Dear President Obama

Like everyone with a human heart in which a spark of Divinity still burns I was shocked to the depths of my soul by the atrocious massacre that took place at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown Connecticut.

In the wake of the tragedy you gave a profound and moving speech showing leadership in a time of trouble. When you said that Americans aren’t doing enough to protect their children you touched the main nerve of a great nation reeling with a sense of helpless shock.

Your initial response was certainly appropriate with its emphasis on the need to strengthen gun control laws although the right to bear arms is deeply rooted in your country’s culture since the dawn of American independence. In the days of expansion into the Wild West guns were a necessary means of self-defense for isolated settlers against attacks by Indians tor bandits. And the right to bear arms is not just an American tradition but part of the Bill of Rights included in the right to self-defense. It’s true that wagon trains are a thing of the past and  reevaluation is clearly called for. But with all due respect Mr. President your promise to enact a new gun control law that will limit the sale of firearms to certain types of guns may assuage the public’s distraught feelings temporarily but for the long term it is like trying to treat a case of terminal cancer with aspirin.

First of all if the assault rifle used in the recent shooting spree is banned will that put a stop to the killing? Can’t a Colt .45 pistol also be used to murder people including innocent young children? As you obviously realize Mr. President it is hard to uproot a long-held American tradition all at once without examining the risk involved.

What will this proposal for new legislation solve? It surely won’t bring the desired result for you and the American people and I believe the results will be negligible not only because of the complication in enacting and applying the law but because it is skirting the real issue. You stirred up the people’s feelings when you said “We’re not doing enough to protect our kids ” and you were right Mr. President. But painful as it is to say the fact is that not only are we failing to protect our children we are destroying them with our own hands. Nearly every home throughout your land is becoming a potential incubator for violent crime. Excuse my bluntness but a superficial fact check will reveal the truth of my statement.

Tell me Mr. President what sort of images are your country’s children fed from early childhood? In whose hands do American parents most often leave the children they are supposed to be guarding? In the hands of the TV networks the national babysitter. To get a few hours to themselves parents leave their children glued to the screen and what sort of messages are they absorbing from the programs they watch? Are they not seeing an endless stream of violence and immoral behavior that slowly wears down their sensitivity to hurting others and even to killing? And on top of that now we have the Internet where Satan himself has taken up residence.

Years ago I passed by a cinema in Jerusalem just as a crowd of youngsters was emerging after viewing an American action film. They were discussing the film excitedly but some of them were disappointed that “it didn’t have enough people getting killed.” All sensitivity to the death of a human being has been extinguished by the habitual viewing of such images. Death even gruesome murder has become something merely mechanical. How far we have come from the refusal of the great pre-Holocaust rabbi Rav Elchanan Wasserman to read newspapers so as not to become desensitized to the sight of loss of human life. And if this desensitization has become the norm in Jerusalem how much more so in New York. Have you ever calculated how much of that drug — the drug of violence — American youth ingests by the time it reaches adulthood and beyond?   

Just look at how deeply the culture of violence has struck roots among your people. Some young people have even taken to wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the images of murderers who went on shooting rampages similar to the Newtown massacre. Among some fringe elements these psychopaths are lauded as heroes.

How can we not be afraid of the repercussions of such things? Of course such actions are not outlawed because of the First Amendment right of freedom of expression but they show just how far this sickness of loss of feeling for human life has gone. I ask you Mr. President have we done enough to protect our children? Have we shielded them from influences that would destroy their souls?

Permit me Mr. President to quote a passage from the Bible. I assume you are familiar with it but I am not sure if its significance is clear to you. The verses are from the book of Joshua and they concern the original conquest of the Land of Israel through which the Jewish People inherited their rightful homeland. I assume that you remember that the city ofJerichowas conquered first and that G‑d imposed a ban prohibiting the taking of any spoils from the city. One man Achan violated the ban defying the word of G‑d and angering Him. As a result Israel’s army suffered casualties in their next battle. The culprit was discovered when by Divine command lots were drawn; Achan was then executed.

Seemingly this was the sin of one individual someone on the fringes of society whose greed got the better of him. But look Mr. President at how the Bible itself describes the incident:

“And the children of Israelmade unlawful use of the contraband and Achan ben Carmi took… from the contraband and Hashem’s anger was kindled against the children of Israel” (Yehoshua 7:1). Afterwards Yehoshua hears the voice of G‑d saying to him “Israel has sinned and has also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them and they have also taken from the contraband and they have also stolen and they have also denied it and they have also put into their vessels” (ibid 11). This is a perplexing passage. One person one person only took from the forbidden goods and no one else was the wiser. Why does G‑d blame the entire nation for one man’s sin? Why do thirty-six soldiers die in an enemy ambush in another city because of one man’s sin inJericho?

Contrary to our suppositions the Bible is teaching us a basic truth. As the commentaries point out there is no such thing as a purely individual sin! There is always a social atmosphere a milieu that enables an individual on the fringes to cross the lines. The higher the general moral standard the lower the crime rate. Evidently the people did not regard the Divine ban with the awe it deserved and this opened the way for Achan to commit the actual crime.

The sin Mr. President is at the nation’s core. The terrible result takes place on the fringes. When a society doesn’t distance itself completely from something evil it will find expression in an extreme manner through some insane individual. In this sense the insane criminal too is society’s victim. To one extent or another we are all guilty of the shocking outcome.

I don’t know what to suggest Mr. President to correct this situation. I know that television cannot simply be removed from American life although it stuffs children with violence from infancy on. And therefore unfortunately I foresee further atrocities. It may take a tragedy of even bigger proportions to shake society into seriously considering the values its children are imbibing from TV and the other ubiquitous screens that surround them. In the words of Shakespeare “So foul a sky clears not without a storm.” Perhaps Mr. President we can get there without the storm?

Food for Thought

I can say what should not be done.

What should be done

each person must ask himself

(Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Kotzk)