The disturbing attack this week on Justice Noam Sohlberg’s home in Alon Shvut should concern every Israeli and every Jew, regardless of political or religious affiliation. Dozens of draft protesters gathered outside his home, shattered windows, broke flowerpots, smashed a car windshield, and even displayed an Israeli flag with a swastika in place of the Star of David. Police arrested 62 people in connection with the incident.

What struck me most about this episode was not simply the vandalism itself, but what it represented: the danger that emerges when people become convinced that their cause is so just that they are no longer bound by the normal constraints of law and civil society.

Last Shabbat I delivered a drasha that was intended to address a challenge that many people are experiencing today. There are Jews who are struggling religiously with the tension between engaging in honest self-criticism regarding some of the things they see happening in Israel and recognizing that Israel is fighting a hostile enemy, in a world where criticism is often weaponized by those who seek to delegitimize or harm the Jewish state. My goal was to provide a framework through which people could express moral concerns while remaining deeply committed to the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

As part of that discussion, I spoke about settler violence. I was careful to distinguish between settlers and settler violence. My criticism was not directed at the settlement movement as a whole but at acts of vigilante violence carried out by individuals who take the law into their own hands.

Some people respectfully disagreed with me after the drasha. They argued that because........

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