Simchat Torah/Oct.7/Genesis Tonight is Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, a holiday on which we conclude the annual cycle for reading the entire Torah and begin again with the book of Genesis. One of the book’s central themes is human dignity and the inherent value of every human being – the foundations of international human rights law. Last year, Simchat Torah coincided with Oct. 7. There is nothing more anathema to those values, shared by all Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – than the murder, rape and abduction of human beings “in the name of God”. One of the modern challenges for international law, I believe, is to channel our commitment to those shared values in order to strengthen the legal frameworks necessary to prevent atrocities, and to unequivocally reject any justification or support for such acts.
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