By Rabbi Yair Hoffman
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Kavanah matters. There is a bracha that we recite every morning. It is recited just before Shmoneh Esreh. This article is designed to both teach Torah and also improve our Kavanah in this bracha.
Join me. Join me for a walk in downtown Yerushalayim. But not now, the walk is almost 24 years in the past.
It is March 21, 2002. We are in downtown Yerushalyim, on Rechov King George.
A young couple, Tzipi and Gad Shemesh, are walking home from a pregnancy checkup. Tzipi is five months pregnant. She is carrying twins. She is 29 years of age, Gadi (pictured above) is 34. They have two daughters at home: Shoval, 7, and Shachar, 3.
Tzipi is an accountant at the Akademon bookstore at the Hebrew University. Gad is a Staff Sergeant-Major responsible for the IDF’s graphics and printing department.
Their minds are full of hope and dreams for their unborn children. Another individual is also walking by. A Mr. Yitzchak Cohen is going about his day.
And then, suddenly and instantly – obliteration.
Rachmana Litzlan.
A Palestinian Arab suicide bomber detonated himself in their midst. The Shemesh couple—and their unborn baby—gone in an instant. Yitzchak Cohen murdered. Dozens others maimed. Some permanently. Others needing rehabilitation for years and decades, In total 89 other people are injured.
The suicide bomber’s handlers were two Fatah terrorists. According to the very testimony of one of these handlers, that very morning they brought the suicide bomber—already strapped into his suicide belt—to a high profile leader’s office.
That leader looked at the man who in a short time would slaughter innocent civilians. That leader handed him cash and also handed him two hand grenades.
Hours later, body parts littered a Jerusalem street. A pregnant woman and her husband were dead. Their babies would never be born.
Who was that man? His name was Hussein al-Sheikh.
Al-Sheikh was formerly a Colonel in the PA’s Preventive Security forces. Then he advanced in rank. He eventually became General Secretary of Fatah in Judea and Samaria
But on that Thursday morning, March 21, 2002, Hussein al-Sheikh facilitated a triple murder.
And Al-Sheikh’s career flourished.
As PA Minister of Civil Affairs, he threatened Israel with “political, security, and financial consequences” when Israel tried to stop the “Pay-for-Slay” program—cash rewards for terrorists.
When banks tried to close accounts belonging to 35,000 terrorists, al-Sheikh raged that this “harms the dignity of every Palestinian” and constitutes “submission to the occupation’s will.”
When terrorist Nasser Abu-Hamid—a man who murdered seven people in cold blood—died of cancer in prison, al-Sheikh eulogized him as a “heroic prisoner” and demanded Israel return his body so Palestinians could “honor him as is fitting for a Martyr.”
This is the man who facilitated the murder of a pregnant woman.
Just months before October 7, 2023, as Palestinian Arab terror attacks surged, al-Sheikh called for the PA and Hamas to unite, urging all Palestinian “factions”—including the genocidal terrorists of Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
After Hamas’s October 7 massacre—the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust—al-Sheikh called Hamas his “brothers.”
When Israel eliminated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024, al-Sheikh publicly contacted another Hamas leader to offer condolences, calling Haniyeh’s death “a great loss for the Palestinian people.”
When Abbas appointed him Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee, only 26% of Palestinians supported the move.
The international community will be told al-Sheikh is a moderate. A pragmatic new face.
The truth?
He is a murderer in a suit.
This is the man now positioned to lead the Palestinian Arabs.
And what of the two orphaned girls? Shoval is 30 now. Shachar is 27.
According to the Palestinian Basic Law, when the PA president dies or becomes incapacitated, the speaker of the Legislative Council should step in. But democracy is a fiction in the Palestinian Arab political arena. The Legislative Council has not functioned since Hamas violently seized Gaza in 2007. No elections in twenty years. Palestinian Arabs never voted for Abbas—they voted for Hamas. Now, the corrupt 89-year-old dictator has simply appointed his own successor.
His choice? Hussein al-Sheikh.
He will be a public figure and his picture will be everywhere.
Why do we care?
Because the halacha throws in a complication.
The Gemorah in Megilah explains that Rebbe once inquired of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Karcha as to how he merited to long life. He said that he had never looked upon the face of an evil-doer. He quoted Rabbi Yochanan that it is forbidden to look at the face of a rasha.
