How can the so-called civilized nations passively watch as uncountable numbers of Christians and Muslims are tortured, decapitated, burned alive, and sliced to pieces?
ISIS and its cohorts are laughing at us. We see their savage videos posted on social media. We see the executioners cloaked in monstrous black, standing over their pitiful victims who are on their knees helplessly awaiting the gruesome death they know is only seconds away.
Incredibly, these murderous creatures have up to now been allowed to go on with their barbaric slaughter. Yes, there have been condemnations, but condemnations are a joke to these killers.
Jordan’s King Abdullah is now aggressively responding to the ghoulish video of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive, and is vowing to destroy ISIS. But the big, powerful nations have for the most part stood by, reluctant even to identify the enemy as Islamic terrorism. If you cannot identify your enemy, how can you ever hope to defeat him?
Why all the paralysis and uncertainty among world leaders? Monsters who delight in maiming and killing innocent people cannot be bargained with or appeased. Monsters must be degraded and defeated. They must be killed before they kill all of us.
How on earth is it that nations and their leaders can be oblivious to this simple law? How can we allow lethal weapons to remain in the hands of ruthless killers? Who can understand extending a hand to those who will bite it?
Besides identifying the enemy, we must also know how the enemy recruits volunteers to the cause. Again and again we have seen terrorists harness social media to draw in emotionally unstable individuals who crave fame and notoriety. Is there anything at all we can do about that?
For one thing, we can work to block their access to social media and identify them for what they are. Just as we do whatever we can to block those who solicit children and young people for pornography and prostitution, so we must do our utmost to block those who recruit killers and terrorists.
I realize that blocking social media to terrorists is no easy matter. But the U.S. and other Western countries are blessed with great scientific and technological know-how. If only we would fully recognize the urgency of our predicament, we would rise to the occasion and do what we have to.
And how are we Jews to defend ourselves?
As I always remind my readers and listeners, our answers are in the Torah. Let us turn to the first place where we suffered torture and bondage and see how our forefathers survived and triumphed.
The day after the recent murderous attack on the kosher market in Paris, we began reading parshas Va’eira, where we discover why our people were redeemed from Egypt. It is a two-fold formula that is as applicable today as it was then. One, the Jewish people cried out in prayer to Hashem; and two, they reached out to one another with chesed – loving-kindness.
Now, thousands of years later, we too have to learn how to pray. We too have to learn how to reach out to one another in loving-kindness.
Our father Jacob on his deathbed (Genesis 48:22) told us he won his battles through his sword and bow. Meaning that our sword, our prayers, must be powerful enough to pierce all the barriers between ourselves and G-d.
The bow represents prayer aimed with such precision and intensity that it reaches its target. That is the power of sincere, genuine prayer. It has the capacity to reach the very Throne of G-d and forever change our lives.