Message From The Rabbi

Rabbi Rachael Miller

At its most basic understanding, civility is about politeness and courtesy. Incivility, or the loss of civility, implies a lack of manners, though it is usually used to cover behaviors ranging from rudeness all the way to vandalism. 

Today, the comment section on social media is the place to go if you want to see into the incivility of the world. Unfortunately, incivility has moved from our screens and now appears in the real world in far too many places. 

The most prominent and recent case (at least as of writing this on December 13th) was the murder of the United Healthcare CEO. We have lost a piece of humanity when our reaction is: This man deserved it. This man had it coming.

We clearly have a healthcare crisis in this country.  

But when we make light of a targeted murder, committed during the morning commute in midtown Manhattan, we have lost more than our civility, we have lost our humanity. 

Judaism is clear: Destroying a life, is like destroying an entire world. Saving a life, is like saving an entire world. We have lots of lives that need to be saved. People are struggling to pay for insulin and basic medications, they’re delaying procedures or trying to cope without them, and the list goes on and on. But murdering the CEO of a healthcare network will not fix this problem. Even worse, making light of such a murder only lessens the humanity of our neighbor. We must see the humanity in each person we encounter. 

I pray that the absence of civility in this moment will soon be drowned out by the words of good people who stand up for what’s right. 

Bivracha, With Blessings, 

Rabbi Rachael