Lampert.pdf

Contents

Introduction

vii

Part I Divine Compassion

1 The Compassionate God

2 Human Divinity

3 Seeds of Anti-compassion

Part II Universal Compassion

4 Indiscriminate Compassion

5 The Buddhist Ideal

6 Compassion Without Teeth

104

Part III Human Compassion

7 The Fragmentation of Compassion

123

8 Compassion Revisited

150

Conclusion

176

Notes

184

Bibliography

197

Index

200

The Compassionate God

The drama of Creation in the Book of Genesis is the incipient moment

of compassion conceived as a response to human suffering, first in

Jewish tradition and then in Christian tradition. Adam, the scion of

Creation, breaches the supremely simple and fundamental contract

with God, when he fails to overcome his urges and takes a bite from the

forbidden fruit: he and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden and

condemned to a life of suffering. Adam’s weakness as the underlying

reason for this fate of suffering exemplifies the psychological depth of

the Bible. Man is easily tempted, enticed precisely by what is forbidden

and governed by his curiosity, and, a more complex interpretation

would suggest, quickly succumbs to his awakening sexual urges. God

is the omnipotent Creator: He created man and bestowed him with a

carefree life, with only one, solitary prohibition. When this one rule of

the game is broken, God, the judge, sentences Adam and Eve to exile

from Paradise and a mortal life of existential distress and pain. Yet the

passing of this divine judgment is not a perfunctory process of

formality, for the punishment for eating the forbidden fruit ‘of the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil’ was originally set as ‘thou shalt not

eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die ’

( Genesis 2:17). 1 When the fateful moment arrives, God settles for what

appears to be a mitigation of the preordained death sentence: Adam is

condemned to die, but not immediately – he is doomed to a hard and

dreary life, but left alive for the time being.

This sentence of expulsion from the Garden of Eden marks the birth

of Old Testament theodicy – the explanation for suffering in the world:

Man himself is the root of all suffering, for he is responsible for his

banishment from the Garden of Eden (and, later on, the murder of

Abel). He was saved from immediate death only by the grace of God’s

4 Divine Compassion

compassion for his creatures. This existence of suffering is, indeed,

punishment, but it can also be regarded as a gift from God.

Beyond the web of possible interpretations and theological and

psychological ramifications entailed by the story of the expulsion, this is

a problematic stance, both from the viewpoint of theodicy and in terms

of the discussion of compassion. First, this view of the expulsion story

leaves us with a pessimistic, fatalistic conclusion: Man’s sentencing to

a life of suffering, due to his own weakness, has always been and will

forever be his fate. There is no hope of challenging this fate or point in

trying. And where there is no hope, neither religion nor any kind of

social ideology can develop. Second, the solution of expulsion as a type

of collective punishment of all humanity seems unsuited to the

complexities of human behavior as it unfolds in the rest of Genesis: Do

Adam and Eve bear equal responsibility for the expulsion from the

Garden of Eden? Cain is clearly a murderer, but what was Abel’s sin?

Can extenuating circumstances not be applied for certain people? And

what if some descendant of Adam were to demonstrate restraint and

the ability to uphold the contract with God, where Adam failed?

Third, the God of the first chapters of Genesis is presented as a

complex being, riddled with misgivings and reservations. On the one

hand, he wields absolute control, authority, and command, yet on the

other he displays a considerable amount of fickleness, indecisiveness,

and perhaps even compassion:

And God saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth,

and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only

evil continually.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it

grieved him at his heart.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the

face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and

the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Genesis 6:5–6:8

The relationship between God and man evolves over the entire

course of the biblical narrative: Abraham challenges divine judgment,

pleading for compassion for the inhabitants of Sodom and resolutely

negotiating with God to ease their harsh sentence. God reacts to Sarah’s

The Compassionate God 5

distress over her barrenness and intervenes in the couple’s fertility

problems. Abraham obeys the divine order and prepares Isaac for sacri-

fice, but God intervenes and rescinds the original command, revealing

a manipulative aspect to divinity and divine command as a sort of test

to be passed, with a reward given for demonstrating faithfulness. Divine

judgment varies with the extent to which people obey that judgment,

a tendency that evolves throughout the Bible, particularly after Mount

Sinai and the setting of the Mosaic Laws, when the rules of obedience

and faithfulness become absolutely clear.

