Ynet: “What Motivates A 14-Year-Old Girl Stab People?”

My latest on Ynet:

The Islamic terror stems from the unbridled evil force that permeates even girls as young as 14 – 16, poisoning their minds and causing them to leave their homes brandishing scissors in search of a victim. This is a time to unite and inject the positive force into the world that can stop terrorism.

While we are debating whether we are in the midst of a wave of terrorism, the third intifada, or war, we are missing the main point–every day young and old, men and women, innocent civilians are being murdered, innocent citizens who until a moment before had dreams, are murdered each day. We thank God that that this time we were spared. We delete the news update on our mobile phones, switch to another radio station, and run away from the news. Man, like animals, has an inherent ability to adapt to any reality, even a very harsh one.

But we must not accept a routine of bloodshed; we must not give in to apathy. As hard as they work, the Israeli security forces are only putting out fires; we must also act at a deeper level—to stand up and fight against the real enemy that lies within us: our separation. At every moment of separation, the external enemy is gnawing away at us, but if we want to end the war, we must subdue the enemy within.

Out of Balance

The mad impulse of terrorists to murder us comes from a deeper place. Even the accusations of Sweden’s foreign minister and those of her colleagues in the EU who tried to connect the bloodbath in France to Israel, come from the same place; they harbor inbred hatred that stems from sources that go far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is written in The Book of Zohar that all of humanity is connected in a single network. Currently, negative forces are flowing through it leading the world toward extremism, hatred, and destruction. The channels through which the good forces of unity, mutual consideration, and concern for others should flow to the world are almost fully blocked, There is much room for improvement in the network of connections among us.

The nation of Israel has a special role in determining the balance of powers in this network. When we make an effort to unite, we “inject” positive forces into the world, and balance out the negative ones.

In contrast, when division reigns among us, we become part of the negative force and increase its power in the world, as it is written in The Book of Zohar that there will be “poverty, ruin, pillage, looting, killing, and destruction in the world.” The direct result is that our enemies “raise their heads and mainly want to destroy Israel,” as it is written in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

Chronicle of Destruction

The hatred of Israel and terror toward the Jews is not a new phenomenon. The nation of Israel was founded over 4,000 years ago on the tenet of “Love thy neighbor as yourself.” The main novelty that we brought to humanity was our wondrous ability to unite because “Israel holds the key to the unity of the world” (Rabbi Kook, Sacred Lights). This mutual guarantee is the only justification for its existence. When unfounded hatred broke out among us and ravaged every decent part of it, the Temple was destroyed. This hatred cut off the flow of the positive force from us to the world. You can see this law throughout history—when the evil force prevails, it brings destruction, war, and bloodshed.

“In each and every generation, we are commanded to strengthen the unity among us so that our enemies will not rule over us,” writes Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov in The Book of Consciousness. As long as we don’t repair the social rift between us, the evil force will generate more hate to destroy us. This does not end at Israel’s borders; the more Europe suffers from the evil force, the more it will blame us and hold us responsible for the spread of radical Islam. And the results will not be long in following.

Bestowing Good Upon the World

The security forces will continue to protect the citizens of Israel and make every effort to prevent the next attack, but this is not enough to prevent the next victim. We must awaken love of others, connection, and mutual guarantee. These are the components of our national strength.

When these positive forces begin to flow through us to the rest of the world, it will balance out this chaos the world is in. Accordingly, peace, tranquility, and sense of security will return on the streets. As Rav Kook wrote, “If we are ruined and the world was ruined with us by unfounded hatred, we will be rebuilt, and the world will be rebuilt with us through unfounded love.”
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