To us a single act of injustice
(Cheating in business, exploitation of the poor)
Is slight
To the prophets
A disaster
To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people
To the prophets it is a deathblow to existence
To us
An episode
To them
A nakba
A threat to the world
Their breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as hysteria
We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice
Manifestations of hypocrisy & falsehood & outrage & misery
But we rarely grow indignant or overly excited
To the prophets even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportions
–adapted and updated from Abraham Joshua Heschel
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