Edited and adapted from Ari’s podcast on April 14, 2017
I want to say something about the terrorist attack today. Unfortunately, a young woman was murdered by a Muslim terrorist—and the terrorist is alive.
This is our downfall. Our downfall is false morality.
Our downfall is believing in, and adopting, a morality that has nothing to do with Torah.
We have to change this. We have to stop adopting a moral framework that has nothing to do with who we are.
We have a very clear-cut morality. And keeping a terrorist alive is not moral. There is no reason—no reason at all, morally—why a terrorist should survive his own attack. None whatsoever.
Now look at what is going to happen next.
A young woman was murdered. The terrorist is arrested. He’s put in jail. His family starts getting paid by the Palestinian Authority. He studies for two academic degrees in an Israeli prison. He’ll probably get married. He’ll probably have kids—all while sitting in an Israeli jail. And eventually, he’ll be released from the Israeli jail.
And all of this costs us an arm and a leg.
For what?
Unless there is a clear and immediate security reason—unless he has information you absolutely need—there is no justification for keeping a terrorist alive. None.
Twenty-four years ago, my friend Yehoshua was murdered. The terrorists who killed him were released from jail—and they went on to murder more people.
There is no justification for that.
This is false morality. This is moral relativism. And moral relativism doesn’t make the world safer—it causes more death. For everyone.
And it has to stop.
The Torah says very clearly: the Torah is our wisdom.
But when we let go of our Torah—when we try to be like the nations, when we try to play the democracy game—they’re not patting us on the back.
Look around. Muslim regimes that are completely uncompromising in their beliefs get more respect. Jihad, ISIS. How many times has Syria been condemned in the last two years? Six times. Israel? Twenty-six.
So you tell me—what works better? Sticking to who you actually are, or pretending you’re just like everyone else?
The truth is very simple.
Our salvation—the only way to save ourselves—is to come back to who we are. We have to know why we are in Israel, we have to uphold that reason and be proud of it.