Where Is The Logic?

There is a lot of hypocrisy going on right now. It’s making my blood boil. I am mad. Maybe it’s a stage of grief as I mourn with my People. Whatever was left of the world’s moral compass has now completely shattered. So in an effort to make what I am about to say completely universal, I will not speak about anything related to morality. 

I hate politics. So I will not speak about politics either. I do my best to stay out of politics unless strictly necessary. But I don’t think what’s bothering me so much is political. What is shaking me to my core is that people are making dangerous public statements without fact checking them. Without doing their research. With ignorance. And that is a problem. Because how can a world function on hearsay? There’s a reason that hearsay is not allowed in a witness testimony. If it’s not verified, it’s likely biased to some degree. 

What happened to the known truths that used to be basic knowledge? Common sense. Things that everybody believed. Like grass being green or the sky being blue. Nothing is sacred anymore. And with that comes the hypocrisy that I speak of. Again, nothing I am saying is political, biased, or based on morality. It is as factual as factual can possibly be in this tainted world. My only bias is that I don’t support innocent people being deliberately murdered. Any age, any religion, any gender, any race. 

I am a logical person. It’s difficult for me to handle things that do not make sense. Life is full of things that do not make sense though, so that is my own struggle that I deal with. But the hypocrisy that is going on in the world right now is not something that I can deal with. Not something that I can continue to struggle with privately. Which is what brings me here. 

Here we have facts. Live footage taken by the perpetrators themselves. Footage that has been seen the world over, the truth of which is not being denied. But the Jews are still at fault for this. For their own nation being massacred. And Israel is now expected to help its enemies who just slaughtered its people. 

I studied at the University of Pennsylvania for three years. I loved it there. But the same streets I walked on more times than I can count were trampled on yesterday by people who are perilously ignorant. People who speak out without actually understanding the words that are coming out of their mouths. People who don’t understand the facts of the situation and the history behind it. These words were chanted yesterday on the roads that used to be my home: “Israel Israel you can’t hide. We want Jewish genocide.” This happened yesterday. In 2023, a university known for having a large and vibrant Jewish community, is supporting Jewish genocide. No one is chanting for Palestinian genocide. This is not free speech. This is hate the likes of which the world cannot contain. I commend Penn Chabad for being out there during the protest, wrapping tefillin. What better slap in the face to those who want to destroy us than to publicly perform one of the most classically Jewish actions as they chant their desire for us not to exist. 

Part of the problem here is that so many people now who are doing/saying these hateful things don’t actually know what they are talking about. Especially the young generation. They don’t know how to think for themselves. If somebody that they follow on social media says something, it’s gold. The critical context of what’s occurring becomes irrelevant. They see an exciting protest, and they join in. They join in because people these days crave connection. Anything to make them matter. 

The president of Penn, M. Liz Magill, has been called out by many high profile individuals for her actions/words and lack thereof both at the start of this war and in reference to a blatantly antisemitic event that took place on campus last month. Other universities are involved in this behavior as well, but I have an obvious personal connection to Penn. Our “leaders” are allowing the hate to run rampant. Heads of large corporations are denouncing this hate by firing people who involve themselves with it, but the heads of the universities that these people studied in are supporting it. Interesting dichotomy. 

How can a world exist in which it is publicly considered ok to shoot children in their mothers’ arms? To burn families alive in their own homes? I don’t think it can. Which is why this war is happening. How has our society stooped so low? But the same people who believe this is ok (and even to be celebrated) are horrified by the idea of a Palestinian child dying after they were purposefully placed in the line of fire as a human shield. Sure, maybe the child wasn’t given the choice of whether or not to be a human shield, but our beheaded babies most certainly weren’t asked for permission to have their heads cut off. Why the lack of consistency?

There are times when innocent people suffer the consequences of people in their circle who acted improperly. Look back at history. The Jews are still suffering thousands of years later for the Sin of the Golden Calf. I personally was not involved in that process, but as a born Jew, there is no getting away from the fact that my forefathers sinned. And that I am suffering the consequences of that sin. Whether I like it or not. The Palestinian children are suffering as a direct result of their government. Fair or not fair, that is the truth. And killing Jews is not improving that situation in any way. Again, the logic is lacking. 

I am fully aware that anyone who has this double standard and who is publicly declaring their desire for the death of millions of people that they don’t even know, is way beyond logic. They cannot understand logic. No common sense for them. They are a different species. Creatures that appear like human beings but have different brains and hearts (or lack thereof.) Even if they speak our languages, they must have a different dialect since there are certain words that they don’t understand. Some of those words include “compassion,” “peace,” “morality,” and “honesty.” Their dialect doesn’t include words of that nature, so even Google Translate can’t help. This is a problem because we are not at liberty to ignore them and let them be, but there is also no way to communicate with them. We are in a bind. 

It really bothers me that people keep comparing what’s going on now to 9/11. I find this comparison offensive. 9/11 was largely passive. Obviously it is not passive to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. But it was extremely impersonal. Once the deed was done and the planes hit the buildings, the remainder of the tragedy unfolded on its own. Here on the other hand, things got extremely up close and personal. Personal enough that it entered people’s private homes. The terrorists saw the humans they were about to kill and purposefully pulled the trigger. Maybe they even looked into their eyes. And taunted them. Individuals were killed deliberately. One by one. Each one a whole world. They physically touched the people that were kidnapped. It wasn’t just a sea of people with undiscernible faces. How can you compare one attack to the other? It’s a completely different ballgame. On a very surface level, there are some basic similarities. But this requires us to dig way below the surface. Terrorism is not logical though. Digging beneath the surface won’t even help.

As I said before, I am a very logical person. I thrive on consistency. The problem is that the fact that I am alive today is not logical. Jews logically should no longer be here. We logically should have been destroyed many many times throughout our history. But we are here. Because miracles happen. They happen regularly. Sometimes they are bigger and more obvious than others. Sometimes they are individual and sometimes collective. We as a nation have been saved many times by significant open miracles.

God’s watching out for us. It’s not logical. So as mad as I am about the inconsistencies and hypocrisy that are plaguing the world right now, that’s exactly what is saving us. The lack of logic. It goes so much against my nature, but I so fiercely believe it to be true. This is really something that I need to take with me to all areas of my life. Putting less focus on the need for everything to make sense. Not everything makes sense. Jewish existence is the most clear example of this. And that will continue to be the case. Eventually the world will take note. We will prevail, yet again.