[BOB] ABERNETHY: And what did you tell them?
Rabbi [SHMUEL] HERZFELD: Well, I said to them sometimes there are just people who are wicked. You know, like sometimes you’ll see a kid in school who’s just being mean for no reason. Well, if we multiple that by so much, there’s some people who are so wicked in the world and there’s no way to understand it. But that means we have a job to do, and our job, I said to my children, is to reach out and be extra nice to people ”” especially people whom we don’t know, especially people who are different. That’s a message that kids can understand, and in the face of somebody who acts with senseless brutality and evil we have to be the opposite of such a person. We have to double-down on kindness.
ABERNETHY: Do you see this as an isolated incident, or do you fear that it’s part of something larger?
Rabbi HERZFELD: Well, there’s always the fear that this is part of something larger, and I’m very afraid that this is part of something larger.
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Religion and Ethics Newsweekly: Religion and Hate Crimes
[BOB] ABERNETHY: And what did you tell them?
Rabbi [SHMUEL] HERZFELD: Well, I said to them sometimes there are just people who are wicked. You know, like sometimes you’ll see a kid in school who’s just being mean for no reason. Well, if we multiple that by so much, there’s some people who are so wicked in the world and there’s no way to understand it. But that means we have a job to do, and our job, I said to my children, is to reach out and be extra nice to people ”” especially people whom we don’t know, especially people who are different. That’s a message that kids can understand, and in the face of somebody who acts with senseless brutality and evil we have to be the opposite of such a person. We have to double-down on kindness.
ABERNETHY: Do you see this as an isolated incident, or do you fear that it’s part of something larger?
Rabbi HERZFELD: Well, there’s always the fear that this is part of something larger, and I’m very afraid that this is part of something larger.
Read or watch it all.