I wanted to write about Chanukah that is coming up next week. To my chagrin, I have to write about another shooting on Jews in the United States. This shooting struck very close to my community. Four families, two Jewish, one Latino, and one police officer's family were left grieving. Many communities are shaken and broken by the acts of two savages.

If this was an isolated event one might have been justified to point fingers on why it happened, but this shooting is the third shooting of Jews in less than 14 months. It's nothing less than the ugly old Anti-Semitism that's reemerging. It's taking hold in extreme ideologies that is sadly becoming more and more mainstream.

Dennis Prager in his best seller, “Why the Jews?”, argues that how the Jews fare in a society is a sign for the healthiness of the society. He explains it using the adage a “canary in a coal mine”. Before the advent of gas testing tools, miners in coal mines would bring along canaries (birds) into the coal mine. If poisonous gas accumulated, the canaries would die before it would affect humans. If the canaries died, the miners knew they had to escape.

Prager shows that throughout history the societies that became intolerant of Jews, later became intolerant to everyone. Eventually these societies fell apart through infighting.

I believe the sign of real hatred is when passionate ideologies become focused on individuals. For example, if a passion to restrict immigration makes a person dislike the immigrants themselves, that is hatred. When a person walks in the street and sees an immigrant and feels resentment, then the person needs some serious self-reflection.

A different example would be, a person who is passionately against policies that allow police harshness develops resentment to the policemen themselves, that is a sign of hatred.

Regarding the actual policies, generally I see two sides to the coin and I'm happy that I'm not in the position of having to make the decisions. However, when passionate ideology becomes a resentment to individuals and to groups of people, that's a sign of hatred.

How do we fight it? The first thing to fight hatred is to do the exact opposite, to start loving individuals and people. Whatever politics and identity a person might have, we always need to love the individuals and the people of the other side. In today's world, I don't think it's religion that divides us. As discussed in the previous installment of this column, I see the divide in America today between politics and between group identity.

I'm not an advocate of not taking politics seriously and even group identity, but as long as we love and wish well for the individuals and the people from the other side, we have a healthy society. Republicans need to love their neighbors who are democrats and vise versa. Both sides of the aisle and every group in the U.S. is part of one society. It's one big ship that's sailing the ocean of life. If there is a hole in one part of the ship, it will sink the whole ship.

Rabbi Sacks wrote this wonderful quote about Chanukah. “Hanukkah is about the freedom to be true to what we believe without denying the freedom of those who believe otherwise. It's about lighting our candle, while not being threatened by or threatening anyone else's candle.”

The challenge and calling that we all have is to be as passionate for good as the savages were passionate for evil. Let's extend with all our might our love, helping hands, and best wishes to each and every person. Every person is created in the “image of G-d” and we should cherish our light within us and the light of everyone we meet.

Comments? Email me: moshe@jaketv.tv.