Testing Your Humanity

I'm pretty sure most people will consider themselves humane and decent. The problem is, of the most, many would be wrong. As an example, consider the Germans before and even during World War II. Most considered themselves to be civilized and humane, a caring and enlightened country that was filled with art and music and culture. There was just one flaw...while they considered themselves humane, they didn't have a great definition of what a human being was.

Quite literally as easily as we squash a bug beneath our shoes when they dare to invade our home, the Nazis squashed those that they considered to be sub-human - Jews, blacks, homosexuals, gypsies and others. There were many who were not Nazis in Germany before and during the war years. The problem is, most of the many were silent.

How do you test your humanity? It's a tough question but I think I came up with an answer this week.

Did I ever mention that I'm a "news-aholic" - if something happens, pretty much anywhere, but definitely in the Middle East, I need to know about it, see it, understand it. Too often, I look at pictures that I've been warned are harsh...and then I regret it for days and weeks and sometimes longer.

One example - the video of the security guard in Maale Adumim being viciously beaten by a Palestinian man who was known to have sat on coffee breaks speaking to the guard he tried to murder. The video started to play as I scrolled down on my Facebook feed and instead of closing it, I watched. And, as tears streamed down my face, I watched it again. I kept watching as the Arab walked away, leaving Tzvika there on the ground...only to walk back a few minutes later, take out his phone and videotape the scene he had just created.

In some twisted way, I felt that my watching and crying was a way of bearing witness, of not leaving Tzvika Cohen alone there in that hallway to be beaten and left to die. That he didn't die is a testament to God's kindness, Tzvika's strength of will, and his family and his community's love.

Another example? Years ago, someone was seconds away from a suicide bombing attack on a bus. As victims screamed, as others rushed in to help, as sirens wailed, this person felt the need to take pictures and then he sent them around. Someone sent them to me, telling me they were horrible, more horrible than any pictures shown on the news broadcasts.

"Why did you send it to ME?" I thought as I saved them somewhere deep and buried in my computer and then hours later, when the children were asleep and there was no chance they would see, I opened them. It was, I felt, something I had to do...if these people had to suffer, why shouldn't I too be in pain?

The pictures were every bit as brutal as you could imagine and unless you've seen similar ones, probably more so. I won't go into details; I won't post them. It was never my intention to share them. Why would I want anyone to see such images and what good would it do you if I did, right?

And yet I couldn't delete them. Many of the images were of bodies that clearly didn't survive, but some were of victims still suffering. I remember thinking that deleting the pictures would be like deleting their lives. It was a silly thought and I knew it at the time, but I was superstitious enough (and still am), to leave them there on that computer, buried so deeply that no one could find them. They remain in my office on a computer no longer in use.

And one more example. This week, pictures and videos were posted to Facebook of the chemical weapons attack on Syrians. There are people...you are too stunned to count how many but you quickly notice there are children...men, women...and children. Friend after friend posted that they would not watch, but I knew I would. The question I had for myself was quickly answered and in the end, as horrible as the scenes were, I'm glad I did see the pictures.

If you want to test your humanity, watch pictures of your enemy suffering. If you dance in the streets, if you hand out candies, humanity is not within you. If you smile and say they deserve it, you too have lost your humanity and in losing it, you have handed your enemy their greatest victory because more than your life, they want your soul.

But if you cry, as I did, if you sit there in shock and wish you could reach through the computer and do something to help them breathe...simply breathe, for God's sake, please breathe...your humanity is there.

It doesn't matter what your race, religion, gender is and you quickly realize you don't care about theirs. This is a simple test. No one should be able to see the pictures of men, women and...oh God...children, lying on the ground gasping, open eyes staring out in terror as they fight, sometimes a losing battle, for the most basic right of all - just air.

I hate what too many Arabs have done. I hate the culture that teaches them that murder is acceptable, suicide as long as you take infidels with you on your way to the next life something to be commended. I hate when they dance in the streets, hand out sweets and shoot fireworks to celebrate the injury and deaths of my people. I hate...oh God...I hate when they fire missiles at our cities and our children need to rush to bomb shelters, sometimes dark and damp and smelly places. And even when they are bright and decorated, when that door closes and you are sealed in waiting for the boom, breathing is hard. You almost believe the air was sealed outside as time stands still and your ears wait for the explosion.

And, with all that hatred, I don't hate Arabs. I don't hate Syrians. I don't hate the ones who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the enemy we have fought for more than 70 years is a brutal and inhumane adversary.

I have to believe that if the world will not bring Assad and the Syrian regime to justice, God will. But in the deaths and suffering of these Syrian innocents, there is a test for each of us. Do not turn away from the horrors man inflicts on man. Often as individuals, we are powerless to change the course of nations and their citizens. But you can do something. You can witness their suffering and in doing so, remember them. You did not die unnoticed. We saw. We feel.  We bear witness.

Yes, the pictures are horrible and maybe it is too much for you. After all, why should you suffer? They are strangers in a distant land, oppressed by their own government. What does it have to do with us, anyway?

Well, the thing is,,,the world has learned what happens when you are silent.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

                -----Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

You should test your humanity now and then. Perhaps the pictures will haunt you and the anger will build. They aren't your enemy, these children, these women, these men who were attacked by their own government. In that moment when they became victims, they ceased being your enemy. Now they are the responsibility of the world, which must demand justice. Now they are our responsibility, to remember and to mourn.

Because they are coming for you, as they are in the cities in Europe, as they did on 9/11 in New York and Washington. In Boston. In Jerusalem. In Paris. In Tel Aviv. In Nice. In London, in Madrid and in Brussels.