As the biblical story progress, additional, more elaborate images

quickly begin to appear. The story of Abraham and Sarah, the historic

originators of the Judeo-Christian tradition, presents the paradigmatic

forging of a certain type of relationship between God and man. Abraham

is called upon by God to found a new world order – with a Chosen

People, faithfulness to God, covenants with God, burnt offerings – and,

in return, the promise of fertility, success, continuity, protection, and

political and economic prosperity for Abraham’s progeny, the same

Chosen People. The medley of images woven into the chronicles of

Abraham and Sarah present humanity in a more intricate light than its

appearance in the Garden of Eden tale. In the former, people are

divided into three distinct groups. The first are the righteous, faithful to

God. This is the group that upholds God’s covenant with Abraham

and who are responsible for the preservation of the continuous link

between the People of Israel and God. The second group comprises

the waverers, who represent the overwhelming majority of the Israelite

Nation. They recognize God and are familiar with the covenant with

him, but their weaknesses, urges, and fearfulness consistently prevent

them from doing ‘right and good in the sight of the Lord’ ( Deuteronomy

6:18). The third group is composed of all those not included in the

covenant between man and God. These are the grievous sinners,

heretics, and pagans, who refuse to accept the word of God or else are

ignorant of it.

The righteous, the first group, are, as a rule, supposed to be rewarded

with a good and prosperous life. The difficulty is that, according to

Old Testament logic, radical piety, a near impossibility, is the only

possibility of becoming a member of this group. Even Moses, the bearer

and founder of the Hebrew Law, did not achieve the status of full

righteousness. Moses’ flaw was in doubting God, and thus the biblical

narrator does not let him enter the Promised Land. Moreover, the idea

of the righteous only prospering and never suffering is ultimately

rejected in the Book of Job. 2

6 Divine Compassion

The third group, the sinners, heretics, and pagans, represents the

ultimate enemy, an integral part of the Bible narrative. This group is

unique in the punishment it receives: usually a death sentence and no

possibility for mercy.

The wavers, the second group, are the most interesting: first, because

they represent the majority of people, or at least the majority of the

Israelites whose story the Old Testament tells; and second, because his

treatment of this group reveals God’s compassion, which is manifested

in the Bible in two principal ways. The first is in the guise of the possibility

of penitence, forgiveness, remorse and mitigation of the divine decree.

The Priests are the Nation’s intermediaries, pleading for divine mercy by

evoking the covenant with Abraham and vowing a change of attitude

toward God. The second manifestation of God’s compassion is when

God responds and acquiesces to individuals’ direct appeals to him to

acknowledge and identify their pain and to intervene to remedy the

situation. This became the dominant expression of God’s compassion

in the later periods when traditions were being shaped and appears

mainly in the form of prayer. 3

Indeed, God is the Great Merciful One. His compassion is a fundamental

aspect of his essence and the basis of humankind’s hope, of the possibility

for people to make grave errors and yet be saved and win divine benevo-

lence. This compassion flows in one direction: compassion from the Great,

the Omnipotent – of God – to the weak, wretched, and idle – human

beings. This compassion is conceptually synonymous with mercy: it defines

the way the powerful relate to the weak, the omnipotent to the impotent,

the healers to the suffering and afflicted – this is divine compassion.

The Old Testament concept of compassion links divine mercy to

judgment and justice, both human and divine. Compassion is the

prerogative of the judge. Compassion is where pleas for the mercy of

the court are heard. For man, compassion is part of what the Bible

would deem his flawed system of judgment and justice: King David’s

love for Absalom led him down the path of forgiveness and blinded

him with regard to the good of Kingdom, as he chose to spare his son

from death despite Absalom’s betrayal of the Kingdom. For God,

however, the Supreme Judge, compassion is an intrinsic tool of judgment

and constitutes simultaneously the greatest hope of sinners and the

protection given to the righteous:

When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Up, take your

wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away

in the punishment of the city.’

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