No Monty Python scene sticks in the mind quite like the Black Knight sketch — not for the blood and gore, but for the knight’s delusional arrogance. With each limb King Arthur lops off, the Knight insists it’s “just a flesh wound.” Finally, reduced to a torso on the ground but with the bravado of an Ayatollah threatening death to all who trespass, he declares, “I’ll bite your legs off!”

John Cleese explained the absurd moral: “If you never give up, you can’t possibly lose.” It works in comedy, not foreign policy. Yet a drumbeat of voices plays the Black Knight straight — insisting that what’s left of Iran’s war machine is ‘just a flesh wound,’ and that the real danger is us.

Strip away the chyrons and hashtags, and something remarkable has happened.

The United States and Israel have accomplished what four American presidents of both parties said must be done: crippling Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and eliminating the men who built them. Every administration agreed in principle, though none delivered—until now.

Even the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera admits the obvious: “The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why” — every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.

For decades, Iran’s theocracy has waged a shadow war against America through proxies, bombings, and terror that killed thousands of our citizens — a toll no president fully answered.

Now much of the media and political class is responding with the foreign-policy equivalent of “’Tis but a scratch.” The strike was reckless. The threat wasn’t imminent. We’re sliding into another forever war. The real danger, we’re told, is that we acted at all.

Yet the strikes did far more than hit facilities – they substantially degraded Iran’s network of proxies, severing the “tentacles” that once extended its reach across the region.

Can everyone be wrong?

Asking hard questions about war is essential. But when the tone turns reflexively defeatist — calling action reckless and every outcome a disaster — a question emerges: what if earlier American wars had been covered the same way?

Historian Michael Oren imagined World War II reported the way this conflict is now: Roosevelt dragged America into a fight we were unprepared for, manipulated by Churchill. Long campaigns became endless bloody stalemates. The Normandy invasion? Reckless overreach. The suffering of enemy civilians and damage to the global economy would prove the whole war misguided from the start.

Like Monty Python’s Black Knight, the narrative refuses to adjust.

This is not the war you think it is

Part of what makes the reaction so predictable is that too many are still fighting the last war.

For a generation, “war in the Middle East” has meant one thing: Iraq and Afghanistan – invasions, nation-building, occupations that slid into quagmires. The word “war” now triggers “here we go again.”

But if the war in our heads is not this war, how can we judge it fairly?

There are no divisions marching into Tehran, no fantasy of turning Iran into a liberal democracy overnight, no vague “freedom agenda” stretching into decades.

For forty years, presidents of both parties shared a narrow, concrete objective: stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. They warned, sanctioned, negotiated — but none pulled the trigger. Until now.

In days — not months — precision strikes degraded facilities debated for decades and killed commanders who openly vowed to wipe countries off the map, using real-time intelligence, hardened-site weapons, and advanced drones.

The result: disarmed leaders and a shattered command structure.

This was targeted degradation of an existential threat, not open-ended nation-building.

Yet headlines leapt from achievement to catastrophe. Risks of action got wall-to-wall coverage; risks of inaction – a nuclear Iran holding veto power over the region’s stability, energy flows, and allies – not so much.

Here is the narrative refusing to update:

“Imminent Threat” — or just another flesh wound?

When Joe Kent resigned as National Counterterrorism Center Director, he cited opposition to the war, insisting “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.” It was surprising, given his 2020 advice to President Trump to “wipe Iran’s ballistic capability out” and his confidence that Trump “has a plan” and has “earned the confidence of any clear-eyed observer.”

The next day, he explained his about-face on Tucker Carlson’s show. The Babylon Bee promptly lampooned the move as a bold career pivot.

Kent’s claim echoes a common objection to the strike.

Free societies should be reluctant to use force. If recent wars taught us anything, it is to demand evidence, question assumptions, and resist fear-driven action. But how do we define imminent so that timely prevention is still possible?

In the real world, “imminent” rarely looks like a clean warning. It looks more like the Black Knight bleeding on the ground, insisting he’s fine – as Iran is now doing.

Is “imminent” the moment the gun touches your temple, when your options are zero?

Or the moment the gun has been aimed at you for decades, the shooter has declared his intentions, and every attempt to disarm him has failed?

We assume our adversaries think as we do — weighing costs and choosing survival. That assumption drove policies like sanctions, negotiations, olive branches, and the belief that other governments want stability, not confrontation.

After the 2015 nuclear deal, President Obama predicted Iran would moderate and that sanctions relief would improve the lives of the Iranian people. Instead, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism used that money to fuel missile technology, nuclear facilities, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and terror cells around the world.

With Iranian missiles now targeting civilians in neighboring countries, can we admit this pattern is not an aberration but the regime’s strategy?

Iran’s leaders have never hidden their apocalyptic worldview nor their revolutionary ambition to remake the world under jihadist Islam. They are rational within a perverted moral universe that places ideological triumph above human life and even their own survival.

That is why demanding an “imminent threat” misleads. A regime that advances patiently to outlast enemies — testing limits, building capability, funding proxies — will never deliver the clear warning we crave.

By then, prevention is off the table. Only management remains.

We saw this with North Korea: once it crossed the nuclear threshold, the debate shifted from prevention to containment.

Unlike North Korea, Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, with global proxy networks that could escalate asymmetrically with virtual impunity, hanging us by the noose we enabled them to build.

Iran fired missiles at a US–UK military base on Diego Garcia — a range far greater than previously demonstrated, and far enough to reach Europe and beyond — previewing the leverage of a nuclear-armed regime.

Even a wounded Iran, like the Black Knight, can remain dangerously confident. Put a nuclear‑tipped sword in that torso’s mouth and it can still blackmail the world, coerce neighbors, or unleash terror with impunity. A regime that retains or rebuilds nuclear leverage leaves us with no good choices, only the grim possibility that nuclear weapons will be used again for the first time since World War II.

A Wounded Regime Still Deadly

Christopher Hitchens recalled that when the young United States faced Barbary pirates killing and enslaving American sailors, their ambassador cited the Quran as justification. President Jefferson’s answer was not negotiation — it was the navy on the shores of Tripoli. He ended the threat. That is the choice free societies face: manage barbarity indefinitely or end it.

In prosperous and secure societies, it becomes easy to forget how brutal the world can be.

Over the decades, Americans have paid in blood for this militant ideology. Recently at Old Dominion University, Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, a decorated Army officer and ROTC professor, was murdered when he placed himself between an attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” and his students, giving them time to escape.

To understand the regime, look at how it treats its own people.

Protesters, including a national wrestling champion, are being executed. A government that kills its young athletes to maintain power will not hesitate to terrorize others.

If we stop short of truly defanging the regime, we leave it with enough power to blackmail and destabilize, forcing free societies into an impossible choice: submit to coercion or risk annihilation.

In this war we may end up with a weakened regime, not a reformed one. But isn’t imperfect victory preferable to a nuclear theocracy that cannot be deterred?

There is no prosperity without security

As America approaches the 250th anniversary of our independence, we face the same question Jefferson did: will we defend the inalienable rights he wrote into the Declaration, or will we tell ourselves that the threat of apocalyptic theocracy is somehow manageable?

We’ve grown safer and measure danger by short-term discomfort — higher gas prices, market jitters — rather than by what happens if the threat is left alone. But there is no prosperity without security.

History teaches that strength compels negotiation; weakness invites escalation. With Iran’s missile capability shattered, its commanders eliminated, and its proxies subdued, all the Gulf nations and most of the world have stood with America.

One hundred thirty-five nations co-sponsored the UN resolution condemning Iran’s attacks. That is the world choosing order over chaos. Strength radiates friendship; weakness repels it.

Even the Palestinian Authority — long supported by Iran — has not condemned the United States or Israel in this war, instead aligning with the Arab states against Iran. When even Tehran’s former clients keep their distance, the world knows who the strong horse is.

The danger is not over. A regime in its death throes, with command and control scattered among IRGC holdouts, may be most dangerous when it is most desperate. The prospect of a nuclear tip on missiles already proven capable of reaching Europe and beyond is not hypothetical — it is the closing argument for why America must finish the job.

We Americans are the luckiest people ever to walk this planet, heirs to a freedom and prosperity no generation before imagined. The question now is whether our children, and their children’s children, will be able to say the same.

Monty Python’s Black Knight insists he is fine even after losing every limb. We like to think we are Arthur, protecting our people and our liberties. We must resist allowing comfort to transform us into the Knight: insisting we are fine amid growing danger.

Are we willing to finish what we started so our posterity inherits the same luck and liberty we enjoy? Or will we tell ourselves, one more time, that Iran’s growing menace is only a flesh wound?

We are living through a Rorschach moment. We look at the same ink blots — the border, Epstein, gender medicine — and swear we’re seeing opposite realities.

I was reminded of that recently when I found myself seated next to a gentleman at a luncheon. We discovered easy common ground: he grew up in Indiana, I grew up in Nebraska. We traded a few jokes about Hoosiers and Huskers swapping basketball and football fortunes.

Then the conversation turned to Indiana’s former fiery basketball coach Bobby Knight, whom he idolized growing up. “Now,” he said, “I despise him.”

Bewildered, I asked why. If he admired Knight when he was throwing chairs and choking players, what changed?

His answer startled me.

“Because he supported Donald Trump,” he said. “That reflects poorly on his character.”

I asked, gently, whether he felt the same about the 81 million Americans who voted for Trump.

“Yes,” he replied, without hesitation.

Trying to keep things light, but unsettled by the shift from disagreement to disqualification, I said,

“Well, that’s very Martin Luther King Jr. of you.”

He smiled sheepishly and our conversation moved on.

The MLK Test

That conversation stayed with me because it posed a question I can’t escape. Call it the MLK Test: if we only demand principles when they help our side win, they’re not principles — they’re weapons.

King urged us to judge by character, not by color. Increasingly, we judge by the color of a ballot.

I’m not picking on him—he’s expressing a temptation we all share. Trust collapses, and political allegiance becomes a moral X-ray: their votes reveal rotten character; ours never do. We’re staring at the same ink blot, seeing only what we want.

The MLK Test isn’t a weapon to wield against others. It’s a question we must answer for ourselves.

The Rorschach Pattern in Our Debates

The pattern leaps from every news feed: ICE is fascism incarnate. Or ICE is besieged by sinister forces bent on open borders. The Epstein files expose a partisan conspiracy. Or they prove an international sex-trafficking ring. Pediatric gender medicine is unquestionable life-saving care. Or it is systemic malpractice.

Each side can point to fragments that confirm its view. Outrage
races ahead of evidence. Suspicion outruns facts. When standards bend to fit
preferred outcomes, trust frays – not just in institutions, but between us.

The real test comes when those same ink blots appear in places of real power – at the border, in elite circles, and in doctors’ offices.

Immigration and Equal Standards

I saw how fragile equal standards can become when I served as foreman in a DUI trial. I expected a quick not-guilty verdict because the judge was clear: distinguish between drinking and driving, which is legal, and driving under the influence, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet three jurors wanted to convict anyway, despite devastatingly contradictory evidence. The officer had testified that the defendant steadied herself drunkenly on the car door – though his own body-cam footage showed otherwise. One juror deferred to the badge; the others assumed that two drinks meant impairment.

I asked: If we relax “innocent until proven guilty,” what protects us?

We ultimately settled on a lesser charge. I left unsettled — the scales had tipped, as if Lady Justice had lifted her blindfold to glance at something other than the evidence. Ironically, the statue atop our courthouse is one of the few that isn’t blindfolded.

That same drift away from evidence shows up in our immigration fights.

When protesters surround ICE facilities, swarm agents’ vehicles, or confront clergy they associate with enforcement, they invoke the moral aura of “civil disobedience.” But as King reminded us, true civil disobedience accepts legal consequences to expose injustice. It does not exempt itself from the law while obstructing others.

After my Minneapolis post last month, even critics agreed on its premise: a
just society demands equal enforcement. Where we differed was on trust. Many
see ICE as Gestapo-like. That reaction reflects how deep suspicion of state
power runs.

If someone dies during a chaotic encounter and your stomach doesn’t
knot, something in us has gone numb. Americans should never grow numb to force
exercised in their name.

Order through law requires reform pursued through legislation — not through obstruction, intimidation, or executive fiat. In the wake of two killings by ICE, bipartisan proposals have emerged to require body-worn cameras, strengthen training, and increase transparency.

At the same time, immigration battles have stalled broader funding negotiations, with disaster relief and airport security caught in the crossfire. When essential services for ordinary citizens become leverage in enforcement disputes, trust erodes. That is not accountability; it is dysfunction.

Reform can strengthen enforcement; brinkmanship undermines it and erodes public confidence. A free society resolves disputes through even application of the law — not by shielding favored policies from scrutiny or by placing unrelated public goods at risk.

The same question follows power wherever it goes — from the border to the boardroom.

Epstein and Elite Power Under the Rorschach Lens

If immigration exposes our fears about state power, Jeffrey Epstein exposes our fears about elite power. For many Americans, the lesson feels blunt: there is one set of rules for billionaires and princes, and another for everyone else.

The release of millions of pages of “Epstein files” intensified that suspicion. Allegations, emails, contact lists, photographs — raw material was poured into public view. Some victims were reportedly insufficiently redacted. Yet the release answered few core questions about money, methods, or network. It added names, but not clarity.

Under the Rorschach lens, that kind of disclosure becomes an ink blot. One person sees proof of a partisan cover-up. Another sees confirmation of a global blackmail ring. A third sees what they always suspected: proximity to power functions as protection. Each camp can point to fragments — a dinner here, a photograph there — and construct a narrative that becomes difficult to falsify.

You do not need a CIA screenplay to explain why people orbited Epstein. You need human nature and the strange economy of access.

Years ago, I knew a banker who rocketed to prominence by cold‑calling influential people he didn’t know to offer introductions to other influential people he didn’t know. With a thin veneer of proximity, he became the man who could open doors.

Scale that up — add a private island, enormous wealth, and celebrity guests — and it’s easier to see why people still orbited Epstein after his 2008 conviction. Access is intoxicating. Status is addictive. And humans are remarkably skilled at rationalizing what they would condemn in others.

