Not Anger – Grief

I’m human. My first reaction was anger. I could feel my head getting warm, and I know it’s cliche, but I think there was really steam coming out of my ears. I wanted revenge. Justifiable revenge. What does the UN call it? Oh…right…”disproportionate response”. I wanted to see their heads spin with the amount of “disproportionate response” I craved.

I know I could find quite an audience of empathizers towards my first reaction. Many people have had that feeling all along and are using this to verify and justify their hatred. The “I told you so”s going around right now must be monumental.

Anger is great. It fires off endorphins  in the brain and gives the person a form of a high. It gets people pumped up and it winds up feeling good. People with “anger issues” often look for reasons to get angry just to repeat that feeling.

Anger is always met by defense. If someone is screaming at you, your first reaction is to become defensive. No one has ever been yelled at and responded by saying, “Gosh, thanks. You have now made me a better person.”

Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel were murdered in cold blood soon after they were kidnapped. There was no plan for ransom. It was a terrorist attack by the Palestinians that no amount of politics can justify or rationalize.

So, let’s grieve. Let’s show compassion to the families who are going through right now what too many families have experienced here in the past.

Let’s turn our attention to them. The families. They will not be consoled by immediately carpet bombing Gaza. They will not feel better by immediate and indiscriminate retaliation. They have just lost their precious sons. Being met by a bunch of chest beaters will not let them sleep better tonight.

Tonight is a time for grief. Tomorrow is a time of grief. Now is the time to do what we do best as Israelis; care for and comfort our own. Make the losses of these three innocent boys a noise around the world. An entire country grieves. Not grieving and shouting for revenge; just plain grieving.

There is plenty of time to figure out a plan for finding all those responsible and punishing them for their ruthless crime. There is time for cool heads to prevail and plot a strategy of admirable pin-point accuracy. We have the smartest people in the world on this. Let’s not get crazy because it looks good politically. Let’s show the terrorists what they’re up against, and not indiscriminate bombing and shooting. Let’s show them how good our army is.

But that’s for another day.

Tonight. Let’s put all of our effort; all of our thoughts and prayers; towards the families of the murdered boys.

It’s time to grieve.