slippery slope where convictions become matters of judicial caprice rather than truth.

This wasn’t mere legal theorizing. The Talmud notes that “forty years before the destruction of the [Second] Temple, capital punishment ceased in Israel,” traditionally dated to 28 CE. The authority to impose death was surrendered—some say taken by Rome, but the effect was the same: the Jewish people have lived without state executions for nearly two millennia.

Contemporary Rabbinic Voices

Modern Jewish movements have spoken with remarkable unanimity. The Reform Movement formally opposed the death penalty in 1959, stating that “in the light of modern scientific knowledge and concepts of humanity, the resort to or continuation of capital punishment either by a state or by the national government is no longer morally justifiable.”........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)