How Do We Mourn Amidst the Violence? (Loss, sorrow, and hope)

How do we mourn violence?

Jonathan Cahn’s book, The Return of the Gods, details how our nation, over the years, has lost her way – not just in a political sense but more so in a spiritual one. He showcases events in our recent history that has led to anarchy, secularism, a loss for the respect of life, sexual immorality, and young adults so mentally and spiritually damaged that they have no concept of the sacredness of G-d’s created order. He explained in the book that in this spiritual void that we have allowed to happen in this nation and across the western world, that the pantheon of gods, those demonic entities that have been here since the beginning, have begun returning to fill that vacuum.

In this new world, good is evil and evil is good. There are no genders, and you can identify with whatever you want to be, whether that’s human or animal or extra-terrestrial for that matter. The motto of this age we find ourselves in is “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” The essence of this age is endless victimhood, a narcissistic belief that one is the center of the universe, and that everything you want should be provided to you.

Our language and culture are now full of isms and phobias – terms used to identify oppressions and oppressors.

• Racism

• Sexism

• Ageism

• Ableism

• Adultism

• Classism

• Colonialism

• Ethnocentrism

• Speciesism

• Homophobic

• Transphobic

• Xenophobic

• Islamophobic

• Misogynists

• Nazis

• Fascists

And the list can go on and on and on. On top of the spiritual void, there has been a deliberate ploy to divide us for probably the last 20 or so years.  Add into that a geo-political landscape that is chaotic and appears to be moving toward globalization and loss of national boundaries, and you have a world in turmoil.

At the same time that we have been experiencing a darker and heavier atmosphere around us, we have also felt the pull of G-d back to the roots of our faith. There has been a smoldering revival within the hearts of G-d’s people, one that is drawn to the true practice of the faith. The world “out there” has been getting crazier and darker and weirder, but we’ve kind of cocooned ourselves, bundled up with our faith, and thought the loonies would eventually get tired and go home if we ignored them long enough.

Darkness began breaking into our small sphere of light in greater and greater degree, whether it was from a world-wide pandemic that shut houses of worship down, or increasing school and workplace shootings and violence by people mentally and spiritually damaged, or riots and protests and anarchy erupting uncontested across the nation. We saw increasing murderous criminal activity, the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, not once but twice, the senseless random murder of a young soul on a commuter train in North Carolina, to the complete encroachment of darkness with the vicious assassination of a husband, father, patriot, and man of exquisite faith.

We have been assaulted to the core of our beings. All these events was followed by the 24th anniversary of the most horrible attack on the US since Pearl Harbor with September 11 turning the page. I wasn’t just rocked to the core of my soul; I was slammed to the ground with a boot on my throat.

I couldn’t breathe.

I cried. I raged. I hated. I wanted to hurt someone, because that kind of raw pain makes it difficult for you to remember who you are. I spent nearly 48 hours in tears and despair, going from words of encouragement to words of finality. I was through talking, I wrote coldly online. We’d tried talking – the other side had just killed the man who devoted his life to trying to talk. Thousands were gleeful that a wife was widowed and two children had lost their father. As far as I was concerned, the time for talking was over with. I typed out strong, angry words in response to posts as I listened to hymns.

I tried to calm my soul while I fed it fire. I cried, but they were tears of anger.

The darkness didn’t just boil out from all these heinous acts – the darkness boiled out of me. In just the same way that remembering the mercies of G-d soothes our souls, remembering the acts of darkness only hardens us. It’s the enemy’s deception and inversion of G-d’s truth that tells us that we can mire ourselves in hate and bitterness and that it is actually righteous.

Trying to get my bearings, I listened to a lot of religiously insightful people on this idea of violence and killing and trying to make sense of it all. Rabbi Shalom Landau said this isn’t something that just started. It’s been going on since the beginning of time. It all started with Cain and Abel. He explained that Cain was a dirt man, nothing but body. When he gave it was crumbs, not to give but to get. Abel, on the other hand, was all speech and breath and was considered righteous. When you speak the truth, you speak with your soul, and with this speech you contribute, you build, you elevate.

He said when a dirt man has no response to truth, he reaches for violence. They kill the voice, at least that’s what they think. They really don’t kill the voice – the truth – with this knife or a bullet; they just prove that they can’t handle it.

The scriptures say that G-d told Cain that the voice of his brother’s blood was crying from the ground. Where before it was speaking, now it was screaming.  You see, speech comes from the soul, and no man can kill a soul. The truth doesn’t stay buried – it grows.

It screams.