I have also seen, at a much smaller scale, how proximity to valuable information tempts people to disregard rules. Early in my finance career, I was swept into an insider‑trading investigation as a witness. But someone near sensitive information had used just enough of it to help a friend profit. It was small by Wall Street standards — but it exposed how easily people near power blur lines.

“Everyone does it.”

“It’s technically legal.”

“No one will know.”

I learned that corruption often begins not with monsters, but with rationalization.

The truth about Epstein is chilling enough. He trafficked underage girls. He remained socially acceptable in circles that would never tolerate a registered sex offender next door. He died in federal custody under circumstances that still invite questions.

We know that very powerful people exercised grotesquely poor judgment in maintaining contact with him after his first conviction. But what the files have not established — despite breathless speculation — is the legal culpability of a sweeping roster of elites.

This is where the MLK Test becomes uncomfortable. Equal standards mean we cannot ruin elites on unproven allegations any more than we would tolerate that for an ordinary citizen. A just society must investigate thoroughly, prosecute only when evidence warrants, and protect victims from further harm — not fall prey to moral panic by declaring people guilty of wrongdoing simply because of their associations.

Not every moral failure is a crime, but that does not mean it escapes justice. In a functioning society, power carries consequences — sometimes not in a cell, but in the loss of status, office, and trust.

Prince Andrew has lost title and standing. Larry Summers, Kathy Ruemmler, and Peter Attia stepped away from prestigious roles. Bill Gates publicly apologized and saw his reputation battered. The reckoning has been global.

This is how a culture disciplines itself. When the high and mighty lose money, titles, and influence for reckless proximity to corruption, others recalibrate. Access is not worth the cost.

When I was in college, I once shared a hotel room at a conference with a male friend — purely platonic. My father was furious. He didn’t care what had or hadn’t happened behind the door. He cared about the appearance.

“Reputation, once questioned, is hard to reclaim,” he warned.

That lesson applies at scale. A society becomes more just not only when criminals are prosecuted, but when incentives change — when elites understand that even the appearance of indifference can cost them everything. That is how trust is rebuilt: not by spectacle, but by equal standards and visible consequences.

If the Epstein saga tests our commitment to equal standards in the face of elite power, the controversy over gender medicine tests whether those standards apply when experts claim moral certainty.

Gender Medicine and Evidence Standards

In my post last year — What I Learned in My Theater Board’s Gender Debate — I described fighting a pronoun policy for a children’s theater program. I persuaded the board to change it, but not before being labeled a transphobe by a staff member citing medical papers asserting that gender-affirming care was “evidence based.”

Earlier this month, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association announced they no longer back that consensus. They now describe the evidence for gender-related surgeries on minors as “insufficient and of low certainty,” recommending deferral until adulthood.

That reassessment did not happen in a vacuum. It followed litigation — including a New York jury’s $2 million malpractice verdict awarded to Fox Varian, a 22-year-old who underwent a double mastectomy at 16 and later argued she had not received adequate informed consent or rigorous psychological evaluation.

The verdict mattered because it emerged from sworn testimony and cross-examination — not a hashtag or partisan campaign. It forced the debate out of slogans and back into facts.

Under the Rorschach lens, gender medicine becomes another ink blot. One side sees affirmation and care; the other sees harm and haste. Both cite fragments — rising youth referrals, institutional guidelines, detransitioner testimony. But the MLK Test requires something steadier: the same evidentiary rigor we demand anywhere irreversible interventions are at stake.

Medicine, like law, cannot bend its standards to sympathy or cultural pressure. When juries award damages for failures of informed consent or insufficient vetting, they do more than compensate a plaintiff. They signal that guardrails still apply.

Children deserve compassion. They also deserve rigor. A society becomes more trustworthy not when it declares debate closed, but when it subjects its most morally urgent claims to disciplined evidence.

That is compassionate care governed by standards. It is how trust is rebuilt — through the equal application of rules.

Would This Essay Pass the MLK Test?

I’ve thought about that luncheon conversation a lot.

It would have been easy to dismiss him as intolerant — to treat it as a mark against his character. But it turned out that we had a lot in common and enjoyed one another’s company, even hugging at the end.

Passing the MLK Test does not mean abandoning judgement. It means refusing to turn disagreement into a character diagnosis.

The real question is simpler:
Can we disagree without disqualifying?
Can we demand fairness for our opponents as fiercely as we demand it for ourselves?

In a Rorschach republic, that may be the most radical act of all.

And one final question: since my lunch companion inspired this essay… should I send it to him?

What do you think — would this essay pass the MLK Test? What would you say in your own “lunch companion” moment? Comment below.

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I was nearly finished writing this essay when another tragedy unfolded in Minneapolis.

Last Saturday, federal immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, during an enforcement action. Pretti was lawfully carrying a concealed firearm and additional magazines – facts now central to an investigation that demands full transparency and accountability.

The reaction was immediate and polarized: comparisons to Nazi Germany on one side, calls to press enforcement harder on the other. After Pretti’s death, and the January 7 killing of Renée Good, we’re again forced into false binaries: law enforcement cast as wholly villainous or beyond scrutiny. That framing leaves no room for reasoned, consensus-building reform of how the government fulfills its constitutional duty to enforce duly enacted laws.

Reading about Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday, I was struck by how deliberately he rejected such divisions. King appealed to Americans’ better angels, rooting his moral case in shared constitutional principles — that justice and order, compassion and law, must stand together. Americans embraced his dream: judge by character, not skin color, party, or place of worship.

That lesson feels urgent in Minneapolis, where anti-ICE protests have escalated from public demonstrations to organized disruption – at airports, in neighborhoods, and at enforcement sites – often accompanied by racist accusations against anyone questioning protestors. On Sunday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis to the story of Anne Frank.

It was especially jarring that, on the weekend we honored King’s commitment to peaceful persuasion, anti‑ICE protesters marched into a Minneapolis church during Sunday worship to shout down congregants over immigration policy.

Whatever one’s views of ICE, disrupting people at prayer and branding them “white supremacists” rejects King’s model of principled protest.

That scene of moral intimidation stirred an unsettling memory from my own life. Have you ever let fear of judgment override your instincts?

My Lesson in Moral Intimidation

Fresh out of graduate school and living in Washington, D.C., my doorbell rang one evening as I prepared to leave. A man claiming to be a new neighbor stood at the door.

My instinct was to keep the conversation outside – and I likely would have if he’d been white. Sensing my hesitation, he reassured me he was “a neighbor like everyone” and asked for “just a moment.” Afraid of appearing prejudiced, I invited him in.

From my sofa, he spun a story about delayed pay and asked me to cover his rent. I declined, saying I didn’t have time for a longer conversation.

He stormed out, yelling that I refused to help because I was “just a racist.”

He wasn’t violent, just a con man who understood how moral intimidation can short-circuit judgment.

What struck me then — and again watching Minneapolis unfold — is that moral intimidation isn’t merely personal; it becomes civic when disagreement itself is treated as moral illegitimacy.

When Moral Intimidation Stops Revealing Injustice – And Starts Creating It

In Minneapolis, rather than appealing to shared ideals as King did, protest has given way to disorder and fear. As moral intimidation replaces moral clarity, the government is struggling to fulfill its constitutional duty to ensure public safety.

King revered equality under the law, calling the Declaration of Independence a “promissory note” owed to every American. He turbocharged the civil-rights movement by pressing the nation to honor its promises.

As America nears the Declaration’s 250th anniversary, Minneapolis offers a lens: Does that promissory note still function as the moral and civic IOU it was meant to be?

Minneapolis: A Case Study in Moral Intimidation and False Choices

On January 7, ICE agents fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother. Last Saturday’s killing of Alex Pretti once again produced a false binary: law enforcement cast as fascist villains or flawless heroes, with both deaths becoming Rorschach tests for pre-existing beliefs about power, authority, and immigration.

In a democracy, reasonable people can disagree about:

• Whether the individuals’ actions posed an imminent threat to officers or bystanders

• The scope and tactics of ICE operations

• The legal boundaries of protest

• The proper balance between local and federal authority

Yet if we take King’s democratic project seriously – and government’s duty to protect – we should agree on basics:

• The death of a citizen – and any allegation of misconduct – demands transparency, investigation, and accountability

• Laws must be duly-enacted and enforced by clear, neutral standards

• Peaceful protest is protected – but law enforcement must be able to perform its duties without harassment or physical danger

• In a free society, disagreements are resolved through democratic deliberation – not intimidation, obstruction, or chaos.

Critics argue enforcement disproportionately harms minorities — but doesn’t equal application protect everyone by sustaining trust? ICE can make mistakes – especially under duress – and immigration enforcement remains necessary. These truths must be held together through lawful, democratic processes — or we lose both.

When local authorities cooperate, the need for large, visible ICE operations diminishes, lowering the risk of violence for officers, arrestees, and bystanders.

While citizens are entitled to debate how laws are enforced, can we agree they must be enforced at all?

As King knew, there is a price for breaking the law – and a constitutional path for changing unjust ones. Imagine wanting to raise a highway speed limit. Which is better: speeding past officers, escalating conflict and endangering others? Or persuading fellow citizens to change the law through consent?

Isn’t the latter what a “government of, by, and for the people” means?

Equality Under the Law: Once Uncontroversial, Now Extremism

What’s striking about today’s immigration debate isn’t disagreement over enforcement — it’s that what was once basic governance is now cast as moral extremism.

In a May 2025 commencement address, Minnesota Gov. Walz likened federal immigration agents to Nazi police — a striking claim not because enforcement is new, but because for decades it was treated as basic, bipartisan governance.

Until recently, leaders across parties argued that enforcing immigration law — and not prioritizing those here illegally over citizens and lawful immigrants — was a matter of fairness, not cruelty:

Enforcement Breakdown and the Fraying of Compassion

What changed wasn’t the logic — it was the incentives. As economist Milton Friedman put it in this video: “You can have open borders, or you can have a generous welfare state…but you cannot sustainably have both.”

National data show higher welfare use in households headed by illegal immigrants — evidence that eligibility rules and enforcement are essential to a sustainable safety net:

Welfare Participation by Household Type (Center for Immigration Studies, 2022)

That principle guided bipartisan immigration enforcement for decades, with deportations treated as basic governance rather than moral extremism, as this chart makes clear.

The history of immigration law enforcement includes now-vilified figures once praised. In 2015, Tom Homan —currently Trump’s “Border Czar” — received the Presidential Rank Award from President Obama for effective ICE leadership.

In December 2024, The New York Times reported that the immigration surge was the largest in U.S. history, surpassing even late-19th- and early-20th-century waves. The foreign-born share of the population returned to levels unseen since the 1850s, straining the safety net nationwide.

In 2025, as border encounters plummeted, violent crime and deadly overdoses also fell sharply – a correlation that suggests consistent enforcement may bring broader public-safety benefits.

When consistent enforcement delivers improved safety and fewer deaths, equality under the law is no longer abstract – it is protective compassion. But when enforcement is treated as a moral failing rather than a civic responsibility, the rule of law erodes, and the vulnerable bear the cost.

Compassion As a Cover for Fraud

Generous safety nets depend on rules that are real and applied equally. When enforcement falters or scrutiny is treated as suspect, programs meant to protect the vulnerable become ripe for exploitation.

Minnesota’s recent welfare scandals illustrate the cost: billions were diverted through sham providers, leading to dozens of indictments. When officials tried to stop payments, some operators sued for discrimination, recasting oversight as prejudice.

The con man at my doorstep understood exactly how this works. In Minnesota today, the same tactic tempts many to look away from fraud – raise concerns and risk being called racist; stay silent and be praised for “kindness.”

Manufactured fury amplifies this dyamic by distorting facts and raising the cost of lawful enforcement. Viral stories — like the claim that ICE “detained” a five-year-old boy in Minnesota — spread rapidly, only for facts to emerge that the father fled, leaving the child while ICE ensured his care, not custody.

The danger comes from distortions hardening public opinion before facts emerge, turning lawful action into presumed cruelty. When scrutiny is treated as malice, enforcement becomes politically radioactive, oversight weakens, and exploitation flourishes under the banner of compassion.

To avert exploitation, true compassion requires the courage to enforce the law fairly and openly.

The Courage of Protective Compassion

King’s nonviolent campaigns embodied protective compassion: confronting unjust laws without trampling the rights of others, trusting that the rule of law could be redeemed.

King didn’t advance civil rights by treating law as optional or demonizing enforcers. Instead, he distinguished just from unjust laws – obeying the just, breaking the unjust openly, and accepting punishment to “arouse the conscience of the community.” That, he said in his Letter From Birmingham Jail, was the highest respect for law.

That model matters now more than ever.

In Minneapolis, protest has shifted from revealing injustice to obstructing enforcement. Sanctuary policies that block cooperation between law-enforcement agencies, activists trained to interfere with federal officers, and political leaders who praise defiance while condemning oversight have produced confrontation, not compassion.

We don’t fix this by demonizing communities or pretending nothing is wrong We fix it by recovering the principle that made America generous in the first place: equal rules, equal scrutiny, and equal dignity under the law.

I am the granddaughter of immigrants who came here legally and built better lives because King’s “promissory note” was never just for native-born Americans. It was for families like mine who trusted the law would protect the vulnerable rather than abandon them, as it had in their native countries.

Equal enforcement is not the enemy of compassion; it is protective compassion – what compassion looks like when government honors its duty to keep people safe enough to flourish. When government fails in that duty, people do not become more generous; they become fearful and defensive, doubting the possibility of a shared civic life.

So here is the choice: will we keep surrendering to false binaries that turn disagreement into moral condemnation, or recover the protective compassion King modeled — courage disciplined by law?

America remains human history’s greatest experiment: a multiracial, self-critical democracy that has not –yet – descended into tribal violence. Isn’t it more likely to endure if we preserve the methods King used to move hearts and minds in the turbulent 1960s – truth-telling, equal enforcement, and peaceful, principled reform?

King rejected the false choices we face today — between justice and order, compassion and law — and showed that a free society requires all of them, together. And it worked: the civil-rights movement succeeded because federal agents and protesters alike showed restraint under that discipline.

Can we summon that now?

Join the conversation: How can we reclaim King’s model today?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this moment’s consequential issue. Comment below.

