The unstoppable madness
The Talmud tells us that "nothing stands in the face of one's will." The success of the Western lifestyle and Jewish perseverance prove that adage. The corollary is that everything is within reach; there is a solution to everything. And indeed, this approach has helped nations reach new heights in science and technology, medicine, the arts and in the pursuit of justice and equality.
Societies that have adopted this view have come to regard any form of failure as grounds for an inquiry, one that would safeguard against future letdowns. But the successes have also instilled the notion that there are no exceptional cases, that there is no such thing as an unavoidable mistake. In the real world, that is simply not the case.
As soon as news of the Beersheba tragedy broke, people noted that something could have been done to avert it. Some said the state of the economy was to blame, because the problems of the suicidal killer were never addressed. Others said the rampage could have been avoided had the security cameras been monitored. Others lamented that if only a guard had been stationed there, if only an anti-robbery booth with interlocking doors and a metal detector had been installed, this would have never happened.
Such claims are baseless. There will always be someone who is in the ditch financially, for whom an outstanding debt of 6,000 shekels ($1,600) is tantamount to an abyss that is too wide to cross. Such a person considers life to be over. His or her motives are not easily decipherable before the act, and a deadly tragedy ensues.
Neither the ATM nor the security cameras in the Beersheba bank could have prevented this disaster. The Israel Police's quick response and the onlookers who gathered nearby could not have done that either. The aggressor will forever have the element of surprise. He or she alone decides when to violate the peace and disrupt normal life; the turbulence inside the perpetrator's head will never be transparent.
The tragedy in Beersheba is not a one-off event; it is bound to recur, at various intervals and in varying formats. It is like those cases in which a person runs amok and kills his family members after getting drunk, taking drugs or engaging in some other deviant behavior.
Modern societies rightly engage in introspection after such events to see what could have been done against the banality of evil. The measures have been rather successful. But the agony, the bereavement and the pain have no expiration date because evil will forever have the advantage of catching us off guard.
Humanity has no waiver when it comes to self-scrutiny and it has to perpetually improve the means at its disposal, whatever shortcomings these may have. That is unfortunate, but this is the world we live in.
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