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There Is Still Time to Pull Ourselves Back from the Edge
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil — who served as British Prime Minister three times at the turn of the 20th century — was not exactly a cheerleader for progress. But he was honest. Brutally honest. His most remembered quote says it all: “Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible.”
Salisbury was the ultimate conservative. He sincerely and genuinely believed that change always makes things worse — and that the status-quo, with all its flaws, is preferable to whatever chaos change might unleash, which it most certainly will. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — and if it is broken, best not to touch it. Because you’ll only make things worse.
There’s a certain bleak wisdom to Salisbury’s worldview, and it sounds exactly like the sort of thing you’d expect from a 19th-century European aristocrat with a hereditary seat in the House of Lords. But Salisbury’s fear of change isn’t just a relic of the past. It’s a recurring force throughout history.
Change terrifies people. And when that fear metastasizes, it becomes a pathology — and bad things tend to happen to those who spearhead change, and to challenge accepted norms. Because when someone comes along and quietly unravels the lies, dismantles the illusions, and gently questions the reigning orthodoxy — not with rage, not with violence, but with cold, logical reason — the system panics.
We’ve seen this before, time and again. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t call for violent revolution — he preached nonviolence and the reconfiguration of a broken system. But he threatened the status quo with something far more destabilizing: clarity. And for that, he was killed.
Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t storming barricades — he was addressing poverty, race relations, and the Vietnam War, trying to find a way forward that was different. But his calm conviction rattled too many cages. And for that, he was killed.
Yitzhak Rabin attempted to create peace and hope for Israel — and for that, he was killed.
Donald Trump also had a brush with death in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the 2024 election campaign, when a would-be assassin fired a bullet that grazed his ear — a few millimeters from changing history.
Truthfully, it doesn’t matter if the agent of change is right or wrong, loud or quiet, from the left or the right — when people perceive that someone is shifting the tectonic plates of the political or cultural landscape, fear sets in. And fear, when left unchecked, becomes violence.
And now we have the killing of Charlie Kirk — the latest casualty of the fear of change. Kirk, a right-wing influencer with an extraordinary reach into Gen Z, was just 31 years old. He was gunned down in broad daylight while speaking to students at Utah Valley University.
Moments before his murder, he had been doing what he did best — engaging young people calmly, intelligently, and without fear or condescension. He stood before an audience of thousands, not to inflame them, certainly not to encourage hate, but to persuade them. And for that, he was killed.
Immediately after the announcement of Kirk’s death, Donald Trump called him “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk… No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better.” Coming from someone who delights in exaggeration, that was no exaggeration.
Kirk was uniquely gifted at reaching the very people our society claims to care about but so often fails to understand: disaffected youth struggling to find their political footing in an age of cynicism, manipulation, and institutional distrust.
There’s a chilling line buried in the long litany of curses in Parshat Ki Tavo — a statement by Moses you can easily gloss over or dismiss, until real life stops you in your tracks and the ancient words hit you between the eyes.
Moses begins the section by warning the Israelites not to abandon their moral compass or lose sight of the truth, or else they will descend into darkness. And among the consequences he spells out is this one (Deut. 28:34): “You will go mad from what your eyes see.”
To be clear, this is not a metaphor and it’s not a curse — it’s a prediction, and a diagnosis. A society that is frightened of truth, and of agents of change who prioritize truth over slogans, will eventually lose its collective mind. And then it will turn on the very people trying to save it.
The medieval commentator Ramban explains that this kind of madness is not clinical — it’s existential. It is, in fact, a divinely-sourced affliction on the intellect. When a society detaches itself from plain truth and spiritual grounding, it begins to lose its ability to think straight. Eventually, it sees good as evil, and honest debate as a subversive act.
Ramban calls it a “strike on the mind” — a kind of blindness where people no longer recognize what is real and what is destructive. Moses is warning us that the results are always terrifying.
Sforno goes even deeper. He writes that this madness causes people to act against their own interests. They’re no longer just mistaken — they become destructive. They pursue what harms them, attack those trying to help them, and misjudge the very people who might lead them to a better place.
In Sforno’s reading, “you will go mad from what your eyes see” means the world will become so upside-down, so saturated with chaos and distortion, that even when someone shows up with reason and hope, the collective instinct will be to destroy him.
There’s also a strange irony at play here — one that even the Marquess of Salisbury might have found too absurd to imagine. In today’s world, it’s the conservatives who are trying to change things, while the so-called progressives have become the reactionaries, frantically defending a broken, toxic status quo.
The political compass has spun so wildly out of control that someone like Charlie Kirk — a conservative in ideology, but a radical in his willingness to confront cultural decay — was seen as a dangerous revolutionary, and killed.
