Here’s an ethical issue and Jewish source response:

Case

A mugger steals money from and inflicts bodily harm on someone you care about.  They have to spend a week in the hospital.  When the mugger is caught and brought to court, you sit in the courtroom each day watching this mugger on trial.  You feel rage, anger, and hatred toward this person.  Traditional Christian thought teaches that a person should “turn the other cheek” and love this person.

Is it permitted to hate someone who has wronged you?

Answer

[a] Many of the Jewish sources seem to indicate that we should not hate anyone.  In the Torah (Leviticus 19:17) it says that one may not hate one’s brother in his heart.  But this raises a question: can you do it openly?  A verse in the book of Ovadia (1:12), one of the minor prophets, says that a person may not rejoice at the fall of one’s enemy.  This implies that hate for one’s enemy (or joy at his or her downfall) is forbidden.

[b] Hatred is such a detestable emotion that it is said that the Second Temple was destroyed because of needless hatred among Jews (Yoma 9b).  In fact, this one sin is equated to the three big sins in Judaism: sexual impropriety, murder, and idol worship (since the First Temple was destroyed becuaseof these sins).  According to Hillel, when asked by a non-Jew to describe the essence of Judaism, he explained what is hateful to you should not be done to anyone else (Shabbat 31a). The Sefer haChinuch calls the emotion of hatred the ugliest emotion of the human race.  Based on all these sources, we may conclude that hatred in Judaism is never permitted.

[c] But the famous verse from Ecclesiastics (3:8) tells us there is “a time to hate.”  What do we do with that?!  When is that time?  The Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah 3:10) explains that one may indeed hate an enemy at a time of war.  But didn’t we learn (codified later in the Mishnah, Pirkei Avot 4:19) that one may not be joyous at the fall of one’s enemy?  The answer given is that at the time of an enemy’s death, a person may not be happy, since even the enemy was created in the image of God.  However, afterwards one may indeed be happy that the enemy has fallen.  Thus, it is permitted to hate someone who is an enemy of the Jews and who reportedly killed or harmed Jews simply because they are Jewish.  But it is improper to hate others, even sinners (See the Chazon Ish’s commentary on Maimonides, Hilchot Shechita 2:16).

If the mugger is punished for what he did to you and your family, you certainly may be happy that he is receiving his just retribution.  But unless he chronically harms people, it would not be permitted to continually hate this person.  

Joel Grishaver, “You Be the Judge 2”, pgs. 95-96

Used with permission from Joel Grishaver