I forced myself to watch.
Anderson Cooper, a CNN news host, informed viewers that the video clip of the car
attack was disturbing and those with children in the room should have them turn
away, but my children weren’t in the room. I had no excuse. So I watched the car slam
into the people and heard the people screaming, “Oh my God, Oh my God!”
See, this day, I
set
before you blessing and curse: The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, that I command you this
day, and the curse if you don’t obey the commandments that God has given you, and turn from the path that I
enjoin upon you this day.
And yes, this is
what it looks like.
When murders, we see this curse on the tv screen – of people running and
screaming, the blood, the picture of the victim, again and again.
Reading further in
the parasha, two words jump out
at me.
Lo Tigodedu:
Do not gash yourself.
This verse refers to
the prohibition of cutting oneself as a sign of mourning. But the rabbis of the
Talmud
understood
it more deeply. They understood that the word Titgodedu
(to cut) could come from the root, Aleph,
Gimmel, Daled, which means “to bind,” meaning the formation of separate groups,
sects, factions. So, they read the verse as a prohibition on dividing the community into different sects. [Yevamot
13b- 14a]
And that’s what
we’re witnessing in our country today. Again, and again, the story repeats. When certain groups bond together by cutting
themselves off from others in the society – and tell themselves a story in which
those other groups are to blame for all the woes in their lives and in the country, the bonding soon turns into gashing. The toxic
rhetoric of blaming the other – Jews, blacks, immigrants, LGBT, Muslims, etc. –
doesn’t stay as words for long. Soon, the gashing with words turns into actual
gashing, and the blood flows from the wounds.
In her latest book, The Blessing of a B Minus, Dr. Wendy Mogel
refers to “Mean World Syndrome,” a psychological condition whereby exposure to horrific images
in the mass media leads one to be fearful and overprotective. Perhaps, we all
have Mean World Syndrome nowadays. How could we not? It doesn’t take long to
contract that disease. It only takes a moment to see the car plowing into the
people
and to
become
traumatized.
So what do we do in
this mean world of ours?
We stand together on
the mountain and proclaim the blessings. We scream from the rooftops the
foundational ideas – that each person is created in the image of God, “endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We call for an end for the gashing that
strikes at the heart of our nation. We embrace life – as precarious as it is.
And we hope that somehow, some way, despite all evidence to the contrary, that
blessings will prevail.