What would Salisbury have made of a world where not changing is what’s dragging us into the abyss? Where the only people trying to pull us back from the edge are the ones labeled as “extremists”?
Charlie Kirk was a conservative, yes — but he was also a visionary who believed we didn’t have to accept the darkness and craziness that has engulfed the western world. He wanted to change things by bringing us back to our best selves. And for that, he was silenced.
Charlie Kirk said, “When you deliberately distort and selectively present the truth, you lie.” That wasn’t merely a clever observation — it was a moral compass. Charlie’s determined mission was to present the truth: undistorted, unfiltered, and without fear.
And now that mission has been cut short — not by an opposing argument, but by a bullet. We are left with the unsettling fulfillment of Moses’ warning: “You will go mad from what your eyes see.” A society so overwhelmed by lies, and so afraid of actual truth, that it can no longer tolerate a calm voice of reason. That’s a society in the grip of madness.
But madness is not destiny. It is a warning. If we can still hear voices like Charlie’s — and in the aftermath of his untimely death, if we can remember what he stood for — then perhaps we can begin, slowly and painfully, to pull ourselves back from the edge. The alternative is too dreadful to contemplate.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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UN in Geneva Opens Exhibit on How Nazis Weaponized Soccer to Spread Hatred, Persecute Jewish Athletes
The Nuremberg rally in 1929 that the Nazi Party Congress held in Nuremberg, Germany on August 1–4. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
An exhibition that opened at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, this week spotlights how the Nazis during World War II used sports, especially soccer, to spread their hateful ideology, underscore their power, and persecute Jewish athletes.
The exhibit, titled “Sports. Crowds. Power. Football under the Nazis,” opened on Monday at the Palais des Nations. It was created by the German non-profit What Matters and the Berlin Sports Museum, which hosted the exhibit last year from May 24-Aug. 15, and presented in cooperation with the World Jewish Congress. It was created in honor of the UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany and was shown at the Olympiapark in Berlin.
“Visitors might assume that it is an exhibition about football. I would say that through the lens of football and sports, you learn a great deal about the history of National Socialism,” said Andreas Kahrs from What Matters.
The exhibit “explores the nefarious role of sports under National Socialism and delves into how the Nazis manipulated sports to consolidate power, the tragic impact of the Holocaust on European Jewish athletes and sporting clubs, and the contemporary role of sports in combating antisemitism.”
It highlights the playing of soccer in Nazi concentration camps and draws attention to Jewish athletes who faced antisemitism and persecution, including American soccer star and former Ajax player Eddie Hamel, who was murdered with his family in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and German track-and-field athlete Lilli Henoch, who was also murdered by the Nazis. The exhibit does not skip over the fact that some German soccer players were Nazis like SS member Otto “Tull” Harder, a multiple German championship team member and national team striker who was commander of a Nazi subcamp where thousands of people died.
“The exhibition tells of destroyed and disappeared football clubs across Europe and looks at the long shadow of National Socialism in both West and East Germany,” What Matters explained. “Lines of continuity are drawn into the present as it further explores discrimination and exclusion in today’s football.”
The exhibit is currently on tour, with the UN in Geneva as its first stop. It was showcased at the UN from Sept. 8-12 and was not open to the public. It will open to the general public on Sunday until the 19th at the Hôtel Ramada Encore, next door to the Geneva Football Stadium, for daily guided tours.
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Ted Cruz Says Tucker Carlson ‘Turning Into Ilhan Omar,’ Warns of ‘Rising Antisemitism on the Right’
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) raised alarm bells this week over what he described as “rising antisemitism” on the political right, warning that podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is “turning into Ilhan Omar,” the far-left US lawmaker, by spreading anti-Israel and even antisemitic rhetoric.
Cruz made the remarks on Wednesday during an event at the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, where he also discussed his legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates, including Hamas, as foreign terrorist organizations.
Cruz criticized Carlson for questioning Hamas’s status as a terrorist group and for hosting guests who have minimized historical atrocities, including the Holocaust. He expressed concern that antisemitism could be emerging as a more potent political force on the right.
“I will say I am concerned about rising antisemitism on the right,” Cruz said. “In the last six months, what we’ve seen on the right has been deeply disturbing.”
The conservative lawmaker specifically pointed to Carlson, a right-wing commentator and online provocateur.
“Tucker Carlson is turning into Ilhan Omar. This is bizarre. This is ridiculous,” Cruz added.
In a June interview with Cruz, Carlson questioned the merits of the US-Israel alliance, asking why lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) shouldn’t register as foreign agents and whether the US was receiving adequate returns on its financial support to Israel. Cruz, a staunch supporter of Israel, suggested Carlson’s questions were motivated by antisemitism, leading to a heated exchange between the two.
