I have been grappling with moments in history where we see the absolute breakdown in humanity, where monstrous acts of evil are perpetrated against individuals or against ethnic or religious groups.
More specifically, I am focussed on the Second World War and Nazism, where the breakdown of humanity was most evident, where evil held sway relentlessly. It is a particularly relevant meditation now as we look back on the 70th anniversary of that war, and its devastating impact on the world generally, and on Judaism specifically.
Why? I keep asking myself. Why were the Jews hated so methodically by the Nazis to the extent that they faced a terrible and cruel annihilation in the most depraved manner possible? What caused the Nazis to become so diabolical to the extent that they completely lost touch with their humanity? What mechanism inside them caused them to move from the human to the beast? What caused the majority of the German people to become complicit through their silence and acquiescence of a regime that took away, and destroyed, their neighbors? How did humanity, at this moment in history, fall lower than the beasts?
And not just at this moment in history. We see it today, in every barbaric act of cruelty committed against another, generally in the name of “God.”
Then I came across a saying that I read on a website of someone who channels the messages of Archangel Michael, a Being that I love a great deal. The message was that the mind can be a competent servant, but without its connection to the Sacred Heart, it can be a controlling and destructive master (www.RonnaStar.com).
And it dawned on me that this was the answer, in its entirety.
More specifically, I am focussed on the Second World War and Nazism, where the breakdown of humanity was most evident, where evil held sway relentlessly. It is a particularly relevant meditation now as we look back on the 70th anniversary of that war, and its devastating impact on the world generally, and on Judaism specifically.
Why? I keep asking myself. Why were the Jews hated so methodically by the Nazis to the extent that they faced a terrible and cruel annihilation in the most depraved manner possible? What caused the Nazis to become so diabolical to the extent that they completely lost touch with their humanity? What mechanism inside them caused them to move from the human to the beast? What caused the majority of the German people to become complicit through their silence and acquiescence of a regime that took away, and destroyed, their neighbors? How did humanity, at this moment in history, fall lower than the beasts?
And not just at this moment in history. We see it today, in every barbaric act of cruelty committed against another, generally in the name of “God.”
Then I came across a saying that I read on a website of someone who channels the messages of Archangel Michael, a Being that I love a great deal. The message was that the mind can be a competent servant, but without its connection to the Sacred Heart, it can be a controlling and destructive master (www.RonnaStar.com).
And it dawned on me that this was the answer, in its entirety.