Choosing Life

March 28, 2017

Dear Friend of The Fellowship,

In the Bible, Moses presents the people of Israel with a stark choice: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

It’s a choice we all face. And last week, yet another extremist chose not life, but death.

Last Wednesday, a violent extremist drove his car on the busy Westminster Bridge in London mowing down pedestrians, killing several and injuring dozens more. Abandoning his car and wielding a knife, he continued his reign of terror, stabbing to death a police officer before being shot and killed.

This man chose to sow fear and destruction, and cause as much pain as possible to innocent people.

But another story from this horrible incident caught my eye. When Tobias Ellwood, a British Member of Parliament, saw the police officer who had been stabbed, he fought valiantly to save his life, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the victim and trying to stem the flow of blood. One witness said, “He ran in [the] opposite direction to everyone else, he ran towards the injured police officer.”

In the face of evil, there is always heroism. How easy it is to forget this fact when we are confronted with images of human suffering – as we are all too frequently. In Tobias Ellwood and in the many police and other first responders who rushed in to protect and help those in harm’s way, we see people who chose life.

“I have set before you life and death.” Dear friends, even as our enemies choose death, let us choose life. Let us pray that loved ones of the victims of last week’s attack will be comforted. Let us continue to defend, in no uncertain terms and with all our might, the society and the values we hold dear.

And let us always remember to hold fast to God, continuing to pray for the day when He will bless us, and all of His world, with His most precious gift of shalom, peace.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President and Founder, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews^® of Canada

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