“You’re asking, ‘Why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?’” Cruz stated. “If you’re not an antisemite, give me another reason why the obsession is Israel.”
Omar has established herself as harsh critic of Israel who has accused the Jewish state of committing “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza and erecting an “apartheid” government in the West Bank. The lawmaker has also publicly declared support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS), an initiative which seeks to turn the Jewish state into an international pariah as a first step to its eventual destruction.
Omar further drew backlash on Thursday over her comments regarding the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk this week.
Omar strongly criticized attempts to frame Kirk purely as an advocate of civil debate, calling such portrayals “full of s**t” and a “complete rewriting of history.”
“These people are out there talking about him just wanting to have a civil debate,” Omar said. “It’s important for us to call them out while we feel anger and sadness.”
“What I do know for sure is that, you know, Charlie was someone who once said, you know, guns save lives after a school shooting. Charlie was someone who was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police,” she stated.
Omar also said that Kirk inflamed racial tensions through downplaying “slavery and what Black people have gone through in this country by saying Juneteenth should never exist.”
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Jerry Seinfeld Compares ‘Free Palestine’ Movement to KKK at Duke Event for Former Hamas Hostage
Jerry Seinfeld attends the premiere of Netflix’s “Unfrosted” at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, April 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/David Swanson
Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld said during an appearance at Duke University on Tuesday that supporters of the “Free Palestine”movement are worse than the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group.
Seinfeld, whose youngest son attends the school in Durham, North Carolina, made the remarks while introducing Omer Shem Tov, a former Hamas hostage who was kidnapped by terrorists from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He was freed after 505 days in captivity as part of a ceasefire agreement in February. Hundreds attended the event at Duke’s Page Auditorium to hear Shem Tov speak about experiences in a discussion on stage with the event’s moderator, North Carolina State Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham). The event was organized largely by Chabad at Duke, with sponsorship from Duke’s Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, university centers, and Jewish student groups on campus.
During Seinfeld’s opening remarks, he said, “Free Palestine is, to me, just — you’re free to say you don’t like Jews. Just say you don’t like Jews.”
“By saying ‘Free Palestine,’ you’re not admitting what you really think,” he continued. “So, it’s actually — compared to the Ku Klux Klan, I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ OK, that’s honest.” His comments were reported by Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle.
Only Duke students, staff, and faculty were permitted to attend the event. Seinfeld’s appearance was a surprise and was not publicized beforehand. A university spokesperson told The Chronicle on Tuesday night that Seinfeld had “requested his appearance not be announced beforehand, given Omer Shem Tov’s experiences were the focus of the event.”
“Duke does not preview the remarks of speakers who are invited to campus, and the invitation of speakers to campus does not imply any endorsement of their remarks,” the spokesperson added.
Mason Herman, a senior at Duke and student president of the school’s Chabad, told NBC News that Chabad and the university are not responsible for remarks made by an invited speaker. “This event was highlighting the fact that there are more than 40 hostages still in Gaza,” he said. “To one, raise awareness of that fact, and two, to share their plight while in captivity. And to share Omer’s story.”
The last time Seinfeld spoke publicly at Duke was when he delivered the school’s commencement address in May 2024. His older son graduated that year from Duke. The school’s decision to have Seinfeld deliver the commencement address was criticized by some because of his pro-Israel views and dozens of students walked out of the ceremony in protest. Seinfeld’s daughter, Sascha, who is now a reporter for Bari Weiss’ news outlet The Free Press, is also an alum of Duke.
After the deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Seinfeld posted a message on Instagram that said, “I Stand With Israel,” and shared that he lived and worked on a kibbutz in Israel when he was a teenager. In December of the same year, Seinfeld’s family traveled to Israel to meet with families of Israeli hostages and others impacted by the attack. During the trip, there was a missile attack, and the family had to seek shelter.
Seinfeld later said the experience gave him an understanding of what it means to live through and experience a war. He also told Weiss during an emotional interview that the trip was “the most powerful experience of my life.” He added that when he made “Seinfeld” in the 1990s, he thought that antisemitism was “seemingly a relic of history books.”
Seinfeld talked more about that trip to Israel during his remarks at Duke on Tuesday. He said his family visited Israel to “call attention to the plight of the hostages” and met with “several groups of hostage family members,” with whom they connected in a “heartbreaking moment.”
“So, to be here tonight and experiencing this is really incredible,” the comedian said before Shem Tov’s address on stage.
Shem Tov, who was 20 years old when he was kidnapped, told the crowd on Tuesday that he remembers being kicked, punched, and spit on as he was taken into captivity. “You cannot take your life for granted,” he told the audience, as reported by The Chronicle. “You have to understand that in a split second your life could change.”
Hamas-led terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas is still holding captive 48 people who were abducted and 20 of those hostages are believed to be alive.