Finding Answer?

Looking for Answers




I don’t understand it. How can some Americans be so filled with self-hatred and anger? I refer specifically to the case of “Jihad Jane.” Colleen LaRose looks like just about anyone you would pass on the street or wait behind in a line at your local store. Somehow she decided to become an enemy of our country and to offer her very life to kill others for the sake of Jihad. I understand that she was a convert to Islam and obviously has deep religious feelings. How did those feeling turn into the desire to kill others? I don’t understand it—as a Jew I want to live for my faith not die for it. I want to live to teach and help, to learn and share, to use the time that I have on this earth as a chance to make it a better place not to destroy it. I firmly believe most people (regardless of their religion) feel the same. I guess that it why it remains so hard for us to understand this obscene twisting of faith into the praise of martyrdom and the call to kill others.

For me it is doubly inexplicable that an American can feel this way. I know that our country is not perfect. I know that we have made mistakes and that our democracy is still a work in progress, but I also know that this is the greatest country in the world. We are the most generous. We are always the first to help others. We are always the first to fight for those who have no one to protect them. Yes, all in all, I am proud to be an American and am not at all apologetic about it. We may not be perfect but we are the best society to ever exist on this planet and I believe it will be the models that we have produced that will serve to point the way to that time when a society will finally “get it all right.” Should that ever happen it will in no small part be due to the example set by America.

So how is it that an American could be convinced that we are the “worst” – that our country should be attacked, innocent lives taken, our society torn apart by the sword of “holy war?” I can but offer the following: We often take what we have for granted and, thereby, belittle it. We often choose to dwell on what we do not have rather than what we do have. We often tend to forget that most of the world would be happy to have the freedoms that we squander. Sometimes we start to believe the rhetoric of those who hate us. I believe that Colleen LaRose thinks this way. She does not understand or appreciate what it means to be an American. I am not even sure she understands what it means to be human. To be human you must feel a common humanity with others. You can’t feel that when you are plotting murder.

What can we do? I make one small suggestion: Let’s not forget to remind ourselves of who we are. As Americans we can serve to bring light to this world even in these moments when there is so much darkness. Our society is not perfect but we have not given up on the ideal of perfection. Such perfection would be a moment in which every person has freedom, justice, and opportunity. Yes, it is a big dream but that’s why it’s called the “American dream.” We are the first people to dream so boldly. “Jihad Jane” is what we look like when you stop dreaming.