What does Scott Hayes have to do with me?

I opened my computer this morning to find news of a very disturbing incident that occurred in Boston last night. American war veteran Scott Hayes, a self-proclaimed zionist (though apparently not Jewish) is being charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and violation of a constitutional right causing injury, after shooting a man at a pro-Israel rally.

It so happens, that the “victim” was in fact attacking Mr. Hayes (as countless videos have shown), and yet the initial D.A. and police reports – which claim to be purposefully vague for lack of information – have unjustly framed Mrs. Hayes both figuratively and literally.

The fumes raged inside me and I thought about the twisted world we live in, where a man acting in obvious self-defense can be treated as a criminal. Is this what it has come to? That your objective actions matter less than what side of the street you are standing on? That you can plead victimhood after provoking, pouncing, and endangering?

But… we are now in the month of Elul. And while the general policy I have for myself is not to look out but to look in, what better time of the year to put this mentality into full-gear practice than now. To take all of my anger and criticism and emotion, and use it as a springboard for self-introspection, for understanding the distorted vision to which we are each susceptible, and to unabashedly examine our actions without fear or reservation.

If the mainstream media has taught us one thing in the past year (if not in the past century) it is that the chosen narrative can create fact from fiction and string together fantastic tales that do not match reality on the ground – but come very close. Is this not exactly what my very own yetzer harah, my misguided drive towards incorrect behaviors, is doing to me every single moment of my life?

As humans, we are endlessly fallible and prone to painful mistakes, but knowing the enemy is already winning half the battle. We are charged with “da et atzmecha” (know yourself), for it is the enemy within that causes our most royal slip-ups. The yetzer harah takes things out of context, it makes me forget important pieces of information, it goes by whims of emotion that create irrational ideas, and it even turns the aggressor into the victim.

The particular point here that was staring me in the face with an ugly, mocking smile, was that of this unnamed man in the hospital, someone who – when you strip away the evidence – seems to be the one who deserves our sympathy. I thought about this, deeply, and reflected that perhaps there are times in my life when the “one who started it” does deserve to get some slack? Sure, this guy’s an anti-Israel lunatic and it’s easy to write this off as another act of antisemitism alongside a serious media reporting failure (hopefully not a justice system failure as we move forward), but what of the need to look internally here in this specific place…

One of my kids is getting on my nerves. Perhaps in their tantruming they even pose a threat to an object dear to my heart or interrupt an important phone conversation. I lash back in anger, and the kid recoils. And then the piercing pangs of parental guilt ensue. What have I done… they didn’t deserve that… But a voice – so much stronger and wildly more defensive – jumps right in. “You were only defending your rights! You are the parent and they need to learn. They need to know there are consequences to their actions.” Really? As the X commenters in defense of the unnamed assailant cried, “Could it not have been ended more peacefully?”

In the case of Scott Hayes, I suspect this is not so. But as for myself… that’s what Elul is for.