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“Everyone thinks the greatest miracle is to resurrect the dead.
But the real miracle is to resurrect the living — to live the life we should be living, for the sake of our souls and for humanity.”
— Kotzker Rebbe

I shared these words on Yom Kippur — before the Gaza Peace Deal and before the hostages came home in tears of joy that lit up the world. Proof that light can still break through darkness, carrying us from chaos to blessing.

But even amid the ceasefire, Hamas’s public executions of innocent Palestinians reveal its true nature. The evil that once hid behind propaganda now stands exposed. The lies that accused Israel of genocide are collapsing under the weight of truth.

Yet new storm clouds are gathering — this time over America. With anti-capitalist and jihadist sympathizer Zohran Mamdani poised to become mayor of the world’s most influential city, viral images like this one capture the moral inversion of our time.

Meanwhile, media star Tucker Carlson declared his “hatred” for Christian Zionists in an interview with bile-spewing, Hitler-admiring Nick Fuentes. With unflinching moral clarity, Ben Shapiro devoted an entire show to exposing Fuentes’s vile rhetoric and Carlson’s descent into moral confusion — watch it here.

With our Judeo-Christian heritage under assault, moral confusion is spreading — and it’s coming for our freedom, as Margaret Thatcher warned.

In my earlier essay, Antisemitism and Anti-Americanism Are Rising, I wrote:

“At 250 years old, America remains the world’s greatest experiment in self-critical, multiracial democracy. The truths declared in 1776 united a divided people — and built the freest, most decent, and most prosperous nation in history. Reviving those founding ideals can unite us again today.”

These Yom Kippur reflections were written in that spirit — revealing what sustained the Jewish people for 3,000 years….

…and what can sustain America today.

Keep reading for the full sermon — the most powerful yet, I was told!

Below is the video of my Yom Kippur reflections. The lightly edited text follows.

Filmed on Yom Kippur, October 2, 2025, as part of our annual High Holiday gathering with friends and family — co-led with my gifted spiritual partner and friend, Hilary — what we now call Temple HilMel.

“How Ancient Wisdom Can Carry Us From Chaos to Blessings”

In my Rosh Hashanah remarks, I closed with a parable that struck a chord with many of you.
For those who weren’t here, the story goes like this:

“If you’re carrying a cup of coffee and someone bumps you, why do you spill coffee?”
The class answers, “Because someone bumped me.”
“No,” he says. “You spilled coffee because coffee was in your cup. When life shakes you—as it always will—whatever you’ve been carrying in your cup is what spills out.”

The High Holidays offer us a kind of cup washing – a soul cleansing we call teshuvah – because the truth is, we all carry things we’d rather not spill.

On Rosh Hashanah I asked you to consider: What’s in your cup?

Today, on Yom Kippur, I ask: How will we choose to fill our cups as we begin a new year of possibilities?

Refilling with Faith

This has been another hard year for the Jewish people. Israel is at war with a genocidal enemy. Students are afraid on campus. And here at home, Jews have been targeted simply for being who they are – a young couple shot for being Zionists, a Holocaust survivor killed in Boulder, and today – on our holiest of days – two Jews murdered at a synagogue in Manchester, England.

Small wonder that fear and anger have spilled from our cups. As some of you admitted on Rosh Hashanah, raging antisemitism has made you tighten up, even hide your Jewish identity.

But Yom Kippur is the day we steady our hands and refill our cups with the tenets of our tradition: to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God — as the prophet Micah said so timelessly.

So, what does that look like when the fast is over and we return to our daily lives?

Turning Vices into Virtues

It means choosing to grow from mistakes so we can project light into a dark world. And we can only grow if we recognize our failings and decide to turn vices into virtues, and virtues into habits. That is how we make the world better — like the Chofetz Chaim taught, changing the world begins with changing ourselves.

Benjamin Franklin, about whom we read on Rosh Hashanah, understood this. In his “project for moral perfection,” he realized he had a bad habit: interrupting people. So, he practiced silence, one conversation at a time. Gradually, restraint turned into curiosity, curiosity into respect, until listening became his reflex – one of the traits that made him a great statesman.

A vice became a virtue, and a virtue became a habit.

I think too of Gerda Klein, a Holocaust survivor who realized she complained too much about little things. She vowed that whenever she felt a complaint coming, she would choose a word of gratitude instead. What began as effort became instinct — and gratitude became her survival strategy for the rest of her life.

The Mirror and the Change

How do we begin that kind of change? Sometimes with a mirror. Another parable tells of a monk who carried a mirror everywhere, constantly looking at it. A priest scolded him for vanity. The monk replied,

“I use it in times of trouble. When I look into the mirror, it shows me the source of my problems – and the solution.”

Yom Kippur is that mirror. It tells us: Teshuvah is real. We can change. Families can change. Even history can change when we choose what we carry.

And isn’t that what we’re seeing in the world today – dramatic changes in the Middle East once thought impossible now suddenly within reach?

So rather than tucking our Jewish stars inside our shirts or lowering our voices in public, today we reclaim the magnificence of our tradition. Today is the day we hold the mirror steady and remember who we are.

Living as a Blessing

When I hold up that mirror to myself and to Hilary, we see people who believe that making Judaism more accessible and joyful can ripple outward into the world.

Connected to the life-affirming tools of Judaism, each of you can emerge with a cleaner soul and a clearer path for making your life a blessing – which is all God really wants from us.

When I hold up that mirror to you, I see a people whose calling is not to justify our right to exist, but to live as a blessing, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught.

That is how our ancestors outlasted empires and outshone hatred.
And that is how we will, too.

Outlasting Empires

Marveling that – despite millennia of persecution – the Jewish people endured as history’s longest-living people, President John Adams wrote that the Jews

“have contributed more to civilized man than any other nation. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more than any other nation, ancient or modern.”

The historian Paul Johnson echoed this, insisting that without the Jews,

“the world might have been a much emptier place.”

To the Jewish people, humanity owes nothing less than the moral architecture of civilization: equality before the law, the sanctity of life, human dignity, redemption and responsibility, and peace as an ideal.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it this way:

It is as if God’s voice within us says, “You are in this situation, difficult though it is, because there is a task to perform, a strength to develop, a blessing to uncover. For I have chosen you to show the world that out of suffering can come great blessings — if you wrestle with it long enough, and with unshakeable faith.”

Hasn’t that always been the pattern of our people’s story?

Consider these words I recently came across:

When God wanted to make David a king, He didn’t give him a crown – He gave him Goliath.
When God wanted to make a leader out of Moses, He didn’t give him a stage – He gave him a wilderness.
When God wanted to raise Joseph to the palace, He didn’t give him a shortcut – He gave him prison.
When God wanted to make a queen out of Esther, He didn’t give her comfort – He gave her crisis.

God doesn’t give us what we want. He gives us what we need.

Faith in a Fractured World

This past year has reminded us how heavy — and how holy — it is to carry our calling.

Since October 7th, every Jewish act of self-defense has been twisted into an accusation.
On campuses, in protests, even in the halls of government – and at the United Nations itself – the world’s anger turned toward us once again.

But Yom Kippur calls us to measure our worth not by the world’s accusations, but by God’s promise in Genesis:

“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

And look at what is happening before our eyes.
For all the rage directed at Israel, her legitimacy has only grown.
Out of the horror of October 7th has come an extraordinary realignment.
What Israel’s enemies meant for destruction has instead become a catalyst for blessing.

Hatred shrinks the world.
Partnership, dialogue, and peace enlarge the human spirit.

And here at home, we too must enlarge it — by wearing our Stars of David proudly and by speaking up thoughtfully and graciously, so that our lives testify to the blessing of being Jewish.

The Canopy of Peace

Last night at Kol Nidre, when we prayed the Hashkiveinu, it struck me:
Could this be the beginning of that ancient canopy of peace we ask God to spread over us?
For two thousand years we have prayed – “Spread over us Your shelter of shalom.”
At long last, are we watching its first threads begin to unfurl?

Resurrecting the Living

The Kotzker Rebbe once said:

“Everyone thinks the greatest miracle is to resurrect the dead.
But the real miracle is to resurrect the living — to live the life we should be living, for the sake of our souls and for humanity.”

Rabbi David Wolpe tells a story that brings this miracle of Jewish commitment and resilience to life:

In Israel’s Valley of Hinnom — Gehenna — the very place ancient Canaanites practiced child sacrifice, archaeologists in 1979 uncovered two silver amulets, dating back more than 500 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Inside was the oldest surviving text of Torah ever found – the Priestly Blessing – still spoken by parents to their children on Shabbat, and by rabbis at weddings, at new beginnings and in synagogues:

“May God bless you and keep you.
May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May God lift up His face toward you and grant you peace.”

Think about that.
From the valley that gave the world its image of hell, the oldest words of Torah we possess are words of peace.
For thousands of years, that has been our story: out of horror, we summon blessing; out of despair, we create hope; out of death, we choose life.

The Choice Before Us

And so it is with us.
When life shakes us, we may long for ease and comfort — but God places a mirror in our hands and a cup in our hearts.
The mirror shows us both the struggle and the solution.
And the cup reminds us that what spills out — anger or compassion, bitterness or blessing — is ours to choose.

So may we choose wisely.
May we turn vices into virtues, and virtues into habits — so that the world is unmistakably better for our having been in it.

Closing Prayer

May 5786 be remembered as the year a canopy of peace spread over Israel and her neighbors — and every hostage was brought safely home.
And may we all be sealed in the Book of Life for another year of blessings.
Amen.

I’d love to hear your reflections — what part of this message resonated most with you?

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Each year, I write my High Holiday reflections as an offering — a search for inspiration that might move us to be blessings in a world that needs them. This Rosh Hashanah message struck a chord, so I’m sharing it here — at the end of a momentous week of hope and release, and on the eve of Shabbat — a little Sabbath reading to help recharge your spiritual batteries.

Below is the video of my Rosh Hashanah remarks and below that is a lightly edited version of what I shared that evening.

My Rosh Hashanah remarks, delivered September 23, 2025, as part of our annual High Holiday gathering with friends and family — co-led with my gifted spiritual partner and friend, Hilary — what we now call Temple HilMel.

In this sixth year of sermonizing at Temple HilMel, I thought I had it down. My plan was to spend Elul — the month of preparation prior to Rosh Hashanah — reading, reflecting, and gathering inspiration.

But grief — and events — got in the way.

First, my heart was heavy. I lost two dear friends this summer, and grief dulls the mind. Then came the assassination of Charlie Kirk — a 31-year-old husband and father of two. I’ve been haunted, distracted, heartsick… and confused.

What kind of world are we living in, when a straight-A student from a good family can become an assassin whose bullets were engraved with the words, “Hey fascist! Catch!

Why is it that some tragedies — like 9/11 — provoke near-universal condemnation, while others — like October 7th or Charlie Kirk’s murder — are met with equivocation, even justification?

To collect my thoughts and steady myself, I did what I always do: I wrote. Over the past week, I poured myself into an essay for my Substack, published just yesterday. It’s called Prove Him Right. And it asks a simple but urgent question:

Can we restore the American Idea — the radical notion that people of differing backgrounds, beliefs, races, and religions can come together in the public square, not to destroy one another, but to forge a “more perfect union?”

So, I decided to use my essay as a launching pad for my Rosh Hashanah message. Its themes of forgiveness, hope, and dialogue are precisely what Rosh Hashanah is about: beginning again — saying Hineini, here I am — to be present and prepared to repair what is broken.

That was Charlie Kirk’s rationale for his work on college campuses, which he called the “Prove Me Wrong” tour. He welcomed questions and engaged in thoughtful dialogue with “friendlies” and “hostiles” alike.

As Charlie explained:

“When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group.”

Isn’t that the same dynamic we saw in the morally confused responses to October 7th — and again, to Charlie’s murder?

Since Charlie’s assassination, millions have watched him online and noticed the civility with which he engaged. That’s heartening, because what the world needs now is more curiosity and less judgmental stridency.

The feedback I’ve received on my Substack gives me hope that words still have power — to touch, to heal, to build bridges. Even the private messages from people too afraid to comment publicly remind me that there is a hunger for dialogue.

It’s said that crisis and challenge are really moments of opportunity. So, in the face of violence, we can choose dialogue. In the face of judgment, we can choose forgiveness. And in the face of despair, we can choose hope.

And if this were Torah, the rabbis would say it’s midrash — commentary that points to the essential question: What does this moment demand of us?

Hineini — Here I Am

Our tradition gives us a simple and powerful answer. A single Hebrew word: Hineini. Here I am.

• Hineini is the word Abraham utters when God calls him before the binding of his son Isaac — that most difficult test of faith.

• Hineini is the word Moses says at the burning bush — aflame but not consumed — when God interrupts his ordinary life with an extraordinary mission he doubted he could fulfill.

• Hineini is the word a confused Samuel whispers when God first calls him, teaching that hineini is not merely about showing up – it’s about truly listening, especially when we are uncertain.

• Hineini is the word Isaiah says when he’s called to speak God’s message to the people. Concerned they won’t listen, Isaiah still declares: “Hineini. Send me,” demonstrating courage, even when the path ahead is hard.

None knew what to expect, but all chose to show up fully – to be present.

That same word — Hineini — was used by Charlie.

In her eulogy, Erika Kirk recounted how, two years ago, Charlie was speaking extemporaneously and quoted Isaiah’s words: “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”
Backstage afterward, Erika teased him:

“Charlie, baby, please talk to me before you say something like that! Because when you pray those words, God takes you up on them.”

She was right. Hineini is not a casual word; it’s a declaration of courage and commitment. Erika believed God accepted Charlie’s offering when he said, “Here I am, use me.”

Whatever one’s views of Charlie’s politics, no one should face his fate for saying Hineini.

For us, reclaiming the American Idea and fulfilling our Judeo-Christian heritage means something profoundly different: answering the call to serve, to step forward, to be present — not with martyrdom, but with commitment and responsibility.

And that is exactly what Rosh Hashanah asks of us – to stand before God and before one another and say: Hineini. Here I am. Ready to listen, ready to forgive, ready to repair what is broken.

The Courage to Forgive

But living out Hineini requires something difficult and especially urgent: the courage to forgive.

