After every horrific terror attack, the question arises: When is it okay to hate? Are we supposed to love our enemies, even those who indiscriminately murder unarmed and defenseless civilians? Are there times when hate is not just permissible, but absolutely necessary in order to maintain our own moral compass, to muster the strength and resolve necessary to fight evil?

Two different pieces appeared online this week, offering two different glimpses of hate. One is humane and moral, the other loathsome.

The first is a column in the Jerusalem Post by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who offers the following view of the Mumbai attackers:

I know how uncomfortable people feel about hatred. It smacks of revenge. It poisons the heart of those who hate. But this is true only if we hate the good, the innocent or the neutral. Hating monsters, however, motivates us to fight them. Only if an act like this repulses us to our core will we summon the will to fight these devils so that they can never murder again. . . .

As for my Christian brethren who regularly quote to me Jesus’ famous saying, “Love your enemies,” my response is that our enemies and God’s enemies are different parties altogether. Jesus meant to love those who steal your girlfriend, cut you off on the road, or swindle you in a business deal. But to love those who indiscriminately murder God’s children is an abomination against all that is sacred. Is there a man who is human whose heart is not filled with moral revulsion against terrorists who target a rabbi who feeds the hungry? Would God or Jesus ask me to extend even one morsel of my limited capacity for compassion to fiends rather than saving every last particle for their victims instead?

For Boteach, it is right to hate people according to their wickedness — wickedness defined by what they do to others. Although the emotion may be irrational, its origins are in reason, judgment, and moral sensibility. Hatred is a reflection of our own moral standards: Without disgust and antipathy, how can we really say we care?

A second option of hatred appears this week in the Jpost as well: An interview with Syrian actress Amal Arafa about the possibilities of peace with Israel (translation courtesy MEMRI). When asked how she would feel if there were peace with Israel, this was her response:

Policies may change, but there is something that is already in my genes. We’ve been brought up to hate Israel. It’s in our genes. If Arab countries make political decisions, and there is peace, and so on and so forth–First of all, who would be against peace? I am not against peace. Of course not. But as far as I am concerned, Israel will continue to be a black, dark, and murky spot in my memory, in my genes, and in my blood. Even though I am Syrian, and not Palestinian, the Syrian upbringing we received, and by which we lived, we’ve suckled it with the milk of our mothers. There is no playing around with this, it’s in our genes, and we will pass this down for many more generations.

No two hates could be further in their nature from these: In one case, hatred is in the service of a moral standard, it is a reflection of the depth of our human response to evil; in the other, it is completely disconnected from any moral standard, in fact it appears as inherited, as an unalterable fate, in other words a repudiation of moral standards in general.