All the souls are precious.
Children are hurt every day. They're molested, abused, possibly even murdered.
So are women. A woman is raped every 2 minutes according to the Department of Justice.
That's the one thing I don't understand: why is everyone so saddened by this tragedy in particular?
Is it because of the gruesome way that the man carved him up?
Or the fact that he was so little and innocent?
All the children are little or innocent.
One should be sad for each one of them.
9 comments:
you are a brave woman.
KT
Joel Rich
Read this article on just this issue from Bob Herbert:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12herbert.html
I had been thinking about this as well. It seems awfully unfair to all the others in the world who have suffered through losing a child. Is their pain any less? I believe the reason this case has received so much publicity is due to the abnormal, gruesome and cruel way to which the boy was murdered. As difficult as it is to understand how anyone can murder an innocent child, it is far more mind-boggling that a person could then chop the child up in such a fashion. The shock factor involved is huge, and hence the interest.
So true and right...thank you!
I pondered the same thing… there are many adversities of equal or greater magnitude that have not merited to see the limelight. I think there is some truth to the points that anonymous posits. However, I think there is more to the explanation. One possible reason is that the community as whole was involved in looking for Leiby when he was missing; thus creating some form of bond between us and him. Everyone hoped and prayed for his safe return only to be crushed by the news of his fate. Furthermore, the tragic event raises questions and uncertainties within our circles, sort of like the feeling of knowing we have a traitor within our midst.
Chana:
You have raised an important point: perhaps the key point for child abduction tragedies is that any parent wonders whether their child will be safe, especially in this case, when the area was previously felt to be very safe.
In this particular case, the gruesome nature of the murder and its aftermath, plus the fact that the community is unable to point to an outside perpetrator makes it that much more uncormfortable, especially as the Jewish community has historically argued that our children and life are so precious; those acts could not be carried out by one of us.
Anon
I asked my father in a same question. He said, "it nevers happen to people in boro park, it is too shocking" He is saying that people never heard of this. Ever you heard of this? Because of this, it broke the trust among neighboorhoods in boro park..
>One should be sad for each one of them.
All tragedies are equally sad, but one can never commit their emotions to everyone equally. We feel saddened first by the people in our own group, then it expands from there.
Marriage has done nothing for your once interesting blog. It is now boring and of little interest. Time to go.
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