Violence Is Not the Weather

Of all the things we cannot control, one stands unmistakably beyond our reach: the weather. When half of the United States is snowed in, and here in Israel winter shows its own fierce face, we are reminded that part of being human is accepting that nature – and much else besides – shapes our lives in profound ways without asking our permission. We do not command these forces. We ride the wave. We seek shelter. We manage through what we cannot control with acceptance and resilience once we have wrestled with our place in it.

In the Jewish tradition, among the many qualities we admire in heroes, humility stands highest. Not the humility that makes us small, but the humility that recognizes we are part of something vastly greater than ourselves. There is wisdom in relinquishing control, in understanding when submission is not weakness but clarity – an expression of a character that understands the essence of what it means to be a fully evolved human.

When we encounter the raw force of nature and weather that takes no prisoners as it moves through the places we call home, we are struck by a contrast. Alongside nature’s uncontrollable power stands the almost limitless human capacity to wield the one force we do control: violence, too often for reasons that are unnecessary, even destructive.

Yes, there are moments when force is required. We must defend what is precious. We must protect human life against those who seek its destruction. But to live by the sword rather than with the sword at our side is to misunderstand the difference between the force of nature and the force human beings choose to unleash.

Human violence is not the weather. It is not an act of God. In the societies we know most well, it is a sickness – even when, at times, force becomes necessary. The weather belongs to God, and we learn how to live with it. The choice of living without unnecessary violence belongs to us.

And so we must always ask ourselves: Is the violence amongst us truly the work of God, carried out with humility and restraint? Or is it an attempt to exceed – or perhaps to forget or even ignore – who and what we are meant to be? To answer this question, I turn as I often do to a poet I love more than any other: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

You don’t need to be a weatherman or a genius or a saint to know that we are failing miserably in managing the meagre but hugely destructive forces of violence that are in our control.