A girl named Hallel: praise, glorify.
Praise to God for granting a mother a child she desperately wanted.
A song of praise, a song of life.
13.5 years Hallel lived, smiled and danced. Her presence made her family happy.
This morning it ended.
Not by accident. Or because of a disease.
A person took her life. A young man, just a few years older than Hallel.
Not with a bomb.
Not with a gun.
With a knife.
A knife is a very personal way to kill.
It is up close and personal.
There is no escaping the feeling of the blade plunging in to flesh.
He snuck in to her home, in to her room and stood over her while she was sleeping.
In the sanctity of her own bed, he murdered her.
It wasn’t a monster that stole away Hallel’s life. It was a person.
Monsters are not real.
He too had a mother. She too has a song.
Her song is very different.
She praises death.
She glories in a son that is a murderer. She glories in the death of her own son.
For her, there is no glory in life, not even the life of her own child.
What darkness is this? A void so deep that there is no love inside, no compassion.
Not for a 13.5 year old girl asleep in her own bed.
A hate so enormous that it seemed reasonable to butcher an innocent child…
The life of a child had no value to her murderer but maybe that is not so strange when we see that his life had no value for his own mother….
What horrible darkness is this?
It is not one murderer, one terrorist or one mother. It is an entire society that is cultivating hate. Instead of working to diminish the darkness they are making it grow, perpetuating the evil.
People, not monsters, are teaching their children to hate. And to murder. Their value is in causing our deaths. Causing our suffering.
While Israeli parents glory in the lives of their children, Arab parents are glorying in the deaths of both our children and their own.
I am beginning to believe that it is not us they truly hate. It is themselves.
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