Note: Also posted to Facebook, so some of this is worded carefully and using stories and references to avoid getting censored.
Something that comes to mind every time a high profile death like this happens...
And to be clear, this isn't a condemnation, but food for thought:
In Judaism there's a relevant lesson, that we're guided not to celebrate death but to celebrate the diminishment of evil.
It's such a tiny difference, but I think it does make worlds of difference in our lives and in how we behave down the line.
I'll spare the talks of faith or divine judgement, but I'll speak to the practical effects I think are in play.
The risk in celebrating the death itself is that you start finding joy in the death of those you see as wrong or evil... and that joy can turn into a lowering of standards, in finding excuses to celebrate death. Eventually you start saying "But that man was evil so it's a good thing he died".
But what does it mean to celebrate the diminishment of evil? It means seeing what harm they would have done, and celebrating the end of that harm.
It's not enough to just say "there's one less bigot and evil person in the world", it's to ask how many lives do you think will be spared from harm?
The reason my celebration at this will be muted is because I honestly don't know if his voice was unique enough, or that it will take any time at all for him to be replaced and echoed.
It's not as simple as the United Healthcare death, where there was an immediate (but unfortunately temporary) change, that for a while after people got healthcare that would have otherwise been denied... without a doubt, many lives were saved.
In cases like this I especially think back to the story in my faith of the drowning of the Pharaoh's army in the Sea of Reeds. To the fact that a single soldier's death would have done little to diminish evil on it's own... but that single soldier's death is a necessary part of the greater whole that greatly diminishes evil.
