The Comfortable Bed of Digital Conscience

Epstein embodies evil beyond words.
Is that a crime?
A child massacre?
Or a collective collapse of humanity?
Language is not enough.
Concepts are retreating.
Words fail to describe it.
Maybe that's why writing is so difficult. Because whatever we say is incomplete, whatever we write is light. But perhaps what is really hard is that familiar feeling that comes after writing: relief.
Relief of conscience
This year's word “digital conscience” selected.
So we look at the screen, feel sad, write a few sentences, condemn and then move on.
Yes, we have a digital conscience.
We shared. We wrote. We cursed.
“disgusting”, “monstrous”, “diabolical” we said. Our keyboards worked, our consciences were written.
And then
Then we went back to bed.
We looked at the faces of our children.
We kissed them.
We covered them.
As if saying a few sentences for the murdered children is enough to protect our own children.
It is as if we have paid a debt with words.
But we have seen this many times in the world and in this country: People can take to the streets for the powerful.
Rallies are organized, squares are filled, buildings are stormed. Just like the storming of the Capitol for Donald Trump.
But for children...
Almost nowhere in the world, almost no one is moving.
The ground doesn't move.
The world is not being turned upside down.
We are aware of evil but we do not take responsibility.
Maybe we can't.
We are staying in the most comfortable place.
When the Epstein files first came out, many of us couldn't sleep.
I couldn't sleep either.
This testimony became personal for me. It kept me awake, as it did for many of us. When I first read the news, I couldn't sleep because what we learned was too heavy.
Then I saw a woman going back and forth between sleep and wakefulness.
I was conscious but my body was locked.
I couldn't move.
I was looking up at myself.
It was like my soul was separated from my body.
That woman had a huge bag in her hand.
He was getting ready to leave.
“I asked, ”Where are you going?".
“To be a barrier in front of the children,” he said.
First to Gaza.
And then, all over the world, children are being put to death...
“No one will come,” I said.
I envied that woman. I couldn't turn over in bed, I couldn't even open my eyes. I was in a state of sleep paralysis. I didn't try to wake up.
“I wish people would build a wall of flesh for children,” I said.
“I'll go,” he said.
I asked about her bag.
Inside were some diapers, a bottle, some formula and a rattle.
“I said, ”A rattle?".
“Not to keep the babies quiet,” he said,
“to realize that they are alive.”
And he left.
Then I heard the voices of babies and children.
I couldn't tell if it was crying or laughing.
Then I saw thousands of children among the flowers and cute creatures, all looking at me. I was ashamed. I wanted to run away, but I couldn't move.
Then I saw an angel between the two angels with his eyes closed, holding the scales of justice in his hand. I was struggling to wake up, but I couldn't wake up.
The sound of babies was heard again:
“You didn't know,” they said.
“But you have learned.
What did you do after you found out?”
I could not answer.
“Did you think you would be saved by writing?” they said.
“To grieve, to curse, to share?”
They were right.
We have learned so much evil, but we have not been able to move the world.
We could not scream.
We have not been able to destroy these deep-rooted structures.
We did not make the world a narrow place for those who did evil.
We continued to wake up every day in warm beds, with clean hands, to a dirty world.
Then we thought we were good people and believed that we would go to heaven when we died.
Maybe we'll go.
But babies, children who have experienced this evil...
Will he forgive us?
I don't know.
Then I turned to the thousands of babies and children looking at me.
This time at the top of my lungs:
“Don't forgive us!” I said.
Then I moved.
I took a deep breath.
The sleep paralysis had passed.
But I was back to the nightmare: The Epstein case.
And the question of the babies was still there:
What did you do after you found out?