Aug. 6, 8:15 a.m. Seventy years ago, Hiroshima turned into hell
on earth by a new and terrifying American weapon nicknamed Little Boy. The bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, together with another that
hit Nagasaki
three days later, killed more than 200,000 people, most of them civilians. Today
Hiroshima marked the anniversary with a solemn ceremony
attended by thousands at the Children's Peace Monument.
We in the US
have our Freedom Tower,
Hiroshima has the Children's Peace Monument,
Nagasaki has the Peace Park.
All rose from the ashes of terrible tragedy. All three are monuments to honor
the fallen and to show the tenacity of the human
spirit. We can rebuild. We will rebuild. We will be stronger coming through the
fire.
I was born many years after the end of
WWII. With that and the intervening years, I have a tendency to view the events
of Hiroshima
and the A-bomb with a cold detachment. I accept at face value what I read in
textbooks, that the U.S.
dropped the bombs to avoid what would have been a bloody ground assault on the
Japanese mainland. The bombs shortened the war and saved countless lives on
both sides. I accepted that. Then today I went to the CNN website as I routinely do. There I saw
haunting crayon pictures drawn by children who survived the devastation at Hiroshima. The pain suddenly became real. It had a face--a child's face.
I saw the drawings and wondered if something
unspeakable like that could ever happen again. Even as I type these words, I
think of the evil infecting the Middle East,
and I realize that yes, it could happen again. In a heartbeat. Without
hesitation and without remorse. King Solomon was right when he said there was
nothing new under the sun. Human nature hasn’t changed. Evil still exists. Sin is still rampant in the
world.
I pray I’m wrong. I pray that humanity progressed and we’ve learned from the carnage and pain of the past. Deep in my gut, though, I sense something else. In closing, I only have one thing to say: Maranatha-- מרנא תא
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