This was a letter to my Kabbalah teacher before a one-on-one session. The provocative nature of the letter did not happen suddenly in my mind. It has been brewing for many years.
A dozen years ago – just before the 911 debacle – I had the honor (and profound sadness) to visit the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome and Museum. It was both haunting and a reminder that war is the lowest common denominator in human spiritual development. I saw silhouetted bodies seared into cement blocks, pictures of dieing civilians slumped at the side of road or in evacuation parks radiating to a very painful death.
Then I think about Auschwitz and Dachau and Birkinau Concentration camps for further reminders of how bestial human beings can become in the name of God and motherland.
And I am in turn reminded of the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Yugoslav bloodbath, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, the Rwandan Genocide…and the list seems to go on and on.
And then I wonder: When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn? Evil always seems to raise its ugly head, even as selfless, virtuous acts of kindness go on under the radar each and every day worldwide.
I can remember a post-911 cartoon depicting Hussein’s Iraq was just one, huge, nuclear crater and with a big For Sale sign jutting up from its bowels. That disgusted me and made me feel there are no border lines between the despicable and the righteous. We live in Heaven, yet choose to vacation in Hell…just for the Hell of it.
As a serious student and teacher of Kabbalah (or fill in your blank), can you fight for your country or any other? Would you be willing to go to jail rather than indiscriminately kill in the name of (fill in the blank)?
Just some fodder of what is gripping me suddenly. Sixty-six years have passed since the Pacific War and the good guys and the not-so-good guys say they are keeping the peace by arming to the teeth. When will we ever learn?
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