The movie Batman Begins offers surprisingly deep insights -- for a movie anyway -- into the issues of justice, revenge, and the hatred of evil. The focus of the first half of the film is how Bruce Wayne struggles with the murder of his parents in a mugging. Consumed with a desire for vengeance, Bruce eventually meets up with a secret society of mountain Ninja warriors dedicated to hating and fighting evil called 'The League of Shadows.' Although the overall intentions of the league are good -- their declared purpose is the eradication of every form of injustice and the liquidation of all murderers -- they ultimately end up the villains of the movie, as their hatred of evil so consumes them that they are prepared to destroy the good along with the bad in order to restore balance to society. One moment, the league is speaking eloquently of fighting criminals and protecting the innocent, and the very next moment they are demanding that Bruce execute a murderer who has yet to be tried and never allow himself to feel any kind of compassion for criminals. Compassion equals weakness, they tell him, and constitutes the principal reason that the world is so messed up.

This portrayal of those who preach a hatred for evil eventually going over to the dark side themselves has become par for the course and reflects a deep-seated cultural bias against the emotion of hatred in all its manifestations. Simply put, our society is one that has a big problem with hating evil, believing that those who hate -- even if its murderers and terrorists that they hate -- will inevitably be corrupted by their hatred. Hatred is always a bad thing, even when directed at the cruel, the wicked and the truly evil. But will society really muster the determination to fight evil if it doesn't hate it?

A few weeks ago, I was broadcasting my daily radio show when suddenly, mid-way through the first hour, the sentencing came in one of America's biggest murder cases. Mark Hacking, a Salt Lake City man who had killed his pregnant wife Laurie in cold blood by blowing her head off with a shotgun while she slept, was sentenced, under Utah state law, to six years to life in prison. Now while it was hardly likely that the parole officers who would finally decide how many years Mark Hacking would serve in prison would choose the minimum of six, I was still appalled that a man who shot his wife in the head while she slept could receive -- at least officially -- such a ludicrously minimal sentence. I railed against the sentence on the air. I said that Hacking's action was an abomination, and that a society dare not show leniency to a man who murdered his wife for fear of undermining the message that a woman's life is of infinite value. I declared my hatred for Mark Hacking on the air, how I detested and abhorred him. And that's when the phone calls started pouring in. Not when I thundered against the absurdly low sentence, but when I dared announce my hatred for a murderer.

Susie called in: "Rabbi, I am appalled that you would show so much hatred for Mark Hacking. I am a Christian and I was raised to love everyone, even those who had done evil things like murder their wives. We have to feel compassion for that man. We have to show him sympathy. This is his lowest point. So why are you being so cruel.

Me: Compassion for a murderer? Come on, Susie. Are you seriously telling me that you were taught to love a man who can blow his wife's head off in the most cowardly manner possible? You should be reserving all your love, Susie, all your compassion, for the victims of such violence, for the dead woman's relatives who now have to live without their daughter and sister for the rest of their lives. And where did you ever get the idea that you should love murderers?

Susie: From the Bible. From Jesus. From my Christianity.

Me: The Bible? Where in the world does the Bible command us to love evil?

Susie: Jesus said to love your enemies. To turn the other cheek when someone hurts you. That's what Christian love is all about.

Me: But you've completely misunderstood what Jesus said. His words are very precise. He said you ought to love your enemies, not God's enemies. Your enemies are the guys who steal your parking space at the multiplex. Your enemy is the woman who is angling for your job at the office. And Jesus was saying, "Overlook this kind of stuff. Don't let little things come between you and your fellow man. Turn the other cheek to that kind of thing. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill." But a man who kills his wife is not your enemy. He is God's enemy. And there was never any suggestion that you should turn the other cheek to that kind of heinous act. What did you think Jesus meant? That if a man kills your wife, overlook it and then let him kill your sister as well?

Susie: Well, I'm really worried about the kind of God you worship because it seems that He does a whole lot of hating.

Me: And I'm concerned about the kind of God that you worship, who seems morally blind and corrupt. After all, any God who can love murderers and embrace monsters is an unjust and morally corrupt God. And God is just.

Susie: I just think you're wrong preaching hatred on the radio when you should be teaching the world how to love. The whole problem with the world today is that there isn't enough love. That's why this world is so horribly screwed up.

Me: To the contrary, Susie. Precisely the opposite is true. The whole problem with the world is that there is too much love and not enough hate. We give people like Mark Hacking a pass. We are prepared to love monsters. We tolerate their evil. We think guys like Saddam Hussein ought to remain in power. If we truly hated these people with every fiber of our being, we would have stopped them long ago. But because we have too much love and acceptance in our hearts, too much false love directed at undeserving recipients, these monsters continue to flourish and evil continues to stalk the earth.

In my many years on radio I have had many callers like Linda and people who go way beyond Linda. I have especially been shocked by many evangelical Christian listeners, who for the most part are politically conservative, telling me that they love Osama bin Laden, that God commands us to love even the hardened, cold-blooded terrorist. "Jesus loves Osama bin Laden, Shmuley. So I do, too. That's the main difference between Jesus and the God of the Old Testament. Jesus was all about love, and he loves everybody, even monsters like Saddam Hussein."

I express my incredulity and tell them that they are slandering Jesus and making him sound morally bankrupt. I tell them that if Jesus loves Osama bin Laden then I don't want anything to do with Jesus. I want a God who hates Osama bin Laden because of the inhuman suffering he brought on so many innocent victims. Invariably, they then tell me my words are just further proof of how badly I need Jesus in my life. I have a closed heart that only Jesus can open.

This is what makes the issue of hatred so unique. It seems to be one of the only issues upon which both conservatives and liberals agree. They both hate the idea of hatred and believe it is always wrong to hate. Conservatives oppose hatred because so many of them are religious Christians and they base themselves on their understanding of the teachings of the New Testament, and liberals oppose hatred because they don't accept the existence of evil. Things are caused mostly by environmental factors. And if there is no such thing as evil, what is there to hate?

But it is my strong belief that the principal reason that murder, terror, and mayhem continue to grow like a cancer all over the world is that humankind has forgotten how to hate.

How many times have we heard that the problem with the world today is that there isn't enough love when precisely the opposite is true. Evil currently stalks the earth because we don't hate it enough to fight it and eradicate it. Even moral people, people with a solid commitment to ethics and religion, are afraid to hate because they think of hatred as a poison that will get into their system and ruin them. And their unwillingness to hate is making them indifferent to evil.