{"id":125071,"date":"2025-10-19T17:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T15:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=125071"},"modified":"2025-10-18T07:46:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T05:46:58","slug":"19-00-105","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=125071","title":{"rendered":"We Must See Through the Disguise of Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>We Must See Through the Disguise of Evil<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Pini Dunner<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Anti-Israel demonstrators release smoke in the colors of the Palestinian flag as they protest to condemn the Israeli forces\u2019 interception of some of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel\u2019s naval blockade, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS\/Nacho Doce<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most respected theologians of the 20th century, often warned that moral certainty can be as dangerous as moral blindness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Niebuhr understood that evil rarely shows up wearing horns and carrying a pitchfork. Instead, it dresses itself in virtue, marches under banners of justice, and speaks in the name of compassion. As Niebuhr put it: \u201cEvil loves to disguise itself as good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This past week, Greta Thunberg \u2014 who first emerged as a precocious teenage climate activist, but has since become one of the most recognizable faces of the \u201cFree Palestine\u201d movement \u2014 proved Niebuhr\u2019s point in vivid color.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a grotesque distortion of reality, Thunberg gave an interview claiming she was \u201cbeaten, kicked, and threatened with gassing\u201d by Israelis during her brief time in Israel after being removed from the flotilla.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her tale of \u201cdrones dropping gas bombs\u201d on the flotilla, of being dragged to the ground by armed men on arrival in Israel, and then being locked in a cage while taunted and kicked, reads like a fever dream \u2014 the kind of deranged fantasy that would embarrass a third-rate propagandist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet in today\u2019s moral circus, absurdity is no barrier to belief when the villain is Israel and the storyteller is a sainted activist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here was a young woman, once seen as the face of idealism, invoking the imagery of Holocaust atrocities and scenes of grotesque torture to demonize Jews, descendants of those who endured those horrors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her interview is a concoction of lurid, self-serving fantasy \u2014 the innocent, virtuous fighter for goodness cast as a victim of unspeakable cruelty \u2014 a pantomime of righteousness that is, in truth, nothing more than repugnant evil. Not only because it is false, but because she cloaked her invented suffering in the language of moral purity.<\/span><\/p>\n

And she is hardly alone. The same moral theater has been performed by the legions of \u201cFree Palestine\u201d advocates who filled streets and campuses for two years demanding a ceasefire \u2014 only to fall utterly silent once that ceasefire arrived and Jewish hostages were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners at the staggering ratio of one hundred to one.<\/span><\/p>\n

For all their talk of peace and humanity, these activists\u2019 compassion evaporated the moment the fighting paused. Because their outrage was never about saving lives \u2013 it was about condemning Israel. That is why it is evil. These self-styled champions of justice were never rooting for peace \u2014 they were rooting for Israel\u2019s destruction: the elimination of the Jewish State and, if history is any guide, the elimination of Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

But none of this is new. From the dawn of creation, evil has triumphed not by being ugly, but by masquerading as beauty. Its most dangerous form is not open malice, but moral disguise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The very first story in the Book of Books \u2014 the Torah \u2014 exposes this truth from the outset, warning us that what appears good is often the worst evil imaginable. Shortly after the creation of Adam and Eve, humanity\u2019s prototype couple, they encounter the serpent \u2014 the world\u2019s first embodiment of evil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the serpent doesn\u2019t hiss threats or declare itself God\u2019s enemy. On the contrary, it speaks the language of progress, self-empowerment, and enlightenment (Gen. 3:5<\/a>): \u201cFor God knows that when you eat of [the Tree of Knowledge], your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.\u201c\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who wouldn\u2019t want to be like God, the ultimate good? In that moment, sin wasn\u2019t presented as rebellion \u2014 it was presented as moral advancement. The serpent doesn\u2019t promise wickedness; it promises virtue.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Midrash Tanchuma captures this deception perfectly: \u201cThe serpent approached her with words of friendship.\u201d It spoke softly. It offered companionship. It offered her a path to becoming a better version of herself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Midrash\u2019s phrase \u201cwords of friendship\u201d is brilliant. Because evil\u2019s first disguise is not as an enemy, but as a friend. How perfectly that describes so many moral crusaders of our own time. They come bearing empathy, waving the flag of justice, speaking of freedom and compassion \u2014 but beneath that promise of goodness lies malice and deceit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ramban adds another dimension. He notes that the serpent\u2019s words were not entirely false. In fact, the deception lay in their half-truth. Eating from the tree would open the human mind to greater awareness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Ramban explains, evil never triumphs by denying goodness outright. It triumphs by redefining it. That is why he calls the Biblical serpent \u201cthe most cunning of creatures.\u201d By cunning, he does not mean intelligent \u2013 he means manipulative. Evil never approaches us as evil. It comes dressed as the finest form of good. And that is what makes it so dangerous.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Meshech Chochma takes this one step further. He observes that Eve\u2019s reasoning was layered with justification: \u201cThe woman saw that the tree was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.\u201d Each motive sounds noble.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eve wasn\u2019t chasing pleasure or greed \u2014 she needed food, she appreciated beauty, and she was yearning for wisdom. But that is precisely what made it all so dangerous. The evil was rationalized in the language of good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And every moral failure in human history has followed the same pattern. People do not commit evil while calling it evil \u2013 they convince themselves they are doing good. Every ideological movement that has unleashed destruction on the world has begun with the same refrain: \u201cWe are fighting for justice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And so it is today. The woke left has perfected the art of moral inversion \u2014 the cloaking of malice in virtue. They proclaim themselves champions of the oppressed, but their selective compassion exposes their true motives. They weep for aggressors and scorn their victims. They champion \u201chuman rights,\u201d but only when those who are suffering aren\u2019t Jews. They tell themselves \u2014 and the world \u2014 that they are building a better society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In truth, they are constructing a world where facts are negotiable, morality is political, and good people are the ones you decide are good. In that world, lying is not a sin \u2013 it\u2019s a strategy. These do-gooders are the spiritual heirs of the Biblical serpent \u2014 fluent in the language of compassion, but devoted to the cause of destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that, in a sense, is what the Torah story foresaw. Evil does not announce, \u201cI will destroy the world.\u201d It declares, \u201cI will perfect it.\u201d It does not preach hatred \u2014 it preaches justice. But in the end, it is evil, pure and simple.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Greta Thunberg story is absurd, but it is also deeply symbolic. She represents countless others like her who have mistaken emotion for ethics and outrage for morality. Like Eve gazing at the fruit, they see what is \u201cgood for food\u201d and \u201cdelightful to the eyes,\u201d but never stop to ask whether it is right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Niebuhr was correct: evil loves to disguise itself as good. It does so because it knows that goodness is our deepest desire \u2014 and therefore our easiest weakness. Like the serpent in Eden, every false prophet of virtue since has used the same tactic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Darkness is easy to recognize, but evil is not. Darkness is the absence of light. Evil bends the light, until lies look like truth and hatred feels like compassion. And when that happens, our only defense is the one the Torah prescribes \u2014 clarity, humility, and the courage to see through the disguise.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.<\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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We Must See Through the Disguise of Evil Pini Dunner Anti-Israel demonstrators release smoke in the colors of the Palestinian flag as they protest to condemn the Israeli forces\u2019 interception of some of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel\u2019s naval blockade, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 2, 2025. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125071"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125094,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125071\/revisions\/125094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}