This I condemn.
I offer my total and complete condemnation. These horrible acts among Palestinians by Israeli ordinance is wrong. It is wrongheaded. It is completely contrary to everything that I believe makes me a Jew. If there is a place for it in our Law, I am ashamed.
It will gain us nothing.
It brings us closer to losing everything.
It makes us other to ourselves.
We must address this.
How will this make us safer? How will this make my family's children and the children of our friends safer as they walk to daycare in the morning? How does this stop their bus from blowing up? How many humans did we just create that in the space of a heartbeat lost everything? In our names?
Unless you have a direct answer to that questions in the previous paragraph, I don't even want to hear from you. We are judged by such words. We are judged by our beliefs that are made evident on the flesh of others. I say that with too many doctors in my family to believe anything else. Flesh is precious. Healing is hard. Death by violence is ugly and shameful and wasteful.
Everyone bleeds the same color and drinks the same water and eats the same wheat.
Humans are not numbers. They cannot be weighed on your balance. You are not G-d.
Each human is a creation of beauty and we should know this.
God creates us as brothers.
It takes the work of our hands to make us enemies.
The work of our hands is turned against us.
Now how will we regain a blessing and distribute it? How will we be mature enough to realize that feeding people is way better than killing them? Every gun is a wasted opportunity to have made something beautiful out of the blessing that sustains us all.
We have have spit in that blessing's face.
For all our little guns will look paltry to the storms that brew in the changing of the great balances, the energy distribution systems of our home. Our only home. In the whole universe that we know about.
Oh G-d I hope we find the wisdom to grow. To sit still. To kneel for a moment and reflect. We exist on a puff of beauty in a space that does not support flesh. We dream. We plant tomatoes. We hand our neighbours oversized zucchinis and grin at the ribald jokes of the seasoned Italian couple next door. Way better than chopping their lips off with machetes.
Life is about what we can grow. Life is about what we nurture. We nurture fear. We nurture greed. We nurture speculation on the price of rice futures that makes the rice too expensive for those who starve. We nurture instant gratification over any other value. We nurture bombs among human beings.
I am furious at the stain that has just been left on our collective soul. We drafted our own script. We had power, we used it. We are authors of our own destiny. We are always a part of our destiny, even the parts that get us killed.
I have hope.
I hope that we live. I hope that we still have a place in our communities. I hope that the actions that have been taken can be healed. I wonder aloud at relevant humanitarian and politically neutral aid.
I hope that every family that has lost their daughter or son or father or mother or combination of all of the above can also one day turn their face inward and find peace. I don't even know what to say to them. I cannot speak of you in third person any longer.
I don't know you better than I do, and I should. A bomb should never be unleashed near children. There is no honor in it. There is no profit. There is nothing in it that is a tribute to G-d. I speak my belief and I feel this to be true. Those who live through it can be the greatest shield against it happening to others. But you have to want it. Want peace more than vengeance. And I say before you that I have no reason for you to give up your vengeance.
But there is this.
Peace is walking down my street unmolested by anyone. Peace is lots of different colors all standing around their dogs in the park complaining about the cold.
And it means that children's arms don't get torn off.
So those of you who pray, I ask you to pray with me.
I pray for peace. I believe in peace. I believe that peace is never bought with explosives. I believe that tomatoes are way better.
May we find forgiveness in our time.
All my love,
Bernard Sandler
Baruch Aaron.
It will gain us nothing.
It brings us closer to losing everything.
It makes us other to ourselves.
We must address this.
How will this make us safer? How will this make my family's children and the children of our friends safer as they walk to daycare in the morning? How does this stop their bus from blowing up? How many humans did we just create that in the space of a heartbeat lost everything? In our names?
Unless you have a direct answer to that questions in the previous paragraph, I don't even want to hear from you. We are judged by such words. We are judged by our beliefs that are made evident on the flesh of others. I say that with too many doctors in my family to believe anything else. Flesh is precious. Healing is hard. Death by violence is ugly and shameful and wasteful.
Everyone bleeds the same color and drinks the same water and eats the same wheat.
Humans are not numbers. They cannot be weighed on your balance. You are not G-d.
Each human is a creation of beauty and we should know this.
God creates us as brothers.
It takes the work of our hands to make us enemies.
The work of our hands is turned against us.
Now how will we regain a blessing and distribute it? How will we be mature enough to realize that feeding people is way better than killing them? Every gun is a wasted opportunity to have made something beautiful out of the blessing that sustains us all.
We have have spit in that blessing's face.
For all our little guns will look paltry to the storms that brew in the changing of the great balances, the energy distribution systems of our home. Our only home. In the whole universe that we know about.
Oh G-d I hope we find the wisdom to grow. To sit still. To kneel for a moment and reflect. We exist on a puff of beauty in a space that does not support flesh. We dream. We plant tomatoes. We hand our neighbours oversized zucchinis and grin at the ribald jokes of the seasoned Italian couple next door. Way better than chopping their lips off with machetes.
Life is about what we can grow. Life is about what we nurture. We nurture fear. We nurture greed. We nurture speculation on the price of rice futures that makes the rice too expensive for those who starve. We nurture instant gratification over any other value. We nurture bombs among human beings.
I am furious at the stain that has just been left on our collective soul. We drafted our own script. We had power, we used it. We are authors of our own destiny. We are always a part of our destiny, even the parts that get us killed.
I have hope.
I hope that we live. I hope that we still have a place in our communities. I hope that the actions that have been taken can be healed. I wonder aloud at relevant humanitarian and politically neutral aid.
I hope that every family that has lost their daughter or son or father or mother or combination of all of the above can also one day turn their face inward and find peace. I don't even know what to say to them. I cannot speak of you in third person any longer.
I don't know you better than I do, and I should. A bomb should never be unleashed near children. There is no honor in it. There is no profit. There is nothing in it that is a tribute to G-d. I speak my belief and I feel this to be true. Those who live through it can be the greatest shield against it happening to others. But you have to want it. Want peace more than vengeance. And I say before you that I have no reason for you to give up your vengeance.
But there is this.
Peace is walking down my street unmolested by anyone. Peace is lots of different colors all standing around their dogs in the park complaining about the cold.
And it means that children's arms don't get torn off.
So those of you who pray, I ask you to pray with me.
I pray for peace. I believe in peace. I believe that peace is never bought with explosives. I believe that tomatoes are way better.
May we find forgiveness in our time.
All my love,
Bernard Sandler
Baruch Aaron.