I have had, and perhaps others have had the experience where a group decision was about to be made and someone innocently brought up a question or point of information and all the argument that was resolving, dissolved.  A case in point is a “Mad Max”. Some people never miss the opportunity to do this.

Many people love action films with lots of violence.  This is one way for anger deep inside to be expressed without harming anyone.  The imagined maiming of foes, particularly by innocents, makes the resolution or denouement that much more gratifying. Mad Max was an early film of Mel Gibson.  It was basically mindless except for the revenge he exacted from particularly worthless individuals who committed vulgar crimes.  He was the un-appointed sheriff at high noon who single-handedly bested the villains at the end.  He was the “little man” who got even with the evil perpetrators of all sorts of social bad taste.  Mad Max grew up to be Mel Gibson. He revels in the blood of his Christ and lovingly details it endlessly in a film that comes at a time when relations between Jews of the world and their neighbors are strained and yet again are at a delicate point. There are many messages in the life of Jesus but Mad Max sees only the blood of his sacrifice.

There are times when a curse or a punch or a dirty look is overlooked. And, there are times when the slightest thing will cause a melee or riot or a holocaust.  The march of Ariel Sharon and a contingent of his backers up to the Temple Mount that is also the site of two mosques, central objects of veneration by Muslims, was just such an opportunity. It was a provocative move. To paraphrase a quip by Abba Eban, who said that the Arabs never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, Mr. Sharon and others like him never miss an opportunity to stir up trouble.  Mr. Gibson, in his alter ego as Mad Max, is just as “innocent” or deliberately guilty of stirring up trouble.

There are a number of reflective and very thoughtful essays in the New York Times this Sabbath after Ash Wednesday.  Most of them show fear that this “movie” might be the incident that sets off another wave of Anti-Semitism. I think there will be an intensification of religious fervor expressed in anger at Jews that began anew by Mr. Sharon on the Temple Mount. The Intifada (murders of innocents) was intensified. Provocation by “settlements” does not stop. A wall continues to be built. Life does not go on in a straight even line.

This opportunity by a Mad Max will cause a serious turn in the road and will result in terrible ongoing harm to these disputing groups and the innocents among them. Why do not opportunities for peace replace those that cause harm?