Ideas for Combating Hate Speech and Violence

The massacre of 11 innocent Jews in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last Sabbath by a hateful disturbed man is a wake-up call for everyone who loves freedom. I attended my own synagogue that morning and experienced a wonderful Bar Mitzvah where the dvar, taught by the thirteen-year-old, was about intelligent disobedience and how Abraham had failed his test by God when agreeing to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. Instead of Abraham using his critical thinking skills and following his heart and his conscience, he was prepared to offer his son as a sacrifice because God had told him to do so. The Torah says that only when Abraham lifted his eyes did he realize there was a ram (I am against ritual animal sacrifice by the way) that was to be offered. I must add that most traditional interpretations used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims use this story to teach people to be blindly obedient and extol Abraham’s blind faith. (This story was used by the Moon cult leaders to convince me to throw out over 400 original poems I had written. This is something I deeply regret, to this day, and I believe my creativity and my uniqueness as a human being is expressed in the creative arts.)