Sometimes forgiveness can be playful. Consider the story of composer Giacomo Puccini. He had a tradition of sending cakes to his friends every Christmas. One year, after quarreling with the conductor Arturo Toscanini, he tried to cancel the order for Toscanini’s cake. But it was too late. The cake had already been delivered. So, Puccini sent a telegram:

“Cake sent by mistake.”
Toscanini shot back:
“Cake eaten by mistake.”

The quarrel ended in humor, and the friendship endured with grace.

Consider the story of Joseph. He’d been betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and unjustly imprisoned. If anyone had reason to be resentful, it was Joseph. But when his brothers went to Egypt to beg him for food, he forgave.

“Do not be troubled that you sold me here,” Joseph told them, “for it was to preserve life that God sent me to Egypt.”

Joseph chose to prioritize his mission as a patriarch of the Jewish people instead of dwelling on betrayal. He chose reconciliation instead of revenge. And by forgiving, he kept his family — and the future of the Jewish people — alive.

And forgiveness was powerfully on display in Erika Kirk’s stunning eulogy of her husband. Drawing on her faith, she recalled Jesus saying of his betrayers, “they know not what they do.” And she explained her own reluctant decision to forgive his assassin:

“That is what Christ did. That is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate.”

If Erika Kirk could summon forgiveness in such an unimaginable moment, surely we can forgive slights that pale by comparison.

Even President Trump, in his remarks following Erika’s, acknowledged that perhaps he, too, should show more grace.

The Charlie Effect

Some fear persuasion is no longer possible. Bill Bennett worried that Charlie Kirk might have been the last to believe it is. But the “Charlie Effect” is proving otherwise: people have been thinking again — even changing their minds.

Charlie may have started out as a “prove the other side wrong” debater, but as he matured, he learned that debate is for the best talker, while persuasion is for the best listener. By asking questions, modeling respect, and building trust, he opened hearts — and hearts open minds.

The surge of personal “turning point” testimonies even prompted Cardinal Timothy Dolan to call Charlie a modern-day St. Paul, saying he brought faith and conviction back into the public square where our founders intended it to be.

Wouldn’t the country — and especially our youth — be better off if more Americans focused on the values Charlie preached: God, family, country? Wouldn’t the assassin have been better off if he’d reached for a microphone instead of his grandfather’s hunting rifle?

He too might have been awakened — like Robbie Woodson, whose moving account was captured in a viral video. Woodson stands before the camera in his first-ever suit, bought by his wife. With tears welling, he admitted he had never been religious but vowed to be a better husband, father, and man — and to wear that suit to church.

“Charlie made me feel this way,” he said.

And that is what this season calls us to do: to help others feel their dignity, their worth, their humanity. To answer God’s call — and one another’s — by saying Hineini. Here I am.

What’s in Your Cup?

A Buddhist monk once asked his students:

“If you’re carrying a cup of coffee and someone bumps into you, why do you spill coffee?”
They answered: “Because someone bumped me.”
The monk replied: “No — you spilled coffee because that’s what was in your cup. If you had been carrying water, you would have spilled water.”

He continued:

“When life shakes you — as it always will — what spills out is whatever you are carrying. If you carry fear, anger, resentment, that’s what will spill. But if you carry love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, that’s what will spill.”

So… the question for us this Rosh Hashanah is simple: What are we carrying in our cups?

When we are shaken — and we will be — will anger and bitterness spill out, or love and compassion? Will it be judgment, or forgiveness? Division, or hope?

The shofar we are about to hear is a cry that interrupts our lives to demand a response from us. But importantly, it is also a cry of renewal, reminding us that we can begin again in this new year, 5786.

May this year be the year we say Hineini.
May it be the year our cups overflow with love – and the year Israel’s hostages are finally returned to their families.
And may we be inscribed not only in the Book of Life, but in one another’s hearts.

L’shanah tovah!

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Click below to make one:

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Coming next: my Yom Kippur reflections on the antidote to antisemitism — the time-tested ingredient that has filled the cups of Jews throughout the millennia, whenever the world has “shaken” them. Given this week’s stunning Gaza deal, those reflections feel timelier than ever.

If you were moved by the Buddhist parable that closes these Rosh Hashanah reflections, my Yom Kippur remarks draw on another wise Buddhist story.

When Talking Stops

I’m glad I waited to watch Charlie Kirk’s memorial before finishing this post. For days I struggled to write — distracted by the “he-had-it-coming” justifications of his murder, and by the claim that finding common ground is no longer possible.

But I refuse to accept that. This essay is my attempt to prove why — and to enlist you in restoring dialogue at a moment when America desperately needs it.

They say grief comes in waves. This summer I lost two dear friends far too soon, and then came the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old husband and father of two. Though we were only acquaintances, the footage replaying on my feed haunted me.

What could transform a straight-A student from a good family into an assassin whose bullets were engraved with “Hey fascist! Catch!”? Why do some tragedies — like 9/11 — provoke near-universal condemnation, while others — like October 7 or Charlie Kirk’s murder — are met with equivocation, even justification?

I’ve seen how disagreement can transform into hate, and then into violence. After co-founding a student newspaper to challenge the campus orthodoxy at Tufts University, my car was vandalized and smeared with the word FASCIST. Perhaps that’s why Charlie’s murder feels personal.

That’s why I return to the American Idea — the radical notion that people of differing backgrounds, beliefs, races, and religions can come together in the public square, not to destroy one another, but to forge a “more perfect union.”

In explaining his “Prove Me Wrong” campus tour, Charlie said:

“When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group.”

Isn’t that what accounts for the morally confused response to both Charlie’s murder and our post-October 7th world?

And if leaders themselves frame politics as war — as Senator Chris Murphy did the night before Charlie’s murder and conservatives did the next day – doesn’t that make it more likely someone will take them literally?

Bad Ideas, Broken Trust

Charlie believed that when people keep talking, bad ideas lose their power to hurt. That was the point of his campus dialogues: to show, with clarity and compassion, how ideas like gender ideology endanger real people.

As I wrote in my recent post, What I Learned in My Theater Board’s Gender Debate, behind radical gender ideology “are real people — children on irreversible medical paths, women denied fairness in sports and dignity in private spaces, and parents powerless to protect their kids.”

But bad ideas don’t just harm the vulnerable. They warp minds. Charlie’s assassin wasn’t born evil. He was radicalized by ideology that taught him to see disagreement not as debate, but as hate — and to see himself as a victim.

As then-Stanford student Julia Steinberg described in her Free Press column: because the oppressor/oppressed framework is the “intellectual north star” for her generation, “the oppressor is always wrong, and the oppressed are always right.”

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains this mindset with three “great untruths” now dominating education and culture:

• What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.

• Always trust your feelings.

• Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

If you believe these untruths, fragility replaces resilience, emotions eclipse reason, and every opponent becomes an enemy. Persuasion dies, and violence feels virtuous.

And the danger seeps into ordinary life:

Luke Hanson recounted how his wife spoke with three young nurses in Texas — ordinary professionals, not radicals — who shrugged that Charlie “got what was coming to him.” How can those sworn to the Hippocratic Oath, to do no harm, condone assassination?

This is the pattern: bad ideas take root in institutions, spread through echo chambers, and saturate the mainstream — where ordinary citizens lose their moral compass and the vulnerable pay the price. Which begs the question: where is this rage culture cultivated?

The Ecosystem of Intolerance

The answer is that it is being cultivated in the institutions that shape young minds, fund advocacy, and broadcast narratives. Together they form an ecosystem that doesn’t just nurture division — it normalizes intolerance.

As I wrote in my post, Antisemitism & Anti-Americanism Are Rising — What You Can Do:

“Instead of building resilience and civic virtue, children are taught to see themselves through inherited guilt or grievance — sorted into victims and oppressors, with identity replacing individuality”…Then, “ideological conformity hardens in universities where viewpoint diversity has collapsed, according to Haidt.”

Meant to train critical thinking, our education system has become an incubator of radical ideology — turning too many students into sheep, the very opposite of the independent thinkers Charlie challenged them to become.

At a recent workshop in Virginia, professors from the state’s top public universities praised revolutionary violence and “crashing the U.S. settler state.” One even told students that “grabbing the gun” could be liberating. Is this education — or indoctrination?

Funding the ideology and its advocacy are non-profits. Though designed to serve the public good, many are conduits for ideology, using taxpayer and foundation dollars to advance radical agendas. The Southern Poverty Law Center, once lauded for fighting the Klan, now brands mainstream religious and family organizations as “hate groups.”

Charlie’s assassin confessed he killed to ‘stop the hate.’ What does it say about our culture when the word hate is repeated so often it loses meaning — and becomes a license for violence?

The media is where the ideology pipeline ends and the megaphone begins. Young activists steeped in ideology graduate to become reporters, editors, and producers. They don’t just cover the news; they curate a narrative that consistently casts those with different beliefs as threats — even fascists.

In June 2024, The New Republic magazine ran a cover portraying Donald Trump as Adolf Hitler, with the headline “American Fascism.” What message does that send about fellow citizens who supported him — and what seed does that plant in the minds of those who didn’t?

The same pattern appeared after Charlie’s murder. The Nation published an article titled “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning.” It dismissed the tragedy, smearing him as a racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist whose life was not worthy of grief.

But here’s the irony: when detractors can’t muster the basic decency to refrain from smearing a young man who has just been murdered, doesn’t it turn fair-minded people away from them — and toward him? Aren’t the vigils, memorials, and heartfelt testimonials pouring in from around the world proof of that?

Novelist Stephen King didn’t take long to malign Charlie either, claiming that Kirk had advocated stoning gays to death. It wasn’t true, but inside his silo it felt true — and spread. King later apologized. Given Charlie’s magnanimity, I believe he would have accepted the apology. After all, look how he reached out to Van Jones.

The night before he was killed, Charlie messaged Jones to invite him on his show for a conversation about crime and race: “I would be a gentleman, as I know you would be. We can disagree about the issues agreeably.” Jones shared the whole message after Charlie’s death, visibly shaken, and called the assassination “horrifying and heartbreaking.”

That’s who Charlie was: not the caricature of a bigot, but a man who modeled the American Idea — where persuasion and civility coexist.

Beyond the Hateful Caricature

For those willing to examine Charlie’s public statements — as millions are daily — the record shows the opposite of what The Nation or King claimed. As Charlie stated often:

“Gay people should be welcome in the conservative movement. As Christians we are called to love everyone. I will always stand against people who wish to establish their own personal values as a reason to kick others out of our movement.”

So readers can judge for themselves, I encourage you to watch this viral video compilation by Amir Odom, a Black, gay former colleague of Charlie’s. Odom highlights Charlie’s actual statements on the most controversial issues including race and gender — words often misrepresented by media, activists, and even President Obama.

So, I ask: which do you believe — the media caricature, or the man himself?

Even ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel showed networks realize they can’t afford to dismiss half their audience, as veteran journalist Mark Halperin noted.

Speech as Violence, Violence Against Speech

A new Wall Street Journal survey shows an alarming generational divide on whether violence is ever justified to silence speech. While 93% of baby boomers say “never,” only 56% of Gen Z agrees. Nearly half of young adults now believe that under the “right” conditions, shutting someone up with fists or bullets can be acceptable.

That’s what makes this tragedy so haunting. Charlie’s assassin came from a good, patriotic family — just like my own 22-year-old son. Yet while my son felt called to defend America’s ideals by entering Officer Candidate School to be a Navy pilot, the assassin reached for his grandfather’s hunting rifle to murder Charlie for his ideas.

Why the divergence? Erika Kirk, in her moving eulogy, answered it with stunning grace:

“My husband wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life.”

Her words distilled Charlie’s mission: to give young men pride in country, hope for the future, and the grounding of faith and family before radical ideology could claim them.

J.K. Rowling, who has faced a mob for defending biological reality, put it bluntly:

And here’s where the difference between “cancel culture” and “consequences culture” matters. Charlie knew the distinction. Free speech means the government may not censor you — it doesn’t mean you keep your job if your audience walks away. Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t censored by the government — though the FCC chair, wrongly in my view, did weigh in. Kimmel’s show, a ratings failure, was suspended by his network, which, like any employer, answers to its affiliates and its viewers. Losing a show is not the same as losing your life.

Prove Him Right

Some say persuasion is no longer possible. Bill Bennett wrote that he feared Charlie may have been the last to believe it. But the ‘Charlie Effect’ proves otherwise: people are thinking again — even changing their minds.

Charlie may have started out as an “own-the-libs” debater, but as he matured, he learned that debate is for the best talker, while persuasion is for the best listener. By asking questions, modeling respect, and building trust, he opened hearts — and hearts open minds.

The surge of personal “turning point” testimonies prompted Cardinal Timothy Dolan to call Charlie a modern-day St. Paul:

“It’s a revival of … value and truth and conviction… an elevation of the role of faith back into the public square where our founders intended it to be.”

Wouldn’t the country and our youth be better off if more Americans focused on the values Charlie preached — God, family, country?

If Charlie’s assassin had only engaged with him, he might have been awakened, like Robbie Woodson. In a must-watch viral video, Robbie stood in his first-ever suit, bought by his wife. With tears welling, he admitted he had never been religious but vowed to be a better husband, father and man — and to wear that suit to church. “Charlie made me feel this way,” he says.

That’s the Charlie Effect: proof you can’t silence an idea by ending a life. You only prove its weight. As Whoopie Goldberg noted, “just because you take somebody out doesn’t mean the message is going to stop.”

And then there was Erika Kirk, who in her grief became the embodiment of the grace her husband preached. She did the unimaginable in her eulogy: forgave Charlie’s assassin.

“I forgive him,” she said. “Because that is what Christ did. That is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate.”

This, too, is the Charlie Effect:

This moment is not just political; it is spiritual. The real divide is not left versus right, but between those who see what Charlie’s life — and Erika’s grace — mean for our country and our humanity, and those who choose not to. The choice is ours.

I leave you with this parable: A man once stood before God, his heart breaking over the world’s injustice. “Lord,” he cried, “why don’t you send help?” God replied: “I did. I sent you.”

We are the luckiest people ever to walk this earth. If we want our children — and their great-great-grandchildren — to be able to say the same, then it’s our turn to Prove Charlie Right. To live the American Idea not by silencing, but by speaking; not by hating, but by hearing; not by dividing, but by dialoguing — so good things happen.

Shanah Tovah. May this season of reflection and forgiveness inspire us to embrace dialogue, grace, and renewal as the path to repairing our broken world.

