BEARING WITNESS IN A TIME OF MASS MURDER
After watching the conversation between Charles Eisenstein and Michal Halev, a Jewish Israeli woman whose only son was murdered by Hamas on October 7, I was shaken. In the middle of the night I woke up and memories of what Charles and Michal said kept coming in. All were related to the question of how to be and what to do in a time of mass murder.
MIchal spoke from the heart, simply and directly. She had always done what she could to help people in need while never engaging in public action or supporting a political cause. Her son was her hope in life who would bring more love into the world. His death devastated her but she had an experience in which their souls met. This opened her to see what she needed to do. She had to spread the message of love in a time of hate. For the first time in her life, she has spoken out publicly. And when some fellow Jewish Israelis said they would send a rocket into Gaza in her son’s name, she absolutely refused to support such action. What I admire most about her is that she is so clear about what she is doing. No ideas or ideologies can deflect what she knows in deep silence to be the way of love.
Charles tried to make sense of what had happened and was continuing to happen. He was asking some of the questions that I have often asked and helped me to ask them again. I felt the same kind of anguish that he did. Once again, groups have dehumanized members of other groups, made them into absolute enemies, and chosen the path of hate rather than love. Like Charles said, we can rise above our depression by recognizing not only this disheartening reality but also the opportunity to learn from the repetition of such an old and destructive pattern within human history. As spiritual teachers have instructed us, each time you fall, you can pick yourself up and make the intention to remain upright from now on and follow your deepest self, the Self of all.
What I can do is not take sides in order to punish the wrongdoer but take actions that uphold the side of people who celebrate life. Like James Baldwin said, the writer, although not out on the front lines, bears witness to what has happened and to what is true. In a time in which mass murders by individuals are part of the news cycle, and mass murders by governments in the name of goodness and justice regularly occur, I can try to be a voice of caring as well as intelligent action.
From my position as a person of privilege, I offer a perspective on the world situation. The Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine wars are products of the international system of modern times. Ethics plays no role in the affairs of nations as they attempt to maximize their wealth and power in a zero-sum game. They commit mass murder and justify their actions by claiming their cause is just.
The present world system has no long-term future. We need planetary cooperation in order to address the threats of nuclear war, ecological breakdown, and widening global inequality of wealth and power. I say this without taking a side and blaming some groups and absolving others. After all, the Western colonizers were brutal and hypocritical but when Japan became strong enough, it too became a colonial power. Whose hands are clean?
Jews cannot uniquely claim the victim role even though theyhave been victimized by the powerful for almost their entire history. The state of Israel was intended to give them security after the unprecedented trauma of the Holocaust. But it was set up at the expense of Palestinian people who lost their land. Since 1948, Palestinians have suffered grievously at the hands of the Israeli government. This doesn’t justify terrorism but it makes it more likely to occur. When trauma is created in every generation, aggressive reactions will occur. Terrorism is the only outlet for such aggression and provides momentary satisfaction amid conditions of powerlessness and despair. Unless the more powerful reach out in accordance with the demands of justice, how can the cycle ever end?