I got to thinking, what kind of people must have existed at the time of Noah that G-d would wipe them out totally? What kind of world was that to live in? Down through the ages, there have been horrible injustices, terrible deaths, murders...children slaughtered because a king was afraid of a threat to his crown;  people martyred in the most inhumane of ways because they wouldn’t bow to a pagan god; and Yeshua crucified by the religious and political authorities of his day because he threatened their authority and power.

But it didn’t stop there, did it? There were the Coliseums, the crosses that lit up the Roman night with the bodies of the faithful used as torches, the banishment from towns and cities. Our Jewish brethren have been hunted down, chastised and murdered because they’ve been considered “Christ killers” or even more – degenerates and rats.

We have the most brutal of slaughtering occurring in many of the Islamic countries against people because Islamic extremism is a religion of evil, conquest, and blood lust. People are cut down simply because they are of a different faith. It was this extremism that took the towers down on 9/11 and killed nearly 3,000 of our citizens.

This same evil murdered and butchered over 1200 people on October 7^th.  Children were burned alive as if in offering to Molech. Women were raped, and the men suffered and died watching their families tortured, brutalized, and killed.

The evil is too much...the darkness too suffocating these days.

I picked up my Bible and began searching -- Ecclesiastes 9:2-3 states:

Anything can happen to anyone; the same thing can happen to the righteous as to the wicked, to the good and clean and to the unclean, to someone who offers a sacrifice and to someone who doesn’t offer a sacrifice; it is the same for a good person as for a sinner, for someone who takes an oath rashly as for someone who fears to take an oath. This is another evil among all those done under the sun, that the same events can occur to anyone. Truly, the human mind is full of evil; and as long as people live, folly is in their hearts; after which they go to be with the dead.

This mirrors Yeshua’s words that the Father makes it rain on the just and the unjust. Well, if everything happens to the good person as well as the sinner, then what’s the point of this walk of faith?

Don’t get offended at the question...trust me – G-d doesn’t mind that question. He really doesn’t. Faith, emet, is not just blind obedience. It’s questioning and struggling, much like Jacob did with G-d.

When I asked that question, I wanted to be a crusader with a sword. In my humanity, in my dirt body, I wanted to cut down every single person that was being inhumane and hideous about everything going on in our country and around the world.

I wanted a divorce with humanity. I wanted that break. I didn’t want to live amongst a people so despicable that they celebrated the horrible death of someone that never did them any harm.

I stepped back and tried to listen for G-d’s voice. Isn’t that the wonderful thing about our G-d? We can question, we can ask, we can even cry and scream, and even if He doesn’t give us the answer we want at the time, He is still a soothing Presence and comforter of our souls.

That’s when He reminded me that I was looking through my dirt eyes.

Punishment may deter people with evil intentions, but it doesn’t stop them from inciting and fomenting baseless anger and hate. Only mercy, grace, and love change the heart. Only Yeshua transforms.

We ARE crusaders with swords. We ARE warriors. But our weapons? They’re not from this earth.

Ephesians 6:10-18 tells us this:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of G-d, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of G-d, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of G-d. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Our battle isn’t with that purple-haired, non-binary person with tattoos and piercings all over his or her body whose broken mind and soul has been overtaken with demonic influences. Our battle isn’t with that benign-looking schoolteacher that spews hate in his or her classroom and attempts to indoctrinate our children with the venom of this age. Our battle isn’t with the slimy politician who tries to pump up his or her base with rhetoric designed to promote anarchy and chaos because they have gotten a taste of power and money and they like it.

Our battle isn’t with court systems or globalists or medical systems or however the darkness tries to manifest....

Our battle is with the spiritual forces and darkness BEHIND what we see because that is the driving force of it all.

And no number of guns or deterrents will affect that except the overcoming power of the blood of Yeshua and the light of the Father shining in the void, driving out those demonic entities.

We see this in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation isn’t a prophetic book. The apocalyptic genre or style of Jewish writing was never about foretelling future events. It was to showcase the tribulations that we would face here on earth, to show us that G-d was still in control and would judge the earth for the sake of the elect, and that our hope in Him was not in vain because one day we would be living in His divine Kingdom where sorrow and death are no more.

Yair Levi stated in a video sharing his thoughts on the tragic death of Charlie Kirk that Leviticus 19 tells us not to hate our brother in our heart. He asks why does this say in the heart? He goes on to explain that disagreements with others from the head, from the intellect, are okay. We can debate and discuss and disagree. It’s when that disagreement moves to the heart, when our emotions become involved, that we become the servant of h’satan. He said the enemy controls us when we are no longer controlling ourselves. Our hearts are in control of our feelings, and it can become dangerous. Our minds and intellect need to control our heart so that we don’t descend into the darkness, into the hatred that the enemy wants to consume us.

