Part of My Correspondence With a True Reform Jew (i.e., One Who's Really Reforming Modern Judaism)

However, I'm going to censor out his or her name for the interim, since he or she has not yet responded to this:

Hey... (v'Shabbat Shalom!):




Thanks for the response, and I apologize for delaying in my own response. Meanwhile, I think that a good topic to cover at present would be the Casey Anthony case and the death penalty; especially because a prominent fellow Jew of ours, Geraldo Rivera, seems to unfortunately be in lockstep with URJ policy per the death penalty and is forgetting how Torah and arguably tikun ha'olam (which certainly includes tzedek) requires that Casey be convicted and get the death penalty per nefesh l'nefesh- and how any other premeditating and remorseless murderer should get the death penalty.



I think that one of the things that many- including the URJ (including Geraldo) forgets is that the death penalty is not a bloodlust-based idea or easy sanction to carry out for any Jewish or gentile person who loves Torah. To carry out nefesh l'nefesh is killing someone, and taking a life of even the most vile person is hard especially because we're all family (per Adam and Eve, and Noah) and there is a special kind of "What could have been?" heartbreak in having to execute a fellow family member who could have chosen to do the right thing instead of murder someone and attempt to evade and/or pervert tzedek (and Casey obviously chose to pervert tzedek instead of love and raise Caylee).



Nicole Czarnecki