Martyrdom

In the days before Tisha be-Av, something from R' Nathan Lopes Cardozo to ponder about those Jews in history who were strong enough in faith to choose martyrdom over apostasy:

The late British philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin at the end of his famous essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” tries to convince us that one needs “to realize the relative validity of one’s convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly”. We must however agree with Michael Sandel’s bitter critique when he states: “If one’s convictions are only relatively valid, why stand for them unflinchingly?” Indeed this kind of liberalism, with all its beauty, keeps the “Li” outside our life and turns us into outsiders looking into our lives like a blind man looks to colors.

Albert Camus once stated: “There is only one serious philosophical problem and that is suicide” The great Jewish thinker Abraham Joshua Heshel differed. It is not suicide but martyrdom, he said, which is our only real problem: Is there anything worth dying for?

This is indeed the ultimate question for Jews today. Only when Jews will realize again that their Jewishness is worth dying for they will be able to actually live it.