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A Story of Moral Clarity to Light the Way

Sometimes you witness something that feels like a glimpse of the divine. I felt that at a recent gala for Best Buddies — the nonprofit founded by Anthony Kennedy Shriver to support people with intellectual disabilities. There, Shriver shared a powerful story about his aunt, Rosemary Kennedy.

At age 23, Rosemary underwent a lobotomy — a tragic intervention her father, Joseph Kennedy, was told would “fix” her. But as Anthony reminded us: no one needs fixing.

“No matter how disabled or different someone may be,” he said, “everyone has a gift from God.”

Then came a stream of young performers — not defined by special needs, but by extraordinary gifts and courage. They mesmerized us.

It was an evening full of grace — a joyful celebration of human dignity, potential, and divine design. And it left me with a realization that feels both ancient and urgently needed:

Every person is created in the image of God, sent into the world to contribute their unique light.

What the world needs now is a revival of the dignity of difference — and the moral clarity to see past the labels that divide us.

Instead of sorting people into moral categories based on physical traits, what if we searched for their uniquely divine nature? What if we reclaimed the idea — foundational to both America and Judaism — that every person is a soul with agency, capable of goodness and redemption?

At a time of rising division and violence, remembering the dignity of difference may be the only way to preserve the America that Abraham Lincoln called “the last best hope of Earth,” and the best way to honor the 250th anniversary of the founding creed declared on July 4, 1776.

But not everyone sees difference this way. A darker moral vision now dominates our education system, universities, and our politics — one that dehumanizes difference, corrupts justice, and has turned antisemitism into a cause for applause.

Moral Beacon: Dignity doesn’t need fixing. It needs honoring.

A New Celebrity, an Old Hatred, and a Dark Worldview

Just before the Best Buddies gala — and the start of America’s 250th birthday year — a new political celebrity was crowned in New York City: Zohran Mamdani, a self-described anti-capitalist and “democratic socialist” who denounces Western civilization but refuses to condemn the chant “Globalize the Intifada.”

Mamdani presents himself as a bold truth-teller standing up for the oppressed. But beneath the slogans is a dark worldview — one that weaponizes difference, sorts humanity into oppressors and oppressed, glorifies resistance regardless of victims, and rationalizes violence in the name of justice.

I wrote about this moral inversion in my post-October 7th column: How Do We Ensure All Babies Matter?

Why did the terror attacks of 9/11 provoke near-universal condemnation, while the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust triggered instantaneous global rallies in support of the terrorists? Even international feminist groups ignored the rape, murder, and kidnapping of women in Israel.

Despite graphic bodycam footage, eyewitness testimony of beheadings, rape, and torture — and Hamas leaders pledging to repeat the attacks “until Israel is annihilated” — the protests didn’t condemn the perpetrators. They condemned the victims. Israel was accused of genocide — while actual genocides in Syria, Yemen, and Darfur were ignored.

To understand the roots of this mindset, consider then-Stanford student Julia Steinberg’s reflection.

In her essay Why My Generation Hates Jews, Julia explains that her peers, raised on social media, absorb the world in “tweet-length and infographic-sized” slogans. The oppressor/oppressed framework, she writes, became their “intellectual north star.” And once Jews were deemed “oppressors,” Israel became indefensible.

“The oppressor is always wrong, and the oppressed are always right.”

That moral confusion became a drumbeat — and in May, the global intifada came to America:

• In Washington, D.C., a young couple — Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky — were murdered outside the Jewish Museum by a man shouting “Free Palestine.”

• In Boulder, an illegal immigrant firebombed a rally for Hamas hostages. An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor later died of her burns.

These weren’t isolated crimes. They were the natural consequence of a worldview that flips victim and villain — and incites violence in the name of justice.

It’s also happening where we work and volunteer, and each of us can be a moral beacon in resisting it.

As I shared in my post What I Learned in My Theater Board’s Gender Debate, I served on the board of a local theater for two decades — it was my happy place. When young staffers proposed a Diversity Committee to promote “inclusivity,” I joined.

Though intended to value difference, diverging views were met with suspicion and scolding. I found our conversations divisive, disheartening, and increasingly untethered from our mission. The process felt performative, yet offered a glimpse into moral tribalism.

One moment stands out. In a private conversation following a committee meeting, a staffer (who left the organization shortly thereafter) and I were discussing historical trauma. I’d cited Ukraine and Israel as cautionary tales of how false land narratives can incite conflict.

The response? “But the Jews have only been in Israel for 75 years.”

Later, after I shared how my grandmother had lost family in the Holocaust and faced antisemitism in America, I asked if we can ever move from grievance to gratitude.

The reply: “But the Jews control so much of the world.” That wasn’t ignorance. It was indoctrination.

When I later shared the exchange with theater colleagues — staff and board — they were horrified and relieved the staffer had moved on. Their reaction reminded me: this ideology isn’t everywhere. But it spreads quickly — especially when it goes unchallenged.

That’s the larger point. Ideas born in elite institutions and activist circles don’t stay there. They filter into nonprofits, workplaces, school boards — and eventually into policy. What begins as fringe soon becomes institutionalized.

Absorbed in classrooms, affirmed by media, and defended with moral certainty, this is moral tribalism: the belief that justice flows from identity, not action. In this worldview, the oppressed are always righteous, the different always suspect — and violence is justified if aimed at the “right” target.

Mamdani didn’t invent this mindset. He’s what happens when it graduates from the classroom into public office.

Unless we challenge it, moral tribalism will continue replacing the self-evident truths America was founded on — human equality, the dignity of difference, and the belief that we are all created in the image of God — with false creeds of grievance, guilt, and group blame.

Moral Beacon: Truth isn’t tribal. It’s universal.

From Education to Indoctrination: The Betrayal of Young Minds

To understand how moral tribalism spreads, follow the pipeline — from resistance slogans to justifications for murder.

It begins in K–12, where education has been hijacked. Instead of building resilience and civic virtue, children are taught to see themselves through inherited guilt or grievance — sorted into victims and oppressors, with identity replacing individuality. This isn’t education. It’s indoctrination. And it’s harming young minds.

It isn’t just bad curriculum. It’s about who controls the institutions.

As David Bernstein warns in Why Fighting Antisemitism in K–12 Schools Isn’t Enough, radical activists are capturing school boards and teachers’ unions, pushing ideologies hostile to America, Israel, and Jews.

In California, Jewish parents who raised concerns were vilified by school board members for their “economic power” and “segregationist” past. This is how antisemitism spreads — not just through lessons, but through institutional power.

We can’t just complain. To restore education to its proper mission, we must run for school boards, support reform candidates, and reclaim our schools.

Ideological conformity hardens in universities, where viewpoint diversity has collapsed since the 1990s, as social psychologist Jonathan Haidt observed. Entire departments now revolve around “studies” — grievance-based disciplines that elevate indignation, tribalism, and imported hatreds, often funded by regimes in Qatar and China.

Groups like Heterodox Academy are working to reverse the trend — urging universities to recommit to open inquiry and intellectual freedom.

At Stanford, Israeli scientist Shay Laps was hired to develop breakthrough insulin treatment but was driven out after his research was sabotaged, not for his science, but for being Jewish and Israeli. His lawsuit outlines pervasive antisemitism, now acknowledged by Stanford itself. Jew-hatred doesn’t just harm Jews. It holds back humanity.

A recent report in The Free Press – Qatar and China Are Pouring Billions into Elite American Universities – explains why a focus on elite schools matter:

Part of the answer lies in a study published last year in Frontiers of Social Psychology that found a strong correlation between universities that receive foreign funding from authoritarian countries and a rise in antisemitic incidents. The study concludes “that providing massive financial support to campuses with ascendant illiberalism serves the interests of foreign actors hostile to the U.S. in particular or liberal democracy in general.”

At my alma mater, Tufts — which receives Qatari and Chinese funding — a course titled “Colonizing Palestine” was offered in Colonialism and Gender Studies, with no counterpoint.

Dissent isn’t debated. It’s punished. The result? Students who owe more than ever for degrees worth less than ever. No wonder 51% of Gen Z graduates say college was a waste of money — burdened with debt, armed with slogans, and primed for resentment.

Not surprisingly, while 75% of Americans support Israel, nearly half of 18–24-year-olds say they support Hamas, according to June’s Harvard/Harris poll.

From there, the worldview metastasizes in the media. Many journalists — trained in the same echo chambers — amplify narratives that fit the script. The New York Times referenced Israel as a genocide perpetrator nine times more often than it covered Rwanda during its actual genocide.

When UN official Tom Fletcher falsely claimed that 14,000 babies in Gaza would die within 48 hours, major outlets ran with it. NBC, TIME, and Good Morning America all spread the smear, even after it was debunked — just one day before the D.C. shooting.

We’ve raised a generation ill-equipped to challenge these narratives. Knowledge-seeking and critical thinking are out. Identity, grievance, and emotional conformity are in.

Elias Rodriguez – the D.C. shooter – is a cautionary tale. A college-educated Marxist, he posted “Death to AmeriKKKa” and echoed Hamas propaganda nearly word for word. In his manifesto, he wrote: “Perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.”

That’s the language of genocide — taught in American classrooms.

Zohran Mamdani didn’t come out of nowhere. At Bowdoin College, he founded its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. His rise – documented in The Education Of Zohran Mamdani – proves the system is working as designed.

And as a candidate for mayor, Mamdani proposed shifting property tax burdens from poorer neighborhoods to what he calls “richer and whiter” ones — effectively codifying group blame into public policy

This didn’t happen overnight. When Harvard kept ROTC off campus for 40 years, it sent a message: defense of country is suspect. Patriotism is passé. In that vacuum, grievance politics grew. And when grievance needs a scapegoat, it often finds the Jews.

While moral tribalism has taken root among progressives, antisemitic narratives are also gaining traction on the populist right — where figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens amplify conspiracy theories that echo anti-Israel animus.

Carlson has praised voices like discredited WWII “historian” Daryl Cooper, who called for bombing Tel Aviv after Iran was attacked. He has increasingly used his platform to demoralize Americans: mocking our history, undermining American exceptionalism, and giving our adversaries — from Putin to Iran’s president — a stage to lecture us about morality. Owens has accused Jews of “exploiting” victimhood, questioned whether Joseph Mengele committed atrocities and maligned the American-Israel alliance.

Antisemitism isn’t just un-American — it’s anti-American. And the more we trade our founding truths for tribal lies, the more we betray ourselves and our children’s future.

Moral Beacon: A just society teaches its children how to think, not what to think.

From Collapse to Clarity: The War Hamas Started, the Peace They Didn’t Expect

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a war to end normalization and unite the Arab world against Israel. It was the worst security failure in Israeli history, shaking public faith in the country’s vaunted defense.

Just 21 months later, Hamas lies shattered. Iran’s proxy network is in disarray.

As Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz noted last month, Israel has “defeated Hamas, crippled Hezbollah, blinded Iran’s air defenses, damaged its weapons production, toppled Assad’s regime in Syria, and struck a blow to the axis of evil. The Houthis are the last to stand.”

It echoes the prophecy of Genesis 12:2–3:

"I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you… I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Combined with Israel’s battlefield breakthroughs, joint U.S.–Israeli strikes degraded Iran’s nuclear program, weakened its proxies, and launched a historic realignment — one that promises a safer, more stable, and more prosperous Middle East.

Syria is exploring a non-aggression pact. Saudi Arabia edges toward normalization. In Hebron — a longtime Hamas stronghold — five senior sheikhs signed a letter recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and pledging peace.

The irony is stunning: A massacre meant to erase Israel has instead cemented its regional legitimacy.

And yet, here at home, many have been taught to distrust the civilized — and excuse the barbaric.

As Brendan O’Neill — a British writer with roots in the Labour movement — told Joe Rogan:

“Hamas committed a genocidal assault, and yet it’s Israel that’s accused of genocide. It’s a complete inversion of truth and morality.”

His message demands one honest question:

Do we want to live in a world where terrorists can hide behind civilians and win — simply because we’re too afraid to call evil by its name?

Moral clarity doesn’t mean moral perfection. It means recognizing the difference between flawed democracies that protect human dignity — and terrorist regimes that destroy it. That’s why the American-Israeli alliance matters more than ever.

In a world drowning in moral relativism, the friendship between these two nations — rooted in shared values and a commitment to liberty — stands as one of history’s greatest alliances.

Moral Beacon: Peace begins when evil is named.

Reclaiming Truth, One Conversation at a Time

If moral clarity begins by naming evil, it continues by equipping people to stand against it — with courage, compassion, and conviction. That doesn’t mean shouting louder. It means making better arguments.

In a culture that rewards outrage and punishes dissent, many well-meaning people stay silent — not because they’re cowards, but because they don’t know what to say, or fear saying the wrong thing.

But you can’t go wrong asking clarifying questions. When posed with sincerity, they can disarm hostility, expose moral confusion, and persuade the persuadable.

The right questions help people check their premises, explore unconsidered facts, own their answers, and arrive at your point of view while feeling heard:

• Don’t Israel’s leaders have a duty to protect their citizens?

• What would you want your government to do if terrorists used civilians as shields to attack your family?

• Is the Free Palestine movement’s goal to help Palestinians — or to use them to demonize Israel?

• If Palestinians had moral leaders who believed their lives mattered, wouldn’t peace be more likely?

These aren’t rhetorical tricks. They’re invitations for people to think again. For hostiles, they expose the weakness of the narrative. For allies, they model the courage of speaking up.

Because the only way to reclaim truth is one conversation at a time.

Moral Beacon: Asking the right questions can break the wrong spell.

Conclusion: What the World Needs Now

We live in confusing times — but confusion is not our inheritance.

We are heirs to a tradition that proclaims no one needs fixing and everyone has a gift worth honoring. That was Anthony Shriver’s message at the Best Buddies gala. And it’s ours to carry forward.

Today, a rising generation is being taught the opposite — that identity defines morality, grievance defines justice, and difference needs to be “fixed.” From Tehran to TikTok, this worldview is spreading. But it won’t prevail, because we have truth and moral clarity… and each other.

Contrast that with Iran’s dream: a world fixed through death, domination, and ruin. A regime that imposes its will with terror — and acid.

