Hello! Iām not Jewish and I just learned about Pikuach Nefesh. Being Jewish yourself, Iām guessing you have a lot of thoughts on this and how it relates to Bruceās no-kill policy. Iād be really interested in hearing them if you want to make a post!
I absolutely have thoughts, but I must begin with a disclaimer:
My perspective does not cover all Jews, nor is it the authority on what is or isn't Jewish. I grew up Reform/Reconstructionist, in an ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish family, and these are just my thoughts as a Batman blog.
Another important note: different types of Jews hold the halacha (rules/principles) of Judaism to be far more important in their lives. An Orthodox Jew will observe halacha much more strictly than a Reform Jew. Despite what some people will tell you, this doesn't make either of them better. Just different.
Whew, okay. Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to business.
In very general terms, Pikuach Nefesh (hard ch sound in the back of your throat) allows Jews to override other religious "rules" or values in the pursuit of preserving or saving a life.
A good example of this is a an Orthodox Jewish person, who, following halacha, will not drive or operate items with electricity during the Sabbath (Shabbat). But what happens if someone has a heart attack and they need to call 911? Pikuach Nefesh would permit them to use electricity, despite it being Shabbat.
If a Jewish person who keeps total kosher is in a situation where they will starve if they do not eat non-kosher food, they are permitted to eat non-kosher food.
There are some notable exceptions to Pikuach Nefesh, which I suspect is what your question is getting at. The threat to an individual's life generally has to be known, urgent, and not abstract.
Murder is another large exception, with some conditions. Generally, the intentional act of killing another person, or injuring them to the point where they might die from their injuries, is not an act that can be permitted by the principle of Pikuach Nefesh.
The slim exceptions to this include highly specific cases of self defense of oneself or another against an aggressor. One may kill to preserve a life in very strict situations, but they cannot murder. There are even times where killing is obligated, such as war.
So how does this relate to Batman/Bruce's no-killing rule?
Okay. So. I've had a lot of discussions with folks about this, and the answer I've learned is: it doesn't. Not really.
Pikuach Nefesh refers to the principle that a Jewish person should preserve life over almost any other rule or halacha. It does, actually, permit Bruce to kill under very specific situations. It does actually forbid him from gravely injuring people and doing so in the name of fighting against abstract threats, which are both things he does in canon.
The last time I wrote about this, I was definitely off about the details of Pikuach Nefesh in regard to Batman. I was corrected and I stand by that correction. I didn't grow up in the Orthodox faith and I don't observe much of their halacha, which is where a lot of religious theory questions arise from. I'm not an expert, and my explanation is only as deep as my own experience.
I think a good way of looking at Pikuach Nefesh is not as a way to define what, if any, killing is acceptable, but rather, what are we obligated to do to save a life?
The more important Jewish principle shaping Batman's ideology (in my opinion)
"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
This is much more of an important focal point for Bruce's Jewish-influenced ideology. The flipside of this quote, from the Talmud, is equally important: "Whoever kills one life, kills the world entire."
Bruce's no-killing rule is famously tied to his parents' deaths during his childhood. In a way, his entire world ended with their murder. He sees his mission to clean up Gotham as a way to prevent that loss from occurring for anyone else.
Saving one person, like he tells Barry in Justice League, is enough. That is a viciously Jewish thought. It is frequently quoted in reference to those who acted in support of Jews during the Holocaust, doing what little they could against a fountain of evil.
In that regard, yes -- Pikuach Nefesh tells us that preserving a life is the most important thing above all else. But Bruce's no-killing rule would swiftly be broken if he followed the principle of Pikuach Nefesh closely, in that he would a) likely have to kill someone in self-defense at some point in his duties and b) it would not allow him to injure or hurt people to the extent that he currently does in canon.
More importantly, Bruce's no-killing rule is a better reflection of the Talmudic quote that "he who saves/kills a life, has saved/killed a world entire."
It is not much of a stretch, in my opinion, to connect Bruce's trauma from losing his parents at young age to his outright refusal to kill later in life. The more interesting question, in my mind, is if the creation of this no-killing rule truly was shaped by Batman's Jewish creators and their view on life and death, especially post Holocaust.
Comics became more widely available during and after WWII and the Holocaust, during which time many -- many -- Jews entered the field as writers and artists. Their influences on the characters we see today are obvious, often intentionally Jewish, but just as often un-intentional.
Was Batman's no-killing rule a product of the post-WWII Jewish comic writers who shaped his character? Was it a coincidence that lined up well with the Talmud, but not necessarily all the conditions of Pikuach Nefesh?
How else does Batman represent, or not represent, the goal of Pikuach Nefesh (the necessity that a person act in the preservation of human life, above almost all else)?
