Message from Chabad: ‘Fear is not an option’

Rabbi Zvi Kogan worked tirelessly to grow Jewish life in the UAE. He was murdered by thugs.

Why? Because they want Jews to be afraid.

And it’s normal to be afraid.

But for the Jewish people today, fear is not an option.

Not only the events of today, but every event of Jewish history can be told in two ways: As stuff that happened. Or as a chapter of a grand epic.

As stuff that happened, it’s all ugly. As a chapter of an epic, with patience to keep reading the story, everything points toward greatness.

And that is how we tell our story.

Take the story of Abraham. G‑d tells him to leave his home to go to a wonderful, promised land. He arrives there to find a famine. He teaches goodness and kindness, but has to chase away his own child, Ishmael. He argues for Sodom and Gomorrah only to see them exterminated the next morning. He commits the ultimate act of self-surrender to G-d to almost give away his only child, only to come home to find his beloved wife has died.

We don’t tell the story that way.

• • •

We tell the story of Abraham, our father, who stood up against the entire world. We are the stars in the sky that G‑d showed him would be his. We tell how his faithfulness has stood by us to preserve us for millennia. We speak of a man who changed the course of history, indeed, the man who made progress a possibility, so that all the goodness there is today is on his account.

Our father, Abraham, had the most magnificent life of any man in history. Because we tell his life story not as a thing that happened in the past, but as a living heart beating within the present.

The same with the stories of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The same with Moses and the Exodus. The same with every event upon the long and arduous journey of our people. At any point in time, it is both horridly ugly and a magnificent epic of resilience that could only be divine.

Was there purpose to Zvi Kogan’s life? Only the most sordid nihilist could believe otherwise. It was a beautiful life. It was filled with meaning. It was an open miracle.

“When a part of your body is cut off,” Zvi’s father said at his son’s funeral, “it hurts. We just had part of our souls cut off. It’s painful. We are small people and do not understand G‑d’s ways. We must fill in that which is missing. We must do like Zvi. Look for what others need. Maybe this is what G‑d wants from us now.”

Is there purpose and meaning to the tragedy of his murder? To the horrors we have experienced over the last thirteen and a half months? To the unimaginable trials of the hostages? To the lives of over 800 heroes whose lives were cut short? To the madness of terrorists posing as protestors on campus and terrorists posing as terrorists let loose on the streets of Amsterdam and Montreal? To the open, unbridled bigotry of international agencies who break their own rules out of their savage lust for hatred?

We must have faith, because reason fails us.

• • •

As much as we cannot understand how such raw evil could have meaning, that is how much we cannot fathom how good the place it leads us must be.

And indeed, there are many good things to speak of. Tremendous things lie just short of hand’s reach. Only one more stretch forward.

Jewish people have not been so inspired in centuries, perhaps millennia. The Jewish nation has never been so courageous and powerful. Good and evil have never been so starkly juxtaposed. Evil sits at the verge of its own demise, digging its grave deeper every day. We have witnessed open miracles that exceed those of Elijah and Elishah.

Tremendous things lie just short of hand’s reach. Only one more stretch forward.

Creatures imprisoned within the granular moments of fleeting time upon Planet Earth can fear. For the stars shining in the heavens, fear does not exist.

Jew, walk proud. Walk tall. Fill in the void that Zvi Kogan left behind.

Tzvi Freeman is a senior editor at Chabad.org.