Does violence always result in bad karma?

Steven Shankman

March 20, 2010

The day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a stirring speech in Memphis, Tenn., in support of striking sanitation workers. Just hours before he would become the victim of the very violence he devoted his life to eradicate, Dr. King uttered the following prophetic words:

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”

It seems clear to me that Dr. King saw himself as a modern-day Moses trying to lead his people out of slavery toward freedom. He prophetically saw that he, like Moses, would not reach the Promised Land. He would, like Moses, lead his people to the mountaintop in Jordan just across from the Promised Land, but he himself would not enter the land.

The biblical text to which Dr. King alludes in his prophetic words is in the book of Numbers. The passage tells of the Israelites, who are dying of thirst. They are frustrated and bitterly grumble at their leader, Moses, for having led them out of slavery in Egypt.

Moses desperately seeks help from God. God then urges Moses to “speak to the rock … and it will yield its water.” Rather than patiently speaking to the rock, Moses — in apparent anger — calls the Hebrews “rebels” and strikes the rock twice with his staff. God then almost immediately denies Moses entrance into the Promised Land.

Why did God keep Moses from entering the Promised Land? I wonder if it had something to do with the anger and impatience displayed by Moses. But this wasn’t the first time Moses displayed his anger. More than 40 years earlier, as recorded in the book of Exodus, Moses is understandably outraged by the violence being done to a fellow Hebrew at the hands of an Egyptian. Moses then strikes and kills that particular Egyptian oppressor.

Soon after that, Moses tries to break up a fight between two fellow Hebrews. The aggressor in this instance says to Moses, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?”

Moses’ moral authority was clearly compromised, in the aggressor’s eyes, by Moses’ previous act of violence.

Was it the bad karma generated by Moses’ killing a man, as well as his angry response to his people’s complaints, that kept him out of the Promised Land? Does violence, no matter how apparently necessary or justified, always somehow result in bad karma? Perhaps the Promised Land is, precisely, the Land of Nonviolence.

I hope that, as a community, we aspire to get there, especially during Passover and in the Season of Nonviolence. We have a long way to go.

Steven Shankman, director of the University of Oregon Center for Intercultural Dialogue, is UNESCO Chairman in Transcultural Studies, Interreligious Dialogue and Peace. This column is coordinated by Lane Interfaith Alliance to share personal spiritual experiences and bring a deeper understanding of faith perspectives with the intention of blessing our community and the world. For information, visit www.laneinterfaithalliance.org or call 541-344-0430.