The most profound thing I have read recently, relating to why we must treat those evil forces (to me, Republican politicians like Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and their soul-crushing destructive agendas, both of whom somehow cruised easily to re-election, despite their evil agendas) that persecute and oppress us (LGBTQ+ people, and others), as fellow human beings. We must recognize their humanity even as they demonize us.
"And according to the Rebbe, one had to resist the temptation to split the world into good and evil, even in moments when the world was crushing the soul. One had to resist the temptation to see the world as the opposition of angelic and demonic forces. Yes, the demonic forces were twisted, fallen, distorted, perverse, unrecognizable, sick, terrifying—all of that and more. But they were not fundamentally untouchable, unreachable, unredeemable, nor were they the “other.” The great teaching of the name was, as he would have said in Yiddish, that alz ist Gott—that everything is one, because 'everything is God.' "
- Rabbi Mark Sameth, THE NAME, citing the mystical teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira
Rabbi Shapira was spiritual leader of the Hassidic community of Warsaw during World War II and was executed by Germans, at a death camp, in 1943.
He had buried in Warsaw, several years of Torah commentaries, which were published in Israel in 1960 as "Holy Fire."
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