Hey, Elias, if you cared for children in Gaza, why didn’t you fly to Ben Gurion airport, cut over to Gaza, and enlist at the local Hamas recruiting office? Opinion.
I am not distraught, I am angry. I don’t know why this shooting, this mindless taking of life, was the straw that broke my camel’s back, but it did.
The suspect says he did it for Palestine. Do you believe him? I don’t. I bet he did it because he was frustrated that no one in the Israeli army paid attention to his wishes. He has a history of marching for “underdogs.” He seems to think that his values are better than those of the unwashed masses, which makes him better and puts him above their law. I imagine him screaming at his TV every time Netanyahu smiled for the cameras, and thinking society was again snubbing its nose at him.
My goodness, isn’t this story getting old? Aren’t we tired of people turning to violence to impose their will on others? It used to be that you could expect a modicum of civility in places where people congregated. On the street, in the airports, or at ballparks. Today, melees and fistfights seem to break out in such places every day. Why are people so sure that others should suffer so they can feel better about themselves?
What did Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim ever do to the suspect, Elias Rodriguez? Did they ever meet him or talk to him? I highly doubt it. But he was so enraged by the world ignoring his opinions that he felt they should die, so he would feel validated. So, he could feel like he did something. Hey, Elias, if you care for children in Gaza, fly to Ben Gurion airport, cut over to Gaza, and enlist at the local Hamas recruiting office.
Ah, that might take a little more energy, time, and risk than you were willing to assume. You care for Gaza, but not that much. Only enough to take two lives on a dark street in Washington in front of a Jewish Museum. You really expect me to buy that? What, you think I was born yesterday?
Too many people are perpetually perched on a high horse and feel the world owes them. Yaron and Sarah did not owe their young lives to Rodriguez. He was not entitled to their blood. He took it, not because he cares about Gaza, but because he prioritizes his rage over human life.
Too many people today feel entitled and don’t feel beholden to any standard, restriction, or obligation. Nothing is off limits if they want it. We can trace this to how we parented children for the last three or four decades. We have been telling children that they can be anyone they want to be, do anything they want to do, and have anything they want to have. When this promise fails them, they feel betrayed. They want to take a pound of flesh from those who made such ludicrous promises.
They grow up and discover that the world doesn’t cater to them, that they need to work hard to reap the benefits of life, and they are enraged. Their parents taught them that they were G-d’s gift to the world, and now the world ignores them, shuns them, and shuts them out. How dare the world treat them this way? The world must pay a price.
We have taken G-d out of public schools, we have discouraged any mention of G-d in the public sphere, but we have done what every pagan in history has done. We pretended to be rid of G-d, but we only replaced Him with a different G-d. Instead of worshipping G-d, we have taught our children to worship themselves. We inculcated an expectation in them that everyone else would worship them, too.
These children grew up more fanatically religious than the rest of us. When religious people fail to worship G-d, we encourage them to repent. But when people fail to worship these children, their punishment is death. Over and over, we are hearing about school shootings, mass shootings in supermarkets, attacks against Jews and others.[1]
Just a few months ago, Brian Thompson, CEO of United Health Insurance, was shot down in cold blood. No one knows precisely why the shooter did it, but the assumption was that this was his way to deliver a message to the insurance companies. The murderer didn’t like how much they charged, so Mr. Thompson had to lose his life. I also don’t like how much insurance companies charge. You know what I do? I change companies or pay the bill. I don’t chop off anyone’s head or deprive children of a father.
Where are we in the world? What has the world come to? It is clear to me and any sane person that we have gone to hell in a handbasket. It is time to wean ourselves from our intoxication with liberal values and return to the rock-solid values on which Western countries were built.
It is time to put G-d back into our discourse. It is time to teach children that they are not free to do as they please. They are beholden to a higher authority who presides over life and death and determines right from wrong. Our task is to live according to His will, and His task is to provide for us and nourish us. Rage doesn’t entitle you to pillage, rape, and kill. No matter how mistreated you believe yourself to be, you are still beholden to the law. There is a higher authority.
I fervently wish that, as a society, we wake up and smell the coffee. Let us realize that the path of fanatical secularism and atheism leads to dangerous destinations. Let us return to the path of faith and embrace the fundamental values of respect, empathy, and the sanctity of life.
Notes:
[1] It is entirely possible that this suspect was fueled by religious fanaticism. I don’t know enough about his background. But this is not just a reflection on this one shooting. It is a reflection of society.
