 
                         20051204.01

                  Letter to a young friend

     The question you asked me about the imminent execution
of a California man, who had spent much of his life in
prison, had written several books, and had demonstrated
himself as a "good" person by conventional standards, - that
question is to my mind a very important one, and I would like
to answer it, - for the record, - which means that you don't
have to reply, you don't even have to read what I write, and
certainly you don't have to agree with it.

           CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS HUMAN SACRIFICE

     For centuries, actually for millenia, our civilization
has prided itself on having done away with human sacrifice.
For us Jews, the decisive event is the story of Abraham and
Isaac's ascent of Mount Moriah:

     1: And it came to pass after these things,
     that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him,
     Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

     2: And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,
     whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah;
     and offer him there for a burnt offering
     upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

     3: And Abraham rose up early in the morning,
     and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him,
     and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering,
     and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

     4: Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes,
     and saw the place afar off.

     5: And Abraham said unto his young men,
     Abide ye here with the ass;
     and I and the lad will go yonder and worship,
     and come again to you,

     6: And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering,
     and laid it upon Isaac his son;
     and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife;
     and they went both of them together.

     7: And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father,
     and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son.
     And he said, Behold the fire and the wood:
     but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

     8: And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself
     a lamb for a burnt offering:
     so they went both of them together.

     9: And they came to the place which God had told him of;
     and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order,
     and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

     10: And Abraham stretched forth his hand,
     and took the knife to slay his son.

     11: And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven,
     and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

     12: And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad,
     neither do thou any thing unto him:
     for now I know that thou fearest God,
     seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

     13: And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked,
     and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns:
     and Abraham went and took the ram,
     and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

     14: And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh:
     as it is said to this day,
     In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.

     15: And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham
     out of heaven the second time,

     16: And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD,
     for because thou hast done this thing,
     and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

     17: That in blessing I will bless thee,
     and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed
     as the stars of the heaven,
     and as the sand which is upon the sea shore;
     and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

     18: And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
     because thou hast obeyed my voice.


     So, if you take this story seriously, - and what point
is there to a story which one does _not_ take seriously; you
understand that Judaism is grounded in the abolition of human
sacrifice.

     The prophets go further, much further. Consider this
text from Isaiah, Chapter 53:

     1: Who hath believed our report?
     and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

     2: For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
     and as a root out of a dry ground:
     he hath no form nor comeliness;
     and when we shall see him,
     there is no beauty that we should desire him.

     3: He is despised and rejected of men;
     a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
     and we hid as it were our faces from him;
     he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

     4: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:
     yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

     5: But he was wounded for our transgressions,
     he was bruised for our iniquities:
     the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
     and with his stripes we are healed.

     6: All we like sheep have gone astray;
     we have turned every one to his own way;
     and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

     7: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
     yet he opened not his mouth:
     he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
     and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
     so he openeth not his mouth.

     8: He was taken from prison and from judgment:
     and who shall declare his generation?
     for he was cut off out of the land of the living:
     for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

     9: And he made his grave with the wicked,
     and with the rich in his death;
     because he had done no violence,
     neither was any deceit in his mouth.

     10: Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him;
     he hath put him to grief:
     when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,
     he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
     and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

     11: He shall see of the travail of his soul,
     and shall be satisfied:
     by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
     for he shall bear their iniquities.

     12: Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
     and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
     because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
     and he was numbered with the transgressors;
     and he bare the sin of many,
     and made intercession for the transgressors.

     Such is Isaiah's account of the messenger, or the
servant of God: The individual who is most despised and
rejected, who is tortured and put to death ostensibly for
_his_ wrongdoing; but actually, for _our_ wrongdoing. The
individual so sacrificed is in fact like the "black sheep",
the sacrificial lamb, by whose death "the sins of the world"
are fanatasized to be taken away.

     Therefore, if you take Isaiah seriously, and - if you
don't take Isaiah seriously, then what _do_ you take
seriously? - the individual in our society who is most
despised and rejected, i.e. the individual on death row, is
in fact the servant or the messenger of God, who is put to
death for our sins.

     Finally, we must go one step further to the
understanding that any human being who is rejected by
society, and certainly he or she who is put to death, is
sanctified by that rejection and by that punishment alone;
and becomes divine.


                      * * * * *
Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
