The following piece was written by Rabbi Menachem Katz, who serves as The Aleph Institute’s Director of Military and Prison Outreach. He grew up in Miami Beach, Florida, and graduated from Oholei Torah in 1992. Two years later, he was ordained by Rabbi Farkash and started working for Aleph shortly thereafter
I had the opportunity to meet Rabbi Katz a few years ago. He is charming, intelligent, cynical, loud, and sarcastic. He was featured recently in the New Yorker, Preparing Prisons for Passover in a Plague Year. It is worth reading. For all of his sarcasm, Rabbi Katz will never stop lending a helping hand.
“The Only Way to fix Police Brutality, Bigotry, Racism, Anti Semitism, Looting and Abuse of Power is when we recognize that all humans were created by the same one G-d.
The entire world is up in arms and disgusted at what happened in Minneapolis. Most are also shocked at the looting, violence and destruction as well. All moral and inherently good human beings want to fix the pressing issues of Police brutality , Racism , Looting and all the other ills of Society. Everyone has great ideas of what should be done but nothing really ever gets fixed. This is not the first time that police brutality (or even murder by a police officer) was filmed on camera. Time and time again throughout American and world history we have witnessed depraved human behavior and good human beings have always tried to do fix that behavior. Each and every time, they have failed. After six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, the world swore never again and now Anti-Semitism is on the rise again and Jewish men, women and children are being attacked on the streets of NYC in broad day light. Why is it that in that Hatred continues between human beings? Why is it that a police officer would murder a black man in broad day light on camera ? Why is it that prison guards beat inmates ? Why is it that people steal from others and those same people would be devastated if someone stole from them ? Why is it that people think it is okay to burn down and destroy their neighbor’s business ? Why is it that there is still so much discrimination in the world?
The answer is that laws and norms enacted by human beings will always be imperfect. The only way to fix this and to ensure that human beings behave in a true moral fashion and have sincere respect for all other human beings, is to introduce God and God’s laws into society. All Human beings are created by God in an imperfect state. The reason for this is that God wants humans to work on themselves, to try to better themselves and better the world around them. In order to fix the ills of the world, we must recognize first and foremost that we cannot fix this on our own . Human beings using their own limited, imperfect human intellect and understanding will always fail. The fact that Racism, Sexism, Anti -Semitism, Bigotry and all kinds Discrimination is alive and well in America in 2020 speaks for itself. The United States is the strongest Democracy in the entire world. People truly have the opportunity to speak their mind and to share how they truly feel. Hundreds of Billions of dollars have been spent by philanthropists trying to educate the public and address these issues and nothing really changes.
We must finally admit human beings cannot fix this on our own. We must recognize that G-d created all human beings in his image. We must treat all human beings the way we want to be treated. We must treat all human beings with proper decency and respect because we were all created by the same God. We must understand that we cannot trust our own judgement because we are imperfect. We are inherently selfish beings and ultimately really only care about ourselves even though it may come at the cost of others. This is why after all the laws that have been enacted in the United States to combat racism and bigotry, nothing has really changed. People still treat others badly because of the color of their skin or because they have a different religion. College graduated, intelligent law enforcement officers tamper with evidence , lie under oath and watch innocent people go to the electric chair because they had to close a case and get a promotion. Governors sign death warrants just to have a better chance at getting reelected. People with more power have continued to abuse people with less power.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe , Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of Blessed Memory spoke endlessly about God being taken out of the schools. He said that this caused the lack of morality in our society. The Rebbe spoke for hundreds of hours about the importance of the seven Noahide Laws and that they must be taught to all human beings. If all human beings would follow the seven Noahide laws, which include laws about the sanctity of all life, laws about not being cruel to animals (how much more so that we can’t be cruel to other humans), we would be a different society today. God created all human beings with a soul that gives them life force. We must all start listening to our Souls and not just our minds and our hearts. We all know that we have that capacity within us because each and every one of us has experienced the true selfless goodness and kindness of strangers that have come to assist us in our time of need. It may have been a first responder, a doctor, teacher, or just someone passing by. Regardless, we all know inherent good when we see it. All we need to do now is act that way to all other human beings all the time.”
Please take the time to click on the link below to watch a video of the Rebbe addressing issues of Unity, Hatred, Looting, and Criminal Justice .