8 | FEBRUARY 3 • 2022 

opinion
What the Texas Hostage Crisis 
Reveals about our Humanity
M

any details about 
the recent, terrifying 
hostage situation 
at Congregation Beth Israel 
in Colleyville, Texas, remain 
unclear. However, we do know 
that the perpetra-
tor, Malik Faisal 
Akram, knocked 
on the door of the 
Temple and asked 
to come inside. 
The congregation’s 
rabbi, Charlie 
Cytron-Walker, let 
him in — thinking that the man 
might simply be seeking shelter 
from the cold weather. After 
welcoming the stranger, Rabbi 
Cytron-Walker made a small but 
telling gesture: He brewed Mr. 
Akram a cup of tea. Later, during 
services, Akram drew a gun, 
setting off a tense 11-hour stand-
off that ended with a desperate 
escape and Akram’s death. 
Already, the events at 
Congregation Beth Israel have 
touched off a debate within the 
Jewish community about the 
tension between two competing 
values: security and hospitality. 
Jewish teachings — from the 
Book of Genesis, the fiery words 
of the prophets, and the Mishnah 
all the way to contemporary 
practices of tikkun olam — stress 
the importance of caring for the 
poor, welcoming the stranger 
and advocating for the voiceless. 
Growing up in a Jewish com-
munity in suburban Detroit, I 
was well aware that my people 
had suffered historical atrocities. 
The lesson of this suffering, I 
was taught, was to empathize 
with those facing oppression 
and to make sure that what we 
had experienced in the past was 

never inflicted on others. Yet 
I was only dimly aware of the 
threats facing Jews in the pres-
ent. In 2018, the tragic murder 
of 11 people at the Tree of Life 
Synagogue in Pittsburgh under-
scored the fragility of Jewish life 
in America — the sense that, no 
matter how integrated we are in 
American society, antisemitism 
will remain. 
Quite naturally, congregations 
reacted to the Tree of Life shoot-
ing with heightened security, 
wariness, a desire for enclosure 
and inwardness. I worried about 
the safety of my own father, who 
runs a Jewish social service agen-
cy in Metro Detroit, as well as 
my stepbrother, a rabbi presiding 
over the Reform congregation in 
which I was raised. At the same 
time, Judaism is an outward fac-
ing religion; the path to God lies 
in our connections with others 
just as much as in prayer and 
ritual. 
The events in Texas bring 
to mind two statements by 
Emmanuel Levinas, one of the 
foremost Jewish philosophers of 
the 20th century. Levinas sur-
vived the Holocaust as a prisoner 
of war and went on to write two 
towering and exacting books on 
the meaning of human respon-
sibility. In Totality and Infinity, his 
first major work, Levinas writes 
that “the subject is a host.
” 
He means that to be human 
is to perpetually welcome oth-
ers. This welcoming can take 
the form of giving food, shelter 
or even a cup of tea to those in 
need. But its simplest expression 
is the very language with which 
we offer our thoughts and feel-
ings to others, and receive theirs 
in turn. When Rabbi Cytron-

Walker opened his Temple’s 
doors, he was demonstrating a 
human ability to welcome others 
that is, in principle, boundless. 
This capacity for opening 
ourselves to others can turn dan-
gerous. In Levinas’ second great 
book, Otherwise than Being, he 
writes that “a subject is a hostage.
” 
Through offering up oneself and 
one’s home, the host can easily 
become a prisoner of their guest. 
The ability to welcome others 
is also a vulnerability to being 
wounded. For Levinas, this possi-
bility of disappointment, betrayal 
and suffering at the hands of oth-
ers is not an exception, but the 
rule of being human. 
Levinas does not mean that 
the violence of other people is 
justified. In fact, his philosophy is 
a full-throated defense of peace. 
When Mr. Akram pulled out a 
gun during services, he betrayed 
the trust of Rabbi Cytron-
Walker and the community of 
congregants who granted him 
sanctuary. Mr. Akram turned his 
hosts into terrified hostages, who 
escaped using their own ingenui-
ty and courage. 
Some might argue that the les-
son of these events should be for 
Jews to close ranks, increase pro-
tection and heighten suspicion 
of outsiders. Levinas’ philosophy 
does not offer an easy answer. To 
be human is to welcome others 
— with one’s gestures, speech 
and deeds. We are a social spe-
cies, who find meaning above 
all in our relationships with one 
another. Cutting oneself off from 
this world would be, for Levinas, 
an abdication of one’s humanity. 
At the same time, our con-
nections with others expose 
us to potential violence and to 

suffering for crimes we did not 
commit. The host can always 
become a hostage. Levinas’ phi-
losophy shows that it cannot be 
otherwise. There is no welcome 
without risk, no giving without 
vulnerability, and being human 
means inhabiting this tension 
without being able to escape it. 
Many temples and synagogues 
will wrestle in the coming weeks 
with how to keep their congre-
gations safe during worship, as 
they have every right to be. But 
we should remember that no 
precaution is absolute. This truth 
is especially salient during the 
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, 
in which we have witnessed the 
failure of border closings to halt 
the virus’ spread. The pandemic 
has reminded us that no com-
munity is an island and that the 
wellbeing of each individual is 
bound up with the health and 
safety of all. 
Rabbi Cytron-Walker invited 
Mr. Akram inside his Temple 
out of a sense of compassion 
and hospitality. In that moment 
he was not only a good Jew, but 
a good human being. Nothing 
can justify Mr. Akram’s actions, 
which put the lives of innocent 
people at risk. At the same time, 
nothing can justify the refusal to 
welcome others, care for them 
and seek justice on their behalf. 
Through these actions, we do not 
eliminate the risk of responsibil-
ity. Instead, we become worthy 
of it. 

Charlie Driker-Ohren is a Metro Detroit 

native currently pursuing a doctorate 

in philosophy at Stony Brook University 

in New York. His research explores the 

intersection of time, memory, and ethics, 

with a focus on the Jewish philosopher 

Emmanuel Levinas.

PURELY COMMENTARY

Charlie 
Driker-Ohren

