This is a song about acknowledging and identifying with the suffering of the Jewish people. I will warn you that there is a bit of nudity as there are horrific scenes of how Jewish people were humiliated and killed so you might want to consider how much you can handle before watching this. It is possible to just listen though, but regardless as to if you are able to listen or watch there is a very important lesson in this. The reason so many Jewish people were able to be killed in the first place is because people were not willing to acknowledge the humanity of those different from themselves.
We should resist the urge to demonize and broadly condemn whole groups of people simply due to their ethnic, national, or religious identity because of whatever stereotype our subculture may attach to them. Genocide doesn’t just happen out of the blue. It happens when we fall into collective narcissism and tell ourselves people who don’t belong to our group are less important and worthy than those who are like us. People rarely straight up suggest killing others because they are different, but take small steps by promoting and accepting the idea that some people’s wellbeing matters more than others and increasingly justifying biases and selective empathy. As much as we may like to think only truly evil people “out there” and unlike us could be capable of such evil it is important to note that no one is immune to this foolishness.
Thinking you are immune to evil is exactly the sort of thing that is likely to make you evil. Because the more you assume you could never be guilty of wrong the more resistant you are to people pointing out your problematic behavior. And the more you double down and resist correction the more blinded to your own faults you will become. “Now the Ruach clearly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, following deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the hypocrisy of false speakers—whose own conscience has been seared.” 1 Timothy 4:1-2. We need to be careful not to deceive ourselves into thinking we are not capable of being harmful toward others by staying humble and willing to self-evaluate when we are not as willing to acknowledge the pain of others deemed outside of whatever group we identify with.
“For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body—though many—are one body, so also is Messiah. For in one Ruach we were all immersed into one body—whether Jewish or Greek, slave or free—and all were made to drink of one Ruach…so that there may be no division in the body, but so that the parts may have the same care for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer together. If one part is honored, all the parts rejoice together.” 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. We should be able to care about the wellbeing of everyone.
