{"id":68166,"date":"2020-01-05T17:19:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T15:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=68166"},"modified":"2023-07-30T09:47:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T06:47:52","slug":"can-someone-be-punished-for-anothers-sins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/can-someone-be-punished-for-anothers-sins\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Someone Be Punished For Another\u2019s Sins?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[615,547,400,491],"acf":{"old_id":"68166","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64460,"related_cahpter":"387","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"An age-old conundrum. And Isaiah\u2019s answer is surprising","content":"

We can think of the Bible in many ways \u2014 as a unified authority speaking with one voice, for example, or, the opposite, as a disjointed collection of documents from disparate times and places. More productive than either of these approaches is to see the Bible as a set of conversations. What binds the Bible together is not so much a single set of answers, but a shared concern with a set of issues- essentially contested ideas regarding which no final answer is ever reached.<\/span><\/p>\n

One such controversy, one of the Bible\u2019s longest-running, is over vicarious punishment. Could a just God ever bring punishment on us for the sins of our ancestors or compatriots? Or is a purely individualist sense of responsibility the only one compatible with divine justice? The Ten Commandments famously speak of God visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. And yet Deuteronomy 24 states that \u201cparents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime.\u201d Echoes of these positions are repeated throughout the course of Biblical history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah 53 is a particularly striking affirmation of the idea that some may suffer for the sins of others. The chapter speaks of a figure who is \u201cwounded because of our sins, crushed because of our iniquities,\u201d and whose punishment seems to have a redemptive effect \u2014 his is \u201cthe chastisement that made us whole\u201d; it is \u201cby his bruises we were healed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While this passage has historically been a point of great contention in Jewish-Christian polemics, it has a history of Jewish interpretation which for many contemporary Jews may be just as unfamiliar and uncomfortable. A number of prominent Jewish thinkers, both medieval (such as Judah HaLevi) and modern (Hermann Cohen and Franz Rosenzweig) have understood this passage to be teaching that the Jewish people suffer collectively for the sins of the world. In HaLevi\u2019s metaphor, Israel is the \u201cheart\u201d of humanity: if the other organs (nations of the world) suffer, the heart necessarily does as well; conversely, a healthy heart is necessary for a healthy body. According to Cohen, the historical task of the Jewish people \u2014 to bear witness to monotheism in a world which is essentially pagan \u2014 also meant that they were condemned to suffer for the sins of others.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is often claimed that, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, such views are no longer tenable. I think it is a mistake, however, to write off such interpretations as HaLevi\u2019s and Cohen\u2019s as simply naive \u2014 they were in no way ignorant of the reality of Jewish suffering. Their interpretation, rather, is one of the handful of avenues available to those who wish to find a transcendent <\/span>meaning<\/span><\/em> in the historical travails of the Jewish people. Ultimately, this conversation, which has continued in fits and starts since the era of the First Temple, has not yet been closed.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":68167,"id":68167,"title":"is53-punish","filename":"is53-punish.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/can-someone-be-punished-for-anothers-sins\/is53-punish\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is53-punish","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":68166,"date":"2020-01-05 15:19:28","modified":"2020-01-05 15:19:43","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1177,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish-300x184.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":184,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish-768x471.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":471,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish-1024x628.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":628,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":942,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1177,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish-1200x736.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":736,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is53-punish-685x420.jpg","home_baner-width":685,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Can Someone Be Punished For Another\u2019s Sins?","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"An age-old conundrum. 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