When terrorism is your ideology, ruin is your legacy:

We don’t need fixing — and we don’t need to justify our right to exist, to flourish, or to protect what we love. Whether as Americans or Jews, the way to counter hatred is by living our values and passing them on with purpose and pride.

At 250 years old, America remains the world’s greatest experiment in self-critical, multiracial democracy. The truths declared in 1776 united a divided people — and built the freest, most decent, and most prosperous nation in history. Reviving those founding ideals can unite us again today.

Civilizations don’t thrive by shaming their inheritance. They thrive through hope, responsibility, and the courage to tell their story well.

The Jewish people are the longest-living civilization in history — not because they’re powerful, but because they’ve stayed faithful to their values and passed them on. That’s the key to America's future, too.

If we want to preserve and pass on what matters, we must reform the institutions shaping the next generation. That means K–12 schools that teach academics, not grievance, and universities that elevate inquiry over ideology.

Together, as “Best Buddies,” America and Israel are doing more than defending liberty — they’re remaking the Middle East and inspiring a better world. And we, their citizens and inheritors, have a duty to ensure the story continues.

This is my prayer:
May we remember the rich American and Judeo-Christian inheritance that gave rise to our freedoms — and may we secure that future with wisdom, courage, and grace.
May we lead lives worthy of honor.
May we become, together, what the world needs now: Moral beacons.

I’d love to hear your thoughts — especially if you see things differently. I’ve appreciated 2WAY — a new news and commentary platform launched by veteran journalist Mark Halperin. It brings people with differing views into real conversation. That’s what I want for this page. If something made you think again — click the comment button below.

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I’ve been working on a post that keeps getting overtaken by events—assassinations, firebombings, protests masquerading as justice, and now war in the Middle East. It’s about why lies are fueling hate and violence, and what we can do about it. The story picks up where I left off in my earlier post about what I learned from younger staffers during my time on a local theater board. I’ll return to that soon. But my first Father’s Day without my dad prompted me to tell a more personal story.

After my dad passed away last August, my mourning process was upended by a months-long battle — one I was thrust into by his wife, starting with whether I would even be allowed to eulogize him.

Thankfully, I prevailed. And as I look back, I’m especially proud that — despite the trauma — I was able to summon the clarity to express not just who he was, but who I became because of him.

It was in that moment that I realized: the most powerful form of persuasion we ever undertake is the one we perform on ourselves.

As I shared in a previous post, The Persuasion We Often Overlook: Ourselves, the ability to reframe—to re-examine, to re-understand, and ultimately re-program our memory—is one of the deepest acts of strength we can muster. That work allowed me to stand up, speak with love, clarity, and grace, and reclaim my relationship with my dad—not as it was in its most painful moments, but as I came to understand it at its most redemptive.

What follows is the eulogy I delivered for him. It’s not just a tribute to a complicated, extraordinary man—it’s a testament to the persuasive power of gratitude, resilience, and the will to see beyond hurt.

If you're navigating grief, forgiveness, or fractured family dynamics, I hope these words offer encouragement—not just to express your truth with grace, but to reclaim your power to define the meaning of your own story.

Eulogy for My Father, Donald Sturm

Below is the video of the eulogy I delivered for my dad and below that is the text. It was hard-won—but one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever written or spoken.

“Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

Those are the final words from my favorite Broadway tune, “For Good,” from the show Wicked, and it describes perfectly how countless people have been touched by my dad.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught that the world is a book in which our life is a chapter. Whether others reading it will be inspired depends on our ability to make a blessing of our life by turning life into a blessing. There’s no better example of that than my dad, who—as the architect of his fate—created the future he wanted.

What an amazing man, and what a privilege to have had him as my teacher, role model, protector, champion, and Dad. For a glimmer of my attachment, I share my letter from sleep-away camp written in six-year-old chicken scratch:

“I love you so much. Will you come get me? I want to come home. Please send candy. Love, Melanie.”

To punctuate my longing, I drew a self-portrait of me crying. It worked.

So enamored of my dad, I only ever wanted to grow up and be like him. Near our house was a stately building with a tall spire in which I assumed my commanding father worked, doing very important things….turns out, that was the Presbyterian church. The imposing green building near downtown Omaha where he actually worked officed another guy, almost as important: Warren Buffett.

Whenever I went away in summers, he’d send me frequent letters — dictated and typed— describing his business and social activities, his reactions to the news, and always a Wall Street Journal editorial and investment banking report. Imagine the confidence boost from having a dad who believed I was capable of comprehending such mature matters.

And when I encountered adversity — like wearing an ugly back brace to treat my scoliosis — my dad, who’d seen real obstacles in the army, convinced me that I had the grit to overcome mine. This became the theme of my college application: hardships are life’s training program for becoming resilient, compassionate, and wise.

And when our son Zane confronted his challenges, he too absorbed this lesson—even writing about it in his college essay.

A couple weeks ago, my dad encouraged Zane by telling him he had all the essentials. Zane said, “I’ll try to be as great as you,” to which my dad replied, “Greater.”

As Rabbi Sacks also taught, “To be immortal, all you need to do is engrave your values on the minds of your children.” And my dad didn’t stop with his children. Everyone here today and beyond — his extended family, anyone who’s worked with him, those he counted as friends, the beneficiaries of his philanthropic largess — can attest to the indelible footprints he left on many hearts and minds.

As much as my dad valued his business relationships, he cherished his family and cultivated an enduring ethic of gratitude — and its by-product, love. To their dying days, he was his parents’ doting son. Today, their names — Sophie and Mark Sturm — adorn the Denver Botanical Gardens Theatre, thanks to his generosity.

In his final days, Susan buoyed his spirits with a stream of family and close friends who recounted how he touched their lives. I heard my cousin Sibby thank him for calling her weekly after her father died when she was a teenager. My cousin Mark visited last week. He told me he was blown away when my dad asked if there was anything he could do for him.

As his weakening body betrayed him, my dad showed how to face his own demise with grace, dignity, humor, and especially gratitude for a life well-lived.
How extraordinary that he was able to say he’d accomplished all his life goals.

Though having been a man who carried many burdens, he didn’t want to be a burden himself. Though he’d lost his booming voice and lacked the breath to articulate all that his sharp mind wanted to say, he did not lose his humor, as this recent story testifies:

“How are you?” the hospital doctor asked entering his room.

“That’s what you’re supposed to tell me,” my dad replied.

“Did you have a good lunch?” the doctor queried. Lifting the corner of his mouth to smile, he replied,

“Depends on your definition of good.”

In the end, the good karma he’d created came back to him in spades, as Susan, Stephen, and Florence Nightingale — I mean Emily! — were relentless in helping him live his remaining days to his fullest, and in peace and relative comfort.

I am so profoundly grateful for his life, which is proof that the gate to eternity is not death; it’s the good we do that continues—long after we are here—to beget further good.

May the blessing of his life give rise to an ever-widening ripple of goodness. And may we all be inspired by his life’s chapter to live lives similarly worthy of remembrance so the world will be that much better because we too have been in it.

I’d love to hear from you!

Have you ever had to reframe a relationship in order to find peace—or to honor someone complicated with love?

Feel free to share your reflections in the comments. You never know who you might help by sharing your story.

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That’s the reality Colorado families could soon face under a bill advancing in the state legislature. And in Maryland, the Supreme Court is now weighing whether parents have any say at all over LGBTQ content taught in elementary school.

Policies once dismissed as fringe are ubiquitous. Silence shouldn’t become complicity.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two summers ago, I saw where this leads — not while in a courtroom, but around a boardroom table.

I’d served on the board of a beloved theater company for over two decades. Then one day, a concerned parent forwarded me the children’s program Pronoun Policy, which required kids as young as five to introduce themselves by both name and pronoun. If a child didn’t volunteer a pronoun, that child would be labeled “they.”

I was mystified. At a board meeting weeks earlier, we’d agreed that teaching gender ideology was not the theater’s role. If a child had special considerations — disability, learning difference, or gender concern — staff would address it privately, in consultation with the family.

It turns out, the Pronoun Policy had been in place for over a year.

How I used my voice to change this policy – and why you should be willing to do the same – is what this post is about.

Because now, as I watch headlines mount….

• Biological males in women’s sports and prisons,

• European countries shuttering their pediatric gender medicine programs after scientific studies (the UK’s Cass Review and the US’s HHS Review) confirmed the harm

• The unanimous UK Supreme Court ruling that the “concept of sex is binary”

• The US Supreme Court weighing parental opt-out rights in public schools

• And Colorado advancing House Bill 25-1312, which could classify parental disagreement with a child’s gender identity as abuse….

…I realize the concerns I raised back then – once considered fringe – are now front-page news.

And given my back-story, I often think, there but for the grace of God go I.

I was a tomboy who dreamed of being a businessman in a suit with a briefcase. If I were a child today, I might have believed what exploding numbers of girls now do — that I was “born in the wrong body.” A well-meaning teacher might have celebrated me for “coming out,” and ushered me onto a path that would have robbed me of my husband, my motherhood, and the life I now cherish.

But I was allowed to grow up, and that’s what I want for every child.

Realizing that goal requires more of us to speak up — not to win arguments, but to win people. It means asking questions, telling stories, and helping others discover the common ground they instinctively share — even if they don’t yet realize it.

But how do you summon the courage and composure to speak when facing hostility? How do you work with silent allies too intimidated to join you?

Why I Spoke Up: Protecting Children and Women from Gender Ideology

At first, I dismissed the pronoun trend as performative, even silly. But several eye-opening developments convinced me that gender ideology – and the pronoun rituals it spawned – are fueling an unscientific, ideologically driven experiment on vulnerable children.

Even the New York Times has raised concerns – about the long-term risks of youth medicalization and the quiet trend of schools socially transitioning children without parental consent. The Times also verified the claims of whistleblower Jamie Reed, a self-described “queer woman” married to a “transman” – who denounced the care model she once administered at a leading pediatric gender clinic.

Her conclusion was chilling: what’s happening to kids in these clinics is “morally and medically appalling.” Far from preventing suicide, gender medicine can lead to sterility, loss of sexual function and even death.

Meanwhile, champion swimmer Riley Gaines was sounding alarms about injustices facing women in sports. At the 2022 NCAA Women’s Championship, she tied Lia Thomas, a biological male who had previously competed in the men’s division. Gaines was forced to undress in front of Thomas and then watched him awarded the trophy. Her case became a symbol of what women are being asked to sacrifice — not just their dignity, but chances for scholarships, titles and recognition.

Gaines was vilified for speaking out. But she later tweeted:

That resonated. If silence enables harm, then speaking up — even when it’s uncomfortable — is a moral duty.

So when I received the children’s program Pronoun Policy, I knew this was my moment to speak. To protect children from confusion and irreversible harm. To defend fairness for girls. And to keep parents from being erased from their own children’s lives.

Braving the Backlash: What Happens When You’re the One Who Speaks Up

After reading the Pronoun Policy, I emailed the theater board’s executive committee. To clarify my concerns, I linked to a short video of Katie Lennon – a young “detransitioner” who had just testified before the New Hampshire legislature.

Katie explained how, as a teen ashamed of her changing body, she asked to be called by a male name and pronouns – and everyone affirmed her. When that wasn’t enough, she escalated to testosterone and irreversible surgeries.

“All I became was a mutilated and abused version of my old self,” she now says. “Social transition is a big deal — and we’re lying when we say any of this is reversible.”

I thought sharing Katie’s story might spark a thoughtful discussion by the committee. Instead, I walked into a storm.

The theater’s managing director came to the meeting loaded for bear. Shaking with outrage, he launched into a defense of gender-affirming care, citing medical and academic papers. He accused me of being regressive, transphobic, and politically fringe — even taking offense that I’d used the label “gender dysphoric,” a mental illness term. His message was unmistakable: YOU are the problem.

Stunned by the hostility – but encouraged by the knowledge that our board (which included a gay member) wanted to keep ideology out of the children’s program – I chose to respond with calm and grace. I asked if we could at least agree on this: we both want to protect children, even if our methods differ. My approach, I explained, was to handle special considerations privately, in consultation with parents.

Then I asked:

Why plant the seed in a child’s mind that if they don’t like their body, they can change it? Who likes their body during puberty, anyway?

And if we teach kids to choose their own pronouns, aren’t we confusing them — and potentially pitting them against their parents? Why would we want to do that?

Finally, I shared my own story. As a tomboy ashamed of my developing body, I might have been swept into this movement myself. But my mother affirmed me in the truest sense of the word — not by changing who I was, but by helping me accept myself.

“You can be a girl and still play with the boys,” she told me. “You can grow up to be anything you want.”

Her love — and her message — stayed with me. That, I told the committee, is what real gender-affirming care looks like: not reshaping a child’s body but reassuring the child that they’re loved just the way they are.

That’s the kind of care and affirmation we should be protecting, not overriding.

In the end, it was agreed that children would no longer be asked to declare pronouns. But the culture of the organization – once a haven of collegiality and artistic joy – now felt politicized and tribal. Despite my decades of service, I felt marginalized. Without the trust and camaraderie that had made my work so fulfilling, I stepped away.

The Deeper Harms: Who Pays the Price for Our Silence?

These debates aren’t theoretical. Behind the slogans are real people — children on irreversible medical paths, women denied fairness and dignity, and parents powerless to protect their kids.

When I raised concerns, stories like Katie Lennon and Abigail Martinez, a California woman whose daughter was taken from her care and later died by suicide — were dismissed. Rather than grapple with the consequences of the transgender contagion, some declined to enter the fray, some urged accepting progressive norms. It’s about inclusivity, after all.

But who’s being included — and at whose expense?

The deeper harm isn’t just what happens to kids. It’s what happens to society when we lose the moral clarity to say: This is wrong. When we sideline parents and outsource compassion to people who don’t know our children, we don’t just lose control. We lose trust. And children lose their safeguard.

That’s why I know that speaking up was the right thing to do. So, school signs like this:

…can no longer lead to this:

The Tipping Point: Truth-Tellers Who Turned the Tide

One reason the trans movement is finally losing ground — in medicine, law, and culture — is that a coalition of truth-tellers refused to stay silent.

