Human-kind

Shameless demagogues practicing the politics of fear and loathing. Bombs being sent through the mail. Good people being slaughtered in their places of worship. It is enough to make a person revisit a burning question we have probably been asking from the very inception of our species: “Why do such terrible things happen to good people?” But a very wise lady once told me that the question is a trap. “We cannot know or understand the answer,” she warned. What we do know is that evil walks the earth feeding on hatred and paranoia, that we must confront that evil whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head, and that we must do our best to deprive it of the hate and fear that sustains it.

My heart goes out to the victims of the violent attack that took place in Squirrel Hill. Pennsylvania and to the people who lost their loved ones there on that terrible day. In a very meaningful way we are all the victims of that horrible crime because it was an attack on our family – the family of humankind. Science and all of the world's great religions tell us that we are all related to each other, that we are each others' brothers and sisters. We must not ignore the suffering of our brothers and sisters, and we should not wait for some terrible tragedy before we let them know we care about them. Even in the great depths of our grief and the heat of our anger we must tend to the light of love and good will. As difficult as it might be at times, that light must be sustained because it is our love and good will that separates us from such evil and allows us to form the bond and the promise we share with each other. There is no us and them; there is only us, and we must do better.