But aren’t there other principles involved here– like basic human decency? Like caring for one’s neighbor?He also goes on to cite some American person claiming that the decision was right according to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Clearly not happy he says:
Fischer can speak for himself about about his interpretation of Christian tradition, but there’s nothing Judeo about having the means to help a neighbor in distress and not using them. Quite the opposite.First to answer Gene's question - yes it would be good to be caring and generously put out Mr Cranick's house fire. However, if the fire department made it clear that it would always put out fires even for those who did not pay then very soon no one would pay and then no fires would be put out. So while the people involved I'm sure wanted to help Mr Cranick they did make the right decision.
Moving on to the second point. Given that the reason for not helping in this instance was to prevent abuse in the future it turns out that the decision was in fact in keeping with Jewish tradition. The tradition involved relates to the paying of ransoms. As I understand it the Jewish religion places much importance in paying ransoms to release people from captivity. Nevertheless, this is not to be done when it will simply encourage more kidnappings. Thus the notion of not helping one person so as not to encourage further problems is in keeping with the Jewish tradition.