I think that I’ve been reading the Midrash as saying that there would be an actual change of heart in the (formerly) compassionate person. The example you give points to a different issue: what looks and feels compassionate in the local case can have unintended consequences that are very cruel indeed.

Thus, my conscious desire to be compassionate to the person in front of me may actually be accompanied by an unconscious indifference to others. That’s certainly true.

It’s also true that, as you point out with Saul, my desire to act compassionately may also be quite self-centered. I may do it to feel good about myself, rather than out of any actual motive of compassion. (Although I don’t know whether this applies in the Agagite instance, and it may be better to do something good for a bad motive than not to do it at all.)

I still think that this Midrash has been used too often recently to justify a lack of compassion, and the accompanying pleasures of feeling tough, a realist, a hard-ass. But you’ve clarified it for me quite usefully–thanks!

“Be not righteous overmuch: nor make thyself overwise” – be not righteous overmuch more than your Creator who spoke to Saul, as it is written, “And Saul came to a city of Amalek, etc.” (I Samuel 15:5). Rav Huna and Rav Benaya say: He began negotiating against his Creator and said, The Holy One, blessed be He, said, “Go and smite Amalek.” If the men sinned what is the women’s sin and what is the children’s sin and what is the sin of the cattle, the ox and the donkey? A heavenly voice (bat kol) emerged and said: “Be not righteous overmuch” – more than your Maker. And the rabbis say that he began discussing in terms on the beheaded calf and said: The verse says “And they shall behead the calf in the ravine” (Deuteronomy 21:4) – he kills and she is beheaded, if man sinned, what is the animal’s sin? A heavenly voice (bat kol) emerged and said: “Be not righteous overmuch.” R’ Simon ben Lakhish says: One who becomes merciful instead of cruel will ultimately become cruel instead of merciful, as it is written, “And Nov, the city of priests, he smote with the edge of a sword” (I Samuel 22:19); is Nov any worse than the descendants of Amalek?! And the Rabbis said: “One who becomes merciful instead of cruel will ultimately be smote by the Divine Attribute of Strict Justice (midat ha’din), as it is written, “So Saul died and his three sons”(Ibid 31:6).

The context here is a commentary on Saul’s initial refusal to slaughter innocent Agagite livestock and his subsequent killing of innocents in the Israelite city of Nov.

R’ Simon ben Lakhish concludes from this that it was the initial compassion (to animals) that ended up turning Saul cruel (to people). One might just as easily see other morals to the story, for example:

1) One who begins by untroubled slaughter of the Enemy Other will end by being untroubled by killing his compatriots; or,

2) One who accepts God’s command to kill his fellow human beings indiscriminately without even an argument (contrast Saul to Abraham here!) will end by turning against the priests of such a deity; or,

3) One who is reproved by God (or God’s representatives) for being too righteous will end by being not righteous enough.

Am I right that ben Lakhish is the amora who had been a bandit and / or gladiator? That past might have some bearing–direct or ironic–on his authorship of the dictum in question.

It set the price for Israeli bones, with or without a living person attached. We shouldn’t be surprised that future criminals responded.

I’m not sure it’s a good comparison, or a test of the midrash.

In my own experience, and from what I’ve read, those who are “compassionate [without inset quotes] to those who don’t deserve it” are, in fact, ultimately working from a universal standard of compassion. I have not seen examples of the subsequent distortion and abuse that you describe.

Can you point me to any particular cases of this? I’m willing to be convinced, but so far, I’ve only seen this Midrash deployed as if it were self-evidently true, rather than an empirical proposition to be tested against facts.

A particularly important discussion to have in Elul, this. If God behaved toward us as the Midrash suggests, we’d all be in a fix, at least according to the liturgy.

“He who takes nothing from those who have much will end up giving much to those who have nothing.” –Tax-Cut Rabbah, 7:16

Or, more spiritually: “It’s in birth that we die, and in dying that we are born.”

I’m persuadable that this was the wrong decision, but not by this particular midrash.

When we set these murderers (cf. Samir Kuntar) free to go home to a hero’s welcome, we abet those who promote terrorism as a policy.

By the way, Kevin McKenna’s anti-American hit piece (which was not a Guardian editorial) was disgusting. “America bows to no one in the art of political expediency” he writes, from Britain!