Thursday, July 18, 2013

Apres le Deluge...

Top of the afternoon all...

I thought that the trial was over.  Apparently, I was wrong.  It is fully five days after the verdict, and it is still all over the news.  Now, the Department of Justice is considering opening a civil rights case against the former accused.  I understand that they have even set up an e-mail account to gather information.  I am debating writing in.  I have a few things I might consider writing.  "I saw George Zimmerman on the grassy knoll."  "George Zimmerman knows where Hoffa spends summers."  "George Zimmerman looks exactly like D. B. Cooper...and he owns a parachute."

From the outset, I never believed that George Zimmerman was guilty.  I believed and still believe that he was defending himself.  However, he does bear a certain amount of culpability.  Why?  For starters, if he listened to the police dispatcher and stayed in the car, nothing happens.  If he got out of the car with another person, nothing would have happened.  Both of those actions alone sowed the ground for the conflagration that followed.  Furthermore,...

The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot tells us:

הוי מקבל את כל האדם בסבר פנים יפות.

Greet all with a happy face.

Folks, it is possible that none of this needed to happen.  If Zimmerman gets out of the car without the idea that there would be a fight, without the idea that 'these punks' get away with this all the time, we are having a different conversation.  He went out expecting trouble.  His approach and attitude all but guaranteed that there would be trouble.

This is not a crime.  Nonetheless, the role of both protagonists cannot be discounted in the escalation.

Good night all.

R/SCG

1 comment:

  1. Hi Rav Sean
    i just heard in shul that you had an appedectomy.
    I want to wish you a refusah shelema and look
    forward to seeing you back in shul soon.
    Shabbat shalom and best wishes
    jack donsky

    ReplyDelete