REASONS
It seems that the meforshim present three rationales for the prohibition. The first is that there is a force of Tumah that is on the face of the evil-doer and looking at his face could actually draw out this Tumah toward this person. This explanation seems to have been put forward by the Maharsha on the Gemorah and also author of the Kav HaYashar (chapter II). Rav Elya Lopian zt”l (Lev Eliyahu – parshas Noach) also espouses this view. Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Goldstein in his attributes this view to Rav Scheinberg zt”l as well as the mashgiach of Kamenetz, Rav Moshe Aharon Stern.
A second reason, suggested by Rabbeinu Yonah in his Shaarei Teshuvah (Shaar III #193) is that one can be influenced by the person and perhaps come to befriend him. This is also the view of the Meiri in Megillah.
The Maharsha provides another answer as explained by the Pri Magadim in his sefer Rosh Yoseph. Man was created in the Divine Image. When and if he reduces himself to act in an evil fashion, it is tantamount to a disgrace of the Divine stamp, heaven forbid. Thus looking at the face of a rasha is like seeing someone disgracing Hashem chalilah.
This author would like to suggest a fourth possible reason. Chazal were aware that there is a certain percentage of the population that are rebellious and do things bedafka. If society holds something to be anathema – this small percentage would likely end up doing it. It could very well be that Chazal were attempting to place logistical impediments to this small percentage of rebels in limiting their exposure to such people in the first place. The fact that so many “moderate Muslims” gave up their western tolerance and became radicalized is an example of this underlying idea.
IS A PICTURE DIFFERENT?
When the sources discussed the prohibition, they were referring to the actual person. They did not discuss a drawing or a picture. The Poskim have actually discussed whether or not one can look at a picture. Rav Azriel Auerbach shlita cited in a journal entitled BeNesivus Hahalacha (Tammuz 5772) distinguishes between real life and a picture and permits looking at a rasha through a picture. In his work, Om Ani Choma (page 40), Rav Mordechai Gross, one of the leading Poskim in Eretz Yisroel, likewise permits looking at a photograph of a rasha.
A source sent me a quote that Halichos Chaim (2: 362 p. 171) cites Horav Chaim Kanievsky zatzal as answering that there is no prohibition in looking at the picture of a rasha. Likewise, Rav Shlomo Miller was cited by that source permitting it.
Rav Nissim Karelitz zt”l, however, forbids it in his Chut Sheini (Vol. III page 260).
As an interesting aside, my parents, aleihem haShalom, went to see the captured Adolf Eichman y’mach shmo after he was captured and put on trial in Jerusalem. While on trial, he was held in a glass cage. Rav Mordechai Gross permits gazing upon a rasha in a glass cage.
QUESTION ON THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
One can pose an interesting question on the source of the halacha. What is being added by Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Karcha exactly – above and beyond the quote of Rabbi Yochanan?
One possibility is that Rabbi Yochanan is speaking figuratively and that it is not a full-fledged halacha. Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Karcha is thus adding that one should follow this advice, notwithstanding any social difficulties such an approach may have. This would explain why the Shulchan Aruch does not quote the halacha.
Another possibility is that Rabbi Yochana is speaking only of looking directly at the face of a Rasha. Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Karcha’s specific behavior which granted him longevity was having nothing to do with the Rasha – even beyond the letter of the law. If this is the correct understanding of the Gemorah – then it might be a midas chassidus to avoid having anything to do with such a rasha – even beyond the letter of the law.
DOES IT MATTER IF HE IS DEAD?
According to the reason espoused by Rabbeinu Yonah, it would seem that if his movement is also dead – then one would be able to look at him, because there is no concern that he will become a follower. If, however, there is a developing neo-ISIS movement – then it would still apply.
DOES IT MATTER IF ONE BRIEFLY LOOKS BUT DOES NOT GAZE EXTENSIVELY
There are Poskim who translate the word lehistakel as meaning “intensely gazing.” There is a debate between Rav Moshe Feinstein and the view of the Bach regarding the exact meaning of this word when it comes to looking at women. The Bach for bids it entirely, but Rav Feinstein permits looking but forbids gazing. The Mogain Avrohom (OC 225:20) makes this point explicitly in regard to looking at a rasha and thus permits it if one does not gaze intensely.
But instead, we post the picture of Gadi Shemesh. May we all continue davening for yeshuos, nechamos and techiyas hameisim. And may we all have greater Kavanah in the bracha of Ga’al Yisroel. And in the words recited earlier, “Ufdeh chinumecha, Yehudah v’Yisroel – And redeem as You have said, Yehuda and Yisrael.
The author can be reached at [email protected]
The author can be reached at [email protected]
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