J.K. Rowling

Perhaps no figure has had greater impact than J.K. Rowling. Her carefully worded critiques of gender ideology — particularly its erasure of women and exploitation of confused youth — have gone viral, despite relentless backlash. On the five-year anniversary of her first public stand, she tweeted:

Bill Maher

Even comedian Bill Maher has become a voice of reason. In a recent monologue, he called out the transgender movement’s manipulation of children:

Children aren’t miniature adults – they’re gullible morons who’ll believe anything to please grown-ups... Endlessly talking about gender to six-year-olds isn’t just inappropriate. It’s what the law would call entrapment.

…And if you think some of that isn't going on with gender in schools, you're not watching enough Tik Tok videos.

Watch his monologue here:

Kate Harris

Among the most courageous voices is Kate Harris, co-founder of the UK’s LGB Alliance. She is part of a growing movement of gay and lesbian advocates warning that gender ideology isn’t liberating same-sex-attracted youth — it’s erasing them. By pushing gender-nonconforming kids — many of whom would grow up to be gay — toward hormones and surgery, it has become a modern form of conversion therapy.

When the trans activist group Mermaids sued to revoke LGB Alliance’s charitable status, Kate helped lead the defense to victory, at great personal cost. The five-day hearing was turned into a verbatim play by Irish journalist and playwright Phelim McAleer, also on Substack. The play’s filmed version, Trans on Trial, captures every shocking moment.

Kate’s closing remarks from the trial transported me back to my own childhood:

I was put in the boys’ section at school for sports. I was pretty lonely. If I were 12 today, I’m 100% sure I would have jumped at the special attention of being told I might be a boy. I might have fallen for the line that I was ‘born in the wrong body.’ I would’ve pushed for puberty blockers, hormones, surgery — and I would have been harmed.

But I was allowed to grow up. And I became a happy lesbian.

Watch Kate’s stirring closing argument starting at 1:28:00 in Trans on Trial

Final Word: Use Your Voice

While my story differs from Kate’s, our message is the same.

We can protect children, not by affirming their confusion, but by affirming their right to grow up whole. Rather than change children’s bodies, let’s change minds — by helping people Think Again.

If I’ve persuaded you of anything, I hope it’s this: when one person speaks up — calmly, clearly, graciously — others often find the courage and the language to speak up too.

So, if you’ve hesitated to speak, here’s your encouragement: You don’t have to raise your voice to make a difference. You just have to use it.

Speak up — not in anger, but in love. Not to punish, but to protect.

Think Again: Shouldn’t every child have the same chance Kate and I did — to grow up whole?

I’d love to hear your thoughts — or your story. Join the conversation in the comments below.

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The Post I Need to Postpone…

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” —Mark Twain

That’s why I’m taking my time with a post I’ve been writing about President Trump’s April 2nd “Liberation Day” announcement. As the dramatic consequences unfold, it’s shaping up to be one of the most consequential stories of our time. Amid roiling markets and rapid-fire news—including Trump’s own pause to Think Again about the most punishing reciprocal tariffs—my mind has whipsawed between whether we’re living through “Tariffmageddon” or “Deal-a-Rama,” a crisis or an opportunity.

But another liberation story of immense consequence—the Exodus—calls me to turn my time and attention to its retelling this weekend. So this post is both a pause and a preview: a glimpse of the deeper analysis to come, and a reflection on the Passover and Easter season we’re entering—a time to celebrate freedom, renewal, and the enduring power of story to inspire our better angels.

A Dialogue That Made Me Think Again

Shortly after “Liberation Day,” my friend Glenn Beaton – author of the witty Substack The Aspen beat – published a post defending Trump’s tariff strategy: The tariffs are a needed blow to the ‘progressive’ tax system.

While Glenn’s post focused on how tariffs could replace our broken tax system, I was concerned with the broader picture: the rollout, the perception of American exceptionalism, and what this meant for the American Dream.

So, I jumped into the comments. What followed was an illuminating exchange. I challenged Glenn’s optimism:

Yes, it’s true that the international trade system is not currently free. We’re all for free trade as long as it is fair trade, so go after the worst trade protectionists to make trade more free and fair. However, this universal tariff policy seems arbitrary and irrational. Isn’t that unfair?

….If the world perceives the US as arbitrary and punitive rather than principled and predictable, doesn’t that diminish the cultural influence and soft power that sets us apart? If allies turn elsewhere, such as China or regional trade blocs, won’t we lose the exceptional role we’ve played as the global economic leader? And if Americans who voted for inflation relief and economic prosperity feel betrayed, won’t they be disillusioned and resentful?

…How can we be a beacon of prosperity if we’re depleting the wealth of our nation (GDP is now projected to decline), businesses, 401ks, and individual standards of living?

Glenn challenged my assumptions:

To the extent Trump has started a trade war, it appears that he's already won it….

…Trump is a good negotiator (and perhaps as unlikeable sometimes as one). Now he has the other countries in the position of negotiating against themselves while he pretends not to even want a deal. But I think he does want a deal -- he's the guy who wrote the book, right?

If there's no deal, we can live with that too. The American Dream is not all about cheap stuff.

After reflecting on our dialogue, I realized that while I still have serious concerns about the madness to the method, Glenn had a point about the Art of the Deal. There’s a lot more going on than I first understood. Given the immense consequences, we all should examine the facts and arguments we may have overlooked.

I encourage you to read the full exchange here, as we wrestle with whether Trump’s tariff gambit is a sign of strength, or a threat to America’s moral and economic leadership.

The Influencers: Two Economic Giants Who Shaped My Thinking

My approach to engaging with Glenn was informed not just by my economics and finance background, but by two legendary free-market economists: Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman.

Thomas Sowell, renowned for his maxim, “There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs,” has long been skeptical of tariffs. While they may be politically appealing, he contends they usually lead to inflation, provoke retaliation, and ultimately harm the very people they’re intended to help.

After Trump’s tariff announcement, I discovered this interview with Sowell, now 94 years old and still sharp. Watch here:

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

"It's painful to see what a ruinous decision from back in the 1920s being repeated. Now insofar as he's using these tariffs to get various strategic things settled and he's satisfied with that…but if you set off a worldwide trade war, that has a devastating history. Everybody loses, because everybody follows suit, and all that happens is you get a great reduction in international trade."

"It's disturbing in another sense. Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he was president in the 1930s, said that you have to try things, and if they don't work, then you admit it, you abandon that, and you go on to something else, and you try that until you come across something that does work."

"Now, that's not a bad approach if you are operating within a known system of rules. If you are the one who's making the rules, then all the other people have no idea what you're going to do next. And that is a formula for having people hang on to their money until they figure out what you're going to do, and when a lot of people hang on to their money, you can get results such as you got during the Great Depression of the 1930s."

Milton Friedman’s iconic video “I, Pencil” describes the miracle of the free market.

Friedman explains how a simple pencil results from global cooperation—no single person can make one, yet the free market delivers it affordably and efficiently.

You can watch it here:

Together, these two ideas – beware of top-down economic interventions and trust in the inherent genius of markets –shaped my skepticism of Trump’s tariff policy. They still resonate.

As did this meme:

But as John Stuart Mill reminds us, he who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

And so, I sought out other perspectives.

This interview of Batya Unger-Sargon helped me see tariffs as a moral response to the elite-driven decline of America’s working class. Watch here:

Here’s an excerpt:

BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: You know, back in the 1970s, the largest share of the wealth in this country was held by the middle class. That is how you have a stable democracy.

That is how you have prosperity for all. That is the idea that this country was founded on, that if you work hard, you should have access to the American dream. And that was inextricably linked to the fact that 25% of the economy was in manufacturing.

It was the largest share of the economy. Manufacturing pays good jobs, good wages, good conditions, where people who work really hard can expect to own a home and retire in dignity.

Today, the largest share of the economy is in finance and real estate. And that middle class has been totally squeezed to where working-class Americans, the hardest working Americans, can no longer expect to be able to afford the American dream despite working so hard. And what Donald Trump is doing is he … has taken on the entire international global order.

He is waging war on behalf of the forgotten men and women of the heartland of this country and saying, no longer will they be downwardly mobile and committing suicide and dying of fentanyl overdoses because they've been left out of the immense prosperity that this country has generated.

As I continued weighing whether Trump’s tariff strategy was method or madness, I found this interview with Chamath Palihapitiya— venture capitalist and co-host of the All-In podcast. In an excerpt below, Chamath argues the goal is to close loopholes, reset global trade rules, and end unfair burdens on U.S. taxpayers.

Responding to criticism about tariffs on countries with no people or only penguins, Chamath explains how these places have been used as loophole havens, allowing goods from China to be rerouted to avoid tariffs before entering the U.S.

He contends that the goal is to prevent the evasions that undermined past trade crackdowns, thereby resetting the rules of global trade and fixing the imbalance that taxes Americans while others benefit.

“If we were just starting this club in 2025,” he asks, “what would the rules of membership be?”

That question resonated, considering I worked at the International Finance Corporation, private-sector affiliate of the World Bank. Frankly, not much development has happened in the developing world since. So, shouldn’t we re-evaluate the performance and accountability of global institutions we fund disproportionately – the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization, United Nations, NATO?

From Memes to Meaning: The Battle Over the Liberation Day Narrative

As modern-day hieroglyphics, memes compress worldviews into instant visuals, shaping how we think of and remember events. As we live through the first draft of Liberation Day history, these memes are battling to control the narrative:

The anti-tariff memes are powerful:

The pro-tariff response also resonates:

This is a 4-second video:

And the meme I created on Grok. Do you like it?

Which memes do you find persuasive?

The truth is, common sense is on all sides of this debate. Time will tell which memes predict how we’ll remember Liberation Day. Is Trump a tariff tyrant or a modern-day Moses? A self-sabotaging protectionist or a liberator leading America out of economic bondage?

As I explore these questions, I pray for divine inspiration—and hopefully less than 40 years of wandering in a thought desert—to arrive at some conclusions!

From Liberation Day to the Exodus: Stories to Burnish the American Dream

As we turn to celebrating Passover and Easter, it’s worth noting that the Exodus story isn’t merely a biblical passage; it’s one of the most consequential narratives in human history. Its echoes inspired countless generations to believe that freedom is a right worth fighting for and that the human spirit can overcome even the most insurmountable odds.

When America’s founders crafted a nation rooted in liberty and justice, they drew inspiration from the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery. Thomas Jefferson even proposed a national seal depicting Moses parting the Red Sea.

Frederick Douglass cited Moses as the model for the abolition of slavery, and Abraham Lincoln was remembered as “the American Moses.” On the eve of his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “I’ve been to the mountaintop… and I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

From the spirituals sung by enslaved African Americans – “Go Down, Moses”—to modern human rights movements, the Exodus remains a powerful symbol of hope, courage, and deliverance.

That same legacy of liberation also inspired two young immigrants fleeing Eastern Europe. From that yearning to finally be free emerged the iconic song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” You too will be inspired by this video of Broadway stars Ben Platt and Judith Light telling the poignant backstory behind this timeless American masterpiece. America is still a Promised Land – a place where bluebirds sing and where dreams and dignity can both flourish.

In uncertain times, we all need stories of hope and renewal.

My hope springs eternal, especially during this season of Passover and Easter, both celebrations of liberation, transformation and love. This holiday, whether we gather with loved ones around a Seder table or an Easter feast, may we reflect on the enduring stories that call us to be better.

In that spirit, I hope you’ll look more deeply into the arguments surrounding Trump’s tariff policy. Maybe you’ll even share them in the comments to continue the dialogue Glenn and I began last week!

After all, we are a nation founded on a liberating idea: a government of, by, and for the people.

So, this holiday, I invite you to Think Again. Who knows? You just might change your mind.

Have you ever felt trapped by someone deeply controlling and manipulative - a partner, friend or family member? I know from the response to my previous post – To Forgive is Not to Forget But to Remember Differently – that many have navigated very difficult relationships.

In my first two Persuasion Pearl newsletters, I wanted to share my story by drawing on the sermons I gave during last year’s Jewish High Holidays. Both sermons were informed by challenges I faced last year as I grappled with the impending death of my father, and then the agonizing aftermath.

My first post was about how the hardest person to persuade is often ourselves, especially when trying to forgive someone in the absence of mutual apologies.

This second post below is about the unexpected battle I was thrust into after he passed, not with grief but with his wife. As the pain intensified, my spirit and strength were tested in ways I never imagined. I even ended up in the ER with cardiac concerns.

And then the merciful hand of God appeared, as described in my last post, proving Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s observation that “the deepest crises of your life can turn out to be the moments when you encounter the deepest truths and acquire your greatest strengths.”

My mindset shifts not only enabled me to prevail, but I learned a profound lesson: though we can’t control what happens to us, we can control our response and attitude, which is the theme of this site – Think Again… you might change your mind.

I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments section below, or write me directly!

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Six Insights to Cope Through Crisis

On Rosh Hashanah I spoke about how the Jewish wisdom I’d gleaned from Hilary’s High Holiday readings over the years helped me manage my challenging relationship with my father, enabling me to honor and forgive him – and unburden myself — before he passed away on August 17.

I also mentioned the subsequent trauma related to his wife. First, she told me I wasn’t a worthy eulogizer of my father before allowing me to deliver a eulogy, albeit forcibly shortened. Then she launched a chaotic legal matter that escalated this week, making the period following my dad’s passing the most traumatic of my life.

Exhausted from sleepless nights and stressful days, I told Hilary that I wasn’t sure I could summon the clarity, humility and insightfulness to write a sermon.

How do I encourage self-examination and repentance while so angry, anxious and distracted? How can I personally seek the spiritual release of forgiveness when I find unforgivable the pain I’m forced to endure?

Ever the instigator of self-examination, Hilary said, “I’m sure at some point you’ll find a gift in the lesson of this difficult moment,” channeling Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who said, “the deepest crises of your life can turn out to be the moments when you encounter the deepest truths and acquire your greatest strengths.”

God knows I’m not the only struggler. There are others here who are undergoing painful transitions. There are people who’ve suffered through recent hurricanes. There are Jewish students who don’t feel safe on college campuses – supposedly the most enlightened places on the planet. And there are Israelis unsure how to repent when they’re still raging at God and man for the October 7^th atrocities.

Then there are hostages – both dead and alive – and their families who’s suffering is incomprehensible.

