Now zoom out and think about the genocidal language of the last couple of years, that has been introduced, spun up, amplified, in our formerly more civil discourse. Pro-vaxxers wanted anti-vaxxers dead. Anti-vaxxers have made snide remarks about the deaths of the vaccinated. Pro-Palestinian protesters have cried, “Death to America” and “Death to Jews.” Pro-Israeli voices have called for the eradication — even “liquidation” — of Gaza and Gazans.

And on, and on.

My friend was telling me about the Pride parade in San Francisco this year —....

I wondered — as Candace Owens had done, I hope not as ignorantly — Why? Why devote this kind of energy - which is not needed, to support LGBTQ legal rights — to offending or degrading or corrupting public space, and affecting children?

Then I remembered something a mentor of mine had explained to me. He is involved with the Chabad movement, and many of the Rabbis expect the Messiah to appear (or appear again) soon.

My mentor is eager to see a world in which both Jews and non-Jews know about and follow the seven Noahide commandments. In the views of many Chabad religionists, it is only when humans align with God by living moral lives, that we prepare for and even “bring down” to earth, Mashiach, the Messiah. (In his view it does not matter if we call it a Christian or a Jewish Messiah; it is the same time of, act of, redemption, and the same establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven).

In this worldview, we had all better start getting ready, because Mashiach is due to arrive in the next few years.

“The dark forces know that their time is almost up,” he explained. “And so they want to get people to break every commandment — to do every evil deed — because only by doing so, does that delay the arrival of the Mashiach.”