Hate

Detest, despise, revile, wish to destroy....

“The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference” - Elie Wiesel

I remember one day I was standing in line at a market talking to a friend and said to her how I hated something or other (don’t remember the exact location it was several decades ago). The woman behind us, who was not part of our conversation, piped up that she doesn’t let her 3 year old use that word because its a bad word. Apart from the fact that she didn’t know us from a hole in the wall, I was also not a 3 year old. My friend and I simply looked at each other and continued our conversation.

I wonder if this woman would object to her child telling her that she hates racism, misogyny, or homophobia? Or are we not allowed to hate things that are evil? Now, in retrospect, she may have had a good idea, she just didn’t explain it to us in a way that wasn’t, oh I don’t know…insulting, condescending, and ridiculous.

The last year has been very hard for my oldest son. He watches every youtube video, reads all the reporting, and discusses the events in Israel. I am getting text messages throughout the day asking questions, looking for answers and always ending with AM YISRAEL CHAI (the Jewish people live).

Until October 7, 2023, he was an avowed atheist. (He had issues with God for a long time and it didn’t get any better when as an undergraduate his minor was in Holocaust studies) As I have written, he had to have a very long talk with our rabbi right before his bar mitzvah because he felt like a hypocrite going through with it when he didn’t believe in hashem (that means God in hebrew). My son has always been very forthright and honest.

Well except for the time he stole my credit card because he decided we didn’t give enough to charity so he went and used it to give more of our money away. I know that he knew exactly what he was doing since he went into my email and erased all the acknowledgment letters you get when you give to charity.

I found the “gifts” the same day they were given since I check my accounts daily, several times a day (a habit I created after my amex had been stolen), and saw some expenditures that I didn’t make. We were trying to figure out who had used our card for charity. People don’t tend to steal credit card numbers to give money away. They tend to use it to buy dom perignon, which is what someone had tried to do with my amex.

We asked if he had used the card at all, and finally he admitted he had. He told us that he even went into my email and deleted the response emails from the charities. He didn’t want me to see that he had spent the money. Yeah, can’t deny intent at that point.

My husband asked him if he knew what a bill was, which he did not. Having explained to my son what a bill was, and that we would eventually have seen what he did when we got the bill, my husband said to him, “ So you are not only a thief, you are a stupid thief.” He was absolutely furious at this child. Well he wasn’t a child at the time. He was in high school (not sure why he didn’t know what a bill was as a teenager, but then again he never paid a bill or saw a bill. Of course, that was our bad that he did not know).

Needlesstosay, that was the end of his allowance. Anytime he wanted anything outside of food, clothing, and necessities he had to do chores, which we gave a monetary value. If he wanted Pokemon cards he would have to do chores to earn the money. If he wanted a new video game he had to earn it through chores. (His younger brother seeing this, and deciding it was a great way to earn money on top of his allowance, showed up one day after school with his own business plan of what he should be paid for chores. Yes he titled the list “Business Plan.” We negotiated the amount down, well not negotiated as much as we told him what he would earn. But honestly, it was great initiative on his part. )

Meanwhile, my oldest son’s aide had to explain to my son why what he did was still theft even though he gave the money to charity.

The therapist couldn’t control her laughter every time she thought about it. Kids stole credit cards to buy Michael Jordan sneakers, she told me, not give to charity. She too had to explain to him that it was still theft.

We also had to explain to him the concept of budgeting. And how by giving away our money he had upended our budget.

He never took my credit card again.

By the way, we do give to charity several times a year and he has his favorites.

Well, my atheist son, has now rediscovered his Judaism. He wears his Star of David again, on a chain next to his medical alert medallion. He helps light shabbat candles. He learns from Tikvah about the Torah and takes classes in Jewish history. But what he also is, is angry. Very angry.

Angry at the reaction from the world. The blood libels. The glorification of Hamas. The uselessness of the liberal world order. The hypocrisy of so-called international law. The vilification of the Jewish people, the denying of our indigenous status, the denying of our history and the co-opting of our human rights by the world at large, has moved him into a sphere of hate.

Hate to the point that his therapist tries to make him look beyond himself, not to agree with Hamas of course, but to see that there is suffering on the other side as well. Suffering, which without Hamas, because without October 7, there would not have been a war. Without hamas embedding itself in terror tunnels below civilian infrastructure there would not have been so much destruction. Without hamas taking hostages or at least returning them all by now, the war would have ended.

Hate is a really scary thing. It does nothing to the individual or group that you hate. But it eats away at your soul like a cancer. It destroys everything it touches. It upends lives, and futures. Hate is one of those human emotions that if uncontrolled can only lead to rack and ruin.

“How do you not hate, “ he asked me. “Don’t you hate Hamas? Don’t you hate those people calling for our slaughter?”

“No,” I answered. “Hate does nothing to the person it’s directed at. They don’t know you hate them. Hate does nothing to diminish your enemy. But it can tear away your humanity. And the last thing you want to do is allow those that want to dehumanize you, to win. If you allow yourself to live in hate, then they have won.”

“Why let your enemies, those that hate you and want to destroy you, live rent free in your head?” I asked.

He honestly, could not grasp what I was saying. (For alot of autistics, everything is black and white. There is no gray area) I tried to explain what Elie Wiesel had said so many decades ago. Indifference, is a good way to deal with what is happening now only because it does not take from you your humanity. This does not mean you are indifferent to others’ trauma, or the realities of war, which are horrendous. But if you remain indifferent to the evil of those that commit acts of barbarity and merely work to eradicate them, work against them, then you save yourself from going down a rabbit hole from where you can never extricate yourself.

By not wasting energy on something so convoluted as hatred, it also gives you the energy to think things through clearly, unencumbered by vapid pablum. By not hating, it keeps you from telling yourself lies. By not hating, you can think things through to a positive end.

Honestly, by not spending time and energy on hating, it is a way to protect yourself and your psyche.

Now, I can also say this because I did not lose anyone close to me on October 7 or in the aftermath. I have not buried a daughter that was gang raped to death, a grandchild that was burned alive along with their parents, a parent/child/grandchild who was abducted into Gaza, a son who was killed trying to protect our nation/family from an existential and real threat of genocide. I have not had to live in bomb shelters and have ten of thousands of drones and missiles sent to obliterate our nation off the face of the earth. This is because I live on the other side of the world, in the relative safety of the United States of America.

All I have had to deal with is the hatred and the evil of the growth of antisemitism in the diaspora; of allies who not only abandoned their Jewish compatriots but celebrated our slaughter; of elected representatives trying to stop the flow of arms to an ally fighting for its life; for elite colleges, colleagues, and professionals to shun anyone Jewish because we refused to denounce our right to survive. For these acts I do not hate. I am indifferent to these people except when it hurts me and mine. And when I think about it, I merely pity them. Using history as my guide, I know the Jewish People will outlast all of this. And the haters names will be washed away like grains of sand being eroded on beachheads. Except for the time during certain holidays (Purim) we get to jeer at Haman, and celebrate, the haters demise.

So back to my son and his “hate.” He is working on it he said. He said he wishes he was as good a person as me. I told him I am not so good a person, I am just older and have alot more time to practice.

The secret is, I have to work very hard not to go down the path of hate myself. I need to work on it every minute of every day. It is not easy. But they say nothing well earned is ever easy.

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