We all feel trapped, as if in a terror tunnel — though thankfully we’re not …

…and we don’t know whether the light at the end is a train that’s heading for us.

As Haviv Rettig Gur put it in a long tweet last night. “How do you enter the ‘headspace’ of Yom Kippur when it seems so detached from the anxiety that surrounds us?”

Thankfully this weekend grants a respite and the opportunity to reflect and think deeply. So, I’ve spent the last couple of days tapping into Jewish wisdom, and here are six insights I’ve gained:

First insight: when you’re struggling, it is important to have perspective.

As I pointed out in my Rosh Hashanah sermon, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Rabbi David Wolpe demonstrated this when he reflected on his year as a visiting scholar at Harvard where he had served and later resigned from its Antisemitism Advisory Group:

“What gives me hope is, I imagine myself in a conversation with my great, great, great grandfather,” he said. “I say to him, ‘you know, there is some antisemitism at Harvard.’ And he responds to me in shock, ‘you’re at Harvard?’

And I say, ‘Yes, but some of them hate Israel!’ He says again in utter surprise, ‘There’s an Israel?

And I say, ‘Yes, but you should hear how the administration is talking about shaving some of the aid to Israel.’ And he says, ‘America is giving aid to Israel?’”

And I say, ‘you’re right!’”

“Yes, we have problems, but to our great, great, great grandparents, we are blessed,” Wolpe wryly observed.

Second insight: remember, life is both bitter and sweet.

No one ever promised you a rose garden, to paraphrase the famous song. “Along with the sunshine,” the lyrics go, “there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.”

Yes, life can be tough, as it was for me this last week. But it can still be sweet, as it is right now….and will be when the break-the-fast buffet opens!

The truth is, the world is a tapestry of beauty and pain, and our job is to promote the good and work to eliminate the evil. Understanding this is why there’s no such thing as a pure celebration in Judaism – even at weddings the destruction of Jerusalem is mentioned.

This observation was made in a video on Daniel Gordis’ Substack where a diverse group of Israelis reflected on the past year since October 7th. One participant remarked, “our glass is not empty, and it never will be because there are too many heroes who, in their deaths, have ordered our life.”

“I want a glass half-full,” he continued, “but after the past year, we’ll settle for a quarter-full glass.”

“The pain is what shaped us,” another Israeli says, “and it’s [crazy] how death is so good at bringing us closer.”

Amazed by the remarkable support for them, the Israelis noted the millions of donations, the thousands of volunteers, the families who opened their homes to those who’d lost theirs, the food centers, and the people who journeyed toward Gaza to prepare BBQs for soldiers.

By believing that we’re God’s partners in making the world a better place, Rabbi Sacks argues that Jews are the people who not only survive, but thrive in adversity, renewing ourselves after every disaster, including the Holocaust.

That Israelis are demonstrating this yet again is not only inspirational, it grants us perspective.

Third insight: adjust your expectations.

On Rosh Hashanah, I spoke about my mindset trick: recognize when to hold onto long-term memories, like an elephant does, and when to let go swiftly, like a goldfish.

I managed to suppress unpleasantness by imagining my dad as an uncle, from whom one naturally expects less. And I became an elephant by recalling the adoring father of my childhood, helping me make peace with the challenging father of my adulthood.

Israelis have also undergone a mindset shift since October 7^th, adjusting to the fact that pain is an inseparable part of existence; an attitude that helps account for the fact that Jews are the ultimate survivors as the longest living people in the history of the planet.

Fourth insight, to make a better world, we must have courage

“Courage,” as Winston Churchill noted, “is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend.”

The Jewish response to crisis and tragedy, notes Rabbi Sacks, is to say: “God, I do not know why this is happening, but I do know what you want me to do … We must wrestle with it, refusing to let it go until it blesses us, until we emerge stronger, better or wiser than we were before. To be a Jew is not to accept defeat. That is the meaning of faith.”

Doesn’t this photo of Israeli women soldiers capture this idea?

In the quarter-glass full video, one of the Israelis applauds the courage of the Jewish people: “We are all one body,” she says, “and no [bully] has yet risen to change that. We’re still here. And we’ll say it until every Israeli can live in peace, until every hostage returns home.”

May it be so!

Fifth insight: have faith by returning to our values

After all, returning to God and moral alignment is what it means to do “teshuva” (repentance) during the High Holidays. Yom Kippur asks us to confront our mortality in order to focus our minds on living righteously.

When Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he delivered his famous “last lecture” knowing his talk would become his legacy to his children.

Though titled “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch closed by saying that his lecture wasn’t really about how to achieve dreams, but rather how to live your life. And “if you lead your life the right way,” he assured, “the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you.”

Pausch wasn’t Jewish, but he frames well the meaning and purpose of the High Holidays and the notion that in the long sweep of Jewish history, karma has tended to work out – just consider all those conquering empires that have come and gone, not to mention all the dead terrorists – and we’re still here!

I think it’s partly because we’ve been observing the High Holidays, among others, for countless generations. Each year we ask ourselves to think about the prior year and evaluate it against our values so that we can plan to do better in the coming year. And we do this not as individuals, but as a community so we can strengthen each other in this difficult task, a task made easier knowing that each of us needs to do this.

And finally, the sixth insight: no matter how dark the moment, do not lose hope.

Judaism is a religion of hope, and its great rituals of repentance and atonement are part of that hope. We are not condemned to live endlessly with the mistakes and errors of our past.

Rabbi Sacks spoke to this moment. “Optimism is the passive belief that things will get better,” he explained. “Hope is the active belief that together we can make things better.”

So, in these final moments of self-denial before breaking our fast, as we prove our commitment to actively making things better, I hope you’ll find solace in knowing that we can overcome adversity by:

1. having perspective,

2. remembering that life is both bitter and sweet,

3. adjusting our expectations,

4. having courage to fight,

5. returning to values so karma will take care of itself, and

6. having hope!

Just as it took God six days to create us and our wondrous world – calling it good – may these six insights help us restore wonder and goodness to our world, relieving our pain and suffering and sealing us in the book of life for another year of blessings.

Amen!

This post is based on my Yom Kippur sermon at Temple HilMel services on October 12, 2024. This and my Rosh Hashanah sermon – “To Forgive is Not to Forget But to Remember Differently” – as well as Hilary Cohen’s readings are intended to inspire a spirit of forgiveness and spiritual renewal during the High Holidays.

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In our quest to persuade, we often overlook the toughest target: ourselves. But what if the real challenge is to Think Again about our own deeply held beliefs, rather than trying to convince someone else to change their mind?

This was the question I grappled with as I faced my father’s mortality. The close bond we’d enjoyed throughout my childhood became strained after his remarriage, leaving me with complicated emotions.

I believe that holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to get sick. But forgiveness isn’t easy, especially when mutual apologies aren’t forthcoming.

So, how do we forgive amid pain? How do we move forward without denying the past?

This post — To Forgive Is Not to Forget but to Remember Differently — recounts how I answered these questions. It’s from a sermon I gave last Rosh Hashanah amid an ordeal that began immediately after my father’s passing. The ordeal intensified the following week, prompting my Yom Kippur sermon — Six Insights to Cope Through Crisis — which I’ll be posting next.

I share my story knowing others face similar struggles. I hope they too might find strength, clarity, and even serenity by following the theme of this newsletter — Think Again….you might change your mind.

In thinking again, I experienced what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observed, that “the deepest crises of your life can turn out to be the moments when you encounter the deepest truths and acquire your greatest strengths.”

So wise!

And for her wisdom, I thank another rabbi (in training), Hilary Cohen, who’s been my partner in cultivating a High Holiday spiritual community which we call Temple HilMel.

Everyone has a story with lessons, so I hope I get to read some of yours in the comments below!

To Forgive Is Not to Forget, But to Remember Differently

It’s been a hell of a year since we last met, and I mean that literally. As if global issues weren’t overwhelming enough, many have been challenged personally over the last year.

So, I’d like to share how the wisdom I’ve gleaned from Temple HilMel — Hilary’s readings, our group discussions and my sermon preparations – equipped me to handle my life’s most vexing situation – the tumultuous relationship with my dad, who passed away on August 17^th.

For our Temple HilMel regulars, you may recall three readings about forgiveness.

In the first, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks encourages forgiveness because to hold resentment is like drinking poison while expecting someone else to die. The moral: don’t drink the poison.

In the second, Rabbi Brad Artson cites Holocaust survivor Simon Weisenthal who was asked by his guards for forgiveness. Wiesenthal declined. The moral: certain acts are unforgivable.

The third by Rabbi David Wolpe strikes a middle-ground. Agreeing that you shouldn’t drink poison, Wolpe insists that when forgiving, it’s reasonable to expect a change in their behavior. The moral: Absent change, adjust your expectations to avoid resentment.

It took a couple of years, but I finally figured out how to apply these forgiveness lessons to my dad.

It’s hard to describe my sense of loss after my dad married his wife 36 years ago and adopted the narrative that his first family was a failure from which his second family needed insulation. And so I was excluded from everything that mattered most to him -- everything.

I grew up adoring my father, and he adored and cultivated me. But in fighting their narrative, I further entrenched it, proving to them that I was indeed a problem child from the failed marriage.

Two years ago, I finally broke free of the narrative.

Though not on speaking terms at the time, I’d heard my dad might have cancer. I was overwhelmed with guilt. How could I uphold the fifth commandment – honor your father and mother – without talking to my dad? If I couldn’t honor all that he gifted to me, what does that say about me, especially to my son? After all, doesn’t our tradition teach that we sow with our parents what we’ll reap from our children?

So, I called my dad. He was elated, and I was relieved. Turns out, though 90 years old, whatever he had at the time was not life threatening. He asked me to put our disagreements behind us.

Here’s where the forgiveness lessons helped me achieve the serenity that comes from knowing how to fold ‘em when you can no longer hold ‘em.

As Rabbi Wolpe implies, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. So, I adopted two strategies. First, I began to think of my dad as my uncle, from whom one naturally expects less. Second, I began to act like a winsome student class president, which was the advice offered by a family therapist we’d all seen decades prior.

These changes worked, inspiring last year’s sermon about forgiveness: When should we have a long memory like an elephant, and when should we have a short memory like goldfish, which are the happiest creatures according to Ted Lasso because of their 10-second memory span?

I explained the memory distinction with this story:

Once upon a time, two friends found themselves lost while walking through the desert. Exasperated, they began arguing and one friend slapped the other. The one who got slapped said nothing but wrote in the sand, “today my best friend slapped me in the face.” Continuing their journey, they found an oasis and decided to bathe. The one who’d been slapped started to drown but was saved by his friend whereupon he etched into a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.” The best friend asked, “when I slapped you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?”

The friend replied: “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

I concluded my sermon linking the story to the insights I’d gleaned in my relationship with my dad:

The truth is, everyone will disappoint you, so you must have a selective memory, especially when no apology is forthcoming. You don’t have to do the full goldfish. But you can change your memory so it doesn’t induce mind-numbing resentments that you harbor for an eternity. You can forgive, as did Jesus, believing “they know not what they do” and move on to a more comfortable status quo in your relationship. Expect less, then be pleasantly surprised when you receive more. Meanwhile, you’ve willed yourself to greater freedom and tranquility, changing the trajectory of your life and enabling you to become a blessing to the world.

This is the season of forgiveness, which doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting, but it does mean remembering differently to move on. So, know when to write your memories in sand, and when to etch them in stone.

In other words, know when to be goldfish and when to be elephants for memories not only shape our past, they mold our identities and chisel our futures.

Last May when my dad did receive a cancer diagnosis, I shared this sermon with him. He loved it, particularly the story about the boys in the desert. Although I never received the apology for which I’d longed, he expressed his love and pride for me and my family.

That’s when becoming an elephant by recalling the attentive father of my childhood helped me find peace with the withdrawn father of my adulthood. I am incredibly grateful to have once had him as my teacher, role model, champion and father.

As his condition deteriorated last summer, I was the dutiful daughter, shuttling to/fro Denver (often with family), taking him to treatments, staying overnight in the hospital, feeding and keeping him company with my punditry (as he’d done when I little), sharing our correspondence from my childhood, shopping and cooking for the family and friends who came to visit.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but notice what a blessing his wife and my half-sister and brother were. So, one night I shared this observation with his wife, apologizing for not accepting sooner that the decisions my dad had made in his life were right for him. She asked me to share my apology with my dad. Weakened to the point of exhaustion, he spoke gratefully with his eyes.

I knew I’d done everything I possibly could to help him exit the world unburdened, which was my way of honoring my dad and, frankly, unburdening myself.

After he passed, I thought the acrimony of the past had dissipated for his wife as well. But I was wrong.

Those ensuing days were the most stressful of my life. Not only had his wife decided that I wouldn’t be allowed to eulogize my father, she’d also initiated a legal matter requiring me to make a difficult decision within ten days.

Fortunately, cooler minds prevailed allowing me to deliver a eulogy, albeit forcibly shortened. Despite the traumatic circumstances, the eulogy was easy to write because I’d learned how and when to be an elephant and a goldfish.

Best of all, God’s merciful hand appeared in the form of a limo driver who chased me down after the burial to tell me, “I listen to a lot of eulogies, and yours was the best.”

You can imagine my relief, exceeded later when two guardian angels who double as attorneys rested on my shoulder to help with the complicated legal matter.

These are examples of Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s teaching that the world is a book in which our life is a chapter. Whether our chapter inspires others depends on whether we make a blessing of our life by turning life into a blessing.

So, here’s to turning our lives into blessings by successfully navigating when to be elephants and goldfish, helping create ever-widening ripples of goodness. May we all be inspired to live lives worthy of remembrance so that the world will be that much better because we have been in it.

These remarks were made by Melanie Sturm on October 3, 2024 at Temple HilMel’s Rosh Hashanah (New Year) service and were intended to inspire a spirit of forgiveness and renewal during the High Holidays.

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This new Substack will serve as the central hub for my commentary, featuring my “persuasion pearls,” interesting links, and occasional musings on the profound questions of life. Additionally, it will include content related to my persuasion training work.

After a tumultuous 2024, marked by the passing of my father and a challenging aftermath, I’m eager to share my reflections on how to forgive and cope through crisis. Who couldn’t use that kind of advice?

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