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May 19, 2004

Beyond help, but not helpless

Baldilocks agonizes over what it must be like to die alone and surrounded by your enemies. Mich at Tonecluster offers the following response drawn from Bachya ben Asher, a Spanish rabbi of the 1300s.

"God can transcend the laws of nature and change a person's fortune, and though a situation may appear to be hopeless, Divine intervention can change that reality in an instant. God's salvation is close at hand, for He is omnipotent. Even if a sword rests on a person's neck, he should not imagine that his salvation is impossible... Thus said Chizkiya to Yeshayahu the prophet: I have received a tradition from my grandfather's house, that even though a sharp sword rests on a person's neck, he should not withhold himself from supplication to God."

I will tell you what I want to see. Or rather, what I want to hear. I want to hear Fabrizio Quattrocchi use his last moments well.

"Now I'll show you how an Italian dies!"

Al Jazeera said they would not air the video of Quattrocchi's death because it was "too greusome". I do not believe it. I believe they chose not to air the video because it showed a man dying a hero. Neither al Jazeera nor our own media elites can afford to show us that. James Robbin writes:

The enemy we face today would have to rise far to earn even our contempt. Fabrizio's captors wanted not just to kill him, but to humiliate him, the true mark of the savage. However, they needed his cooperation, and Fabrizio knew it. He was beyond help, but not helpless. He was alive. He could still choose, if only to choose the manner in which he would die. Consider the bravery, the nobility, the strength of that act.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 19, 2004 08:12 AM

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