@jamie_blumberg I was thinking of Frederick Douglass' 1859 note that has the phrase "no peace without justice".
MLK later said, "There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice." He also said other variants of it and others have said even more variants.
Even the Talmud over a thousand years ago said, "Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel used to say: By three things does the world endure: justice, truth and peace. R. Muna said: The three are one, because if justice is done, truth has been effected and peace brought about; and all three are mentioned in one verse, as it is stated, Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates, [indicating that] wherever justice is done peace is to be found."
I thought I had uploaded the Frederick Douglass note and didn't realize it didn't get uploaded until much later (and then didn't want to edit the post since it would then alert so many people)
@LilahTovMoon I am embarrassed to to say that A) I know full well about about the Frederick Douglass and MLK quotes, but couldn’t quite remember them, so the version my brain came up with is from a song 🤦🏻♀️and B) As a secular Jew who never finished Hebrew school my Talmud is… lacking, so I really appreciate you mentioning that!
My undergrad degree is in Religious Studies, but in-depth study of the Talmud doesn’t generally make the cut for that sort of program. 😄
@jamie_blumberg Oh, I totally had to look it up in the Talmud (I only had a vague recollection). I think it's a sentiment expressed in so many ways and I don't think the song's version is any less great.
I have a strong belief that good ideas should be restated in many different ways because different things connect with different people and people get exposed to ideas by different venues.
The amount of fancy-sounding stuff that I learned from pop culture is pretty high.
@LilahTovMoon I definitely think there is a great argument to be made for the power of remix and reinvention to add additional nuance and meaning to existing ideas.
The Douglass, MLK and Talmudic versions are about how peace is a byproduct of justice and cannot exist without it. The song version is a call to arms, that the singer will ensure there is no peace unless there is justice. Very similar idea, very different implications.
@LilahTovMoon Totally depends on what you mean by Justice. If it is retributive justice, then violence is perpetuated and peace more distant. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"
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