And in this week’s Torah portion we have Adonai affirming the covenant with His people, citing the blessings and curses that will prevail depending on how we walk.

Deuteronomy 26:16-19 says:

“This day Adonai your G-d is commanding you to do these statutes and ordinances—so you are to take care and do them with all your heart and with all your soul. Today you have affirmed Adonai as your G-d, that you will walk in His ways, keep His statutes, mitzvot and ordinances, and listen to His voice. Now today Adonai has affirmed you as His treasured people, as He promised you; that you are to keep all His mitzvot; that He will set you high above all the nations He has made, for praise, fame and honor; and that you are to be a holy people to Adonai your G-d, as He has promised.”

Deuteronomy 28 states that if we will listen obediently to G-d – shema (which we know means to not just hear but to do), that we will be blessed beyond measure in all our endeavors. But if we don’t, we will be destroyed.

We are living in a country that has forgotten her G-d. We are seeing the fruit of that in our society today. But that does not mean that we rise up in like darkness in an attempt to retaliate against what has happened and think that we are righteous and doing good. We are not called to revenge but to restoration – restoration of what we have willingly given away.

I have found what drives out the darkness that threatens our hearts and souls – it is worship. I want to share the praise that King David gave to G-d when he brought the Ark of Covenant into the newly constructed tent in Jerusalem. From 1 Chronicles 16:8-36:

Give thanks to Adonai, call upon His Name. Make His deeds known among the peoples. Sing to Him! Sing praises to Him! Tell of all His wonderful acts. Glory in His holy Name! Let the heart of those who seek Adonai rejoice. Seek Adonai and His strength. Seek His face always. Remember the wonders He has done, His signs and judgments of His mouth, O descendants of Israel His servant, O sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is Adonai our God; His judgments are in all the earth. Remember His covenant forever, the word that He commanded for a thousand generations—that He made with Abraham, swore to Isaac, and confirmed in a decree with Jacob to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying: “To you I give the land of Canaan as your allotted inheritance.”

When you were but a few in number, very few, and strangers in it, and wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another, He allowed no one to oppress them, but for their sake He reproved kings: “Touch not My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm. "Sing to Adonai, all the earth! Proclaim His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonderous works among all the peoples. For great is Adonai and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Adonai made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and joy are in His place. Ascribe to Adonai, O families of the peoples, ascribe to Adonai glory and strength. Ascribe to Adonai the glory due to His Name. Bring an offering and come before Him. Worship Adonai in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth! The world is firmly established—it will not be moved. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice! Let them say among the nations: "Adonai reigns!” Let the sea roar and all that is in it. Let the field rejoice and all that is in it.

Then the trees of the forest will sing for joy before Adonai, for He comes to judge the earth. Give thanks to Adonai for He is good, for His mercy endures forever. Declare, “Save us, O God of our salvation! Gather and rescue us from the nations,  that we may give thanks to Your holy Name, that we may glory in Your praise. ”Blessed be Adonai, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting."

G-d’s response to my question of what’s the point is found in Psalm 37 – the entire chapter. I won’t share the whole thing (but you should read it), but here are a few verses, 5-9:

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. 

After I read those passages, I found the Revelation song by Phillips, Craig, and Dean and just listened to it over and over again, crying and praying and singing.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord G-d almighty

Who was and is and is to come.

With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings,

You are my everything and I will adore you.

As one of the verses says, “At the mention of your name, Yeshua, your name is power, breath, and living water.”

It is time for the people of G-d to rise up and proclaim the truth to a world that is running headfirst to the fires of Gehenna, to the place of destruction.

Not in anger, but in love. But powerful love, not this imitation love the world pushes that accepts everything as good, no matter how heinous it is. 

I want to leave you with these words that Charlie Kirk spoke – “Trust G-d and act obediently, that G-d will use all things – ALL THINGS – for good.”

A light was extinguished. Let a million more lights take its place. Let there be a million voices, strong in faith, rise up and proclaim that Yeshua is Lord, that He is King and sits upon the Throne. Let us be bold in our witness to our friends, our families, our neighbors – let us take the message of the gospel everywhere darkness has taken hold, fearless and bold, because we know G-d walks with us.

In our obedience and praise, we drive the darkness out. May we continue in that obedience so that one day we can also hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Hanne