The State of my People

On my way to shul in the morning I greet the neighbor in my mother-in-law's apartment buiding, but I receive no reply. I purposely say "good morning" to the people I pass on the street. Not one of them replies. We are a grumpy people this morning. And we have become hard of heart. A while ago a motorcyclist was knocked down by a truck. I assume the driver did not notice what he had done, and drove on. This happened in a busy intersection in the southern Tel Aviv. No-one stopped to help the injured motorcyclist. He lay on the ground as cars drove by. Some slowed to avoid driving over him, drove around him and continued. All this was captured on the traffic camera at the intersection. Traffic lights changed, and cars and trucks and vans came from a different direction, slowed, avoided and continued. This went on for over three minutes, until a passing motorcyclist, seeing his fellow sprawled on the street, stopped to offer assistance. Too late. The injured man died of the neglect of his fellow motorists. At least a hundred drove by him and not one stopped to offer assistance. The saddest piece of video I have ever seen. We are a morally bankrupt people. The suffering of our kin does not move us. We avoid. Avoidance is moral bankruptcy. We are a morally bankrupt people. A grumpy people who do not greet one another become a morally bankrupt people. An avoiding people becomes a morally bankrupt people. It makes me sad. I feel sadness for my people, about my people. How have we come to be here? How can it be that a people known in its own historical, cultural, religious, national sources as "merciful people, the children of merciful people" can politely avoid a dying man in the street? My heart breaks for the loss of my people. But it is not a new heartbreak, heartache. A people, the government of which can uproot thousands of its own citizens from their own homes, cast them out with uncaring at best and with gleeful animosity and worst, betray their promises to their uprooted citizens, and willfully and glibly and purposely ignore their pain – how can this be anything but a morally bankrupt people? Is not the very first role of government to protect its citizens? And my government does not, does not even make a half hearted attempt to protect those it so willingly and joyfully harmed and hurt and wounded. A morally bankrupt government of a morally bankrupt people.