Desensitization, Jew Hatred, and the Hate of Cain: How To Love in the Face of Hate?

One year after the massacre of Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Torah was rolled to the story of Cain and Abel.  A year earlier, I had spoken forcefully about our need to combat Anti-Semitism without mercy in our country, and I was criticized by many for not responding to Hate with "words of Love."  Again at the one year anniversary much of the blogosphere was filled with slogans and platitudes that we can combat hate with love, and yet I could not find specifics anywhere about how we do that.  In this 11 minute reflection, I try to answer what this really could mean, using the Cain and Abel text, and drawing on the research that says that many who become racist or anti-Semites have had an experience at one time in their earlier lives of feeling that what they deserve was robbed from them by a member or members of the group they come to hate.  I also consider social media conglomerates accomplices to the spread of hate. A key part of this teaching is the role desensitizing young white men to hate through videos and memes that mock political correctness. After I recorded this, the following article came out about the billions of downloads of Dennis Prager's conservative funded organization whose mission is to do this:  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/josephbernstein/prager-university