Let’s take a look, if I may, at the international scene, rather than the local.

Not that the issues of the future of our children with special needs has been dealt with any more than last week, but this item caught my interest, especially what seemed to be an off hand comment by a bystander.

You may have seen in this morning’s paper the attack, yesterday, in Jerusalem, where a local Arab man stole a bulldozer and drove it into a filled passenger bus (repeatedly), ran over a number of pedestrians and injured a number of drivers in cars. Many people were hurt, some were killed and damage was enormous.

Originally reported as a politically inspired terrorist attack, the news later reported that it was the act of a man with “too short a fuse” who just got angry and went on a murderous rampage through the holy city. Let us leave aside that many of us could be accused of having “too short a fuse” sometimes, but I could not imagine any of us would respond by taking a bulldozer and using it to injure and murder random people while shouting Allah Akbar.

Let’s look at this comment, reported in the Jerusalem Post, they reported that witnesses observed that before the attack, the man had been working in a construction site and was ridiculed by a group of Charedi teenagers, culminating in his storming off in anger.

Did it actually happen?

Who knows?

Do the verbal insults and ridicule of children justify an adult to run off and kill people?

Does it matter at all?

We, without a question, cannot place the responsibility of this horrific act at the feet of the teenagers, even if it would be true. People must take responsibility for their own actions. One cannot use an excuse of being insulted to kill, maim and destroy innocent mothers and children.

Regardless of the innuendo that the Post is making, the Arab man was a murderer, a reckless, hate filled person. His decision to kill a young mother, a teacher, a child and to injure dozens can, in no way, me mitigated by the insults hurled at him by teenagers.

Yet, what of those teenagers? Of course, we would need to presume that they actually did ridicule the man and I am not so sure that it happened at all. But, let’s say it did. Is there a lesson to be learnt from this?

Certainly, we need to know how sharp, how painful our words can be. Ridicule, insults, words that strip a person of their dignity are ugly, demeaning and can cause deeper, more profound and long lasting pain than we would imagine.

We certainly do not anticipate that our words could lead someone to become a murderer and certainly not to justify it. Yet, our words do have an effect that is enormous.

Imagine a child, who is always pushed, never “good enough”, never “smart enough”, or one who is always yelled at, insulted or ignored. We know, some of us first hand, how hurtful and totally destructive that is. How about a child who is bullied, ridiculed by friends? How about one who is the victim of bigotry or anti-Semitism?

Words, or let’s be straight- OUR words can destroy our marriages, can take the spirit out of a child or can send a neighbour away from a Shul, a community or Torah itself.

No, we should not anticipate that our words would be the cause of a person to murder. Yet, our words do kill. They can inflict enough damage on a loved one, a spouse, parent or child that the joy of life, the spirit itself could be destroyed. We all have seen it, we all know the victims of broken marriages, verbal abuse and ridicule.

There is no question that man murdered Jews, because he was taught that Jewish blood is cheap and be spilt easily. He was taught to hate and something lit his fuse.

Yet, perhaps we can see this as a lesson as well, a lesson on the pain our words can inflict on each other and mostly, on our loved ones.

Words cannot cause one to kill, but, frankly, words can kill.

Let’s try to be cognizant of that and hopefully be more careful with the weapon we carry just above our chin.