When Hatred Is Excused as Youth: The Moral Weight of Adult Speech

Earlier this week, I came across an important story that reveals something deeply broken in the moral conversation of our time.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, recently said he was “delighted” to welcome back to Britain Alaa Abd El-Fattah.  El-Fattah an Egyptian-British activist, had been imprisoned in Egypt, and his release had long been championed by human-rights organizations. The controversy erupted when past social-media posts by Abd El-Fattah resurfaced recently. In these posts he praised the killing of “Zionists” which is indistinguishable from the celebration of violence against Jews. These were not comments made during adolescence, or in some distant, immature past. They were written when he was in his late twenties and early thirties, old enough to understand precisely what such words mean, and how such rhetoric has historically translated into real-world harm.

The outrage that followed was predictable and justified. Words that celebrate violence against Jews, whatever label one chooses to apply, are not political critique. They are incitement. They are hatred. And history has taught us what happens when such language is normalized, minimized, or excused.  Yet as I read the coverage, one detail kept reappearing, almost defensively: those statements were made years ago. He was younger. Angry. Caught up in the passions of the moment.

And that framing itself should trouble us deeply.

Late twenties and early thirties is not childhood. It is adulthood. It is an age at which we expect moral agency, not moral indulgence. It is old enough to be responsible for our words, and their impact. 

Judaism has always taken this idea seriously. Our tradition does not imagine adulthood as something that slowly fades into place without obligation. We mark responsibility early (perhaps shockingly early by modern standards). Think of what we teach our Bar and Bat Mitzvah students when we prepare them for their special day: Bar or Bat Mitzvah is not merely ceremonial. It is a declaration to the community, and yourself: you are now accountable. Your words matter. Your actions matter. Your moral choices matter.

This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayechi, sharpens that point with unusual force. Jacob, nearing the end of his life, gathers his children for final words. What is striking is not only that he blesses them, but that he judges them. He reviews their lives with unsparing moral clarity. He does not sentimentalize their pasts. He does not say, “that was long ago.” He does not excuse cruelty as passion or youth.

Reuben’s instability is named.
Shimon and Levi’s violence is condemned.
Judah’s growth is acknowledged.

When Jacob speaks to Shimon and Levi, he says words that still unsettle us:
“In their anger they slew men… cursed be their anger, for it was fierce.”

Jacob does not deny their grievances. He condemns their violence.

Vayechi teaches us something profoundly important: love does not erase judgment, and judgment does not preclude love. Accountability is not the opposite of compassion; it is one of its most demanding expressions.

And that is why the public embrace of figures who have trafficked in violent antisemitic rhetoric without clear moral boundaries or serious reckoning is so dangerous. It blurs the line between forgiveness and forgetfulness. Between compassion and complicity.

For Jews, this is not theoretical. We know how quickly words become permission. How chants become action. How ideas once dismissed as “rhetorical” end in very concrete harm. When leaders treat incitement as a footnote rather than a disqualifier, they teach society what can be overlooked, and of greater immediate concern to world Jewry, who can be overlooked.  And that is why stories like this like this feel so destabilizing. They suggest that antisemitism, once again, is being treated as a lesser offense. Something contextual. Something explainable. Something excusable.

This must be the response of the public officials who will decide whether Alaa Abd El-Fattah remains in the United Kingdom.  We can believe in human rights without embracing human hatred. We can affirm freedom without celebrating those who abused it. And we can believe in repentance without abandoning the demand for responsibility. In that regard, Prime Minister, Keir Starmer and the human rights organizations that championed this cause have a lot of work to do.

Parshat Vayechi reminds us that the past does not disappear simply because time has passed, but neither does it imprison us if we confront it honestly. The danger arises when we pretend that hateful words are harmless, that violent rhetoric is symbolic, or that adulthood somehow arrives without moral weight.

Jacob understood something our world too often forgets: what we say in moments of passion becomes part of our moral legacy, unless we have the courage to reckon with it.