Words - an edited version of this post is scheduled to appears in Letters to the Editor in the Boston Globe

Have words ever been more closely scrutinized, analyzed? Meanings, some intended and others not, giving rise to the most intense replies.

What has transpired since October 7th has put all of us on high alert. The brutality of that day, the massacre and slaughter of some 1400 Israelis by Hamas, struck a blow to our central nervous system. What has been said, or not said, in its aftermath, drawing praise or fire.

Many have chosen to weigh in. Others feeling it better to let the moment speak for itself. As the days unfold and the sounds and images of what is transpiring envelop our senses, it becomes a moral dilemma whether it is incumbent to give voice to what one is feeling, a response to what one is watching.

Do we have an obligation to raise our voices? And are we fair game for the inevitable slings and arrows if we do? Or if we don't?

We learn each day through this horrifying process that it is not only sticks and stones that break bones. Words, or the absence of them, it seems can do the gravest of harm as well.