The Jerusalem Post reported today (HT: WorldNetDaily) about an Israeli professor at Virgina Tech who gave his life to save his students yesterday.
As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 33 dead and over two dozen wounded.
Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."
When I heard yesterday about the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, I knew there would be two different reactions: (1) "This is proof that we need more gun control." (2) "This is proof that we need more gun ownership, with expanded concealed-carry permits." And I was right.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has issued a statement that includes their concern over "how easy it is for an individual to get powerful weapons in our country." And on the other side, Michelle Malkin links to this 2002 story that recaps the way two armed law students prevented a similar shooting rampage at Appalachian Law School.
I heard a little bit of Michael Medved's radio show yesterday on my way home from work, in which he took his callers to task for trying to make some kind of sense of the senselessness of this crime. There is no sense to be made, nothing that we can learn as a lesson that will make us safe from a random crime in the future. We can't find a cause that we can respond to by changing society in just the right way, so that nobody will ever go berzerk again.
The only sense we can find in carnage like this is the heroes. When we highlight the people who put themselves in harm's way to save others, that's how we find good in tragedy. We found inspiration in the stories that came out of Columbine and 9/11, and we'll find it in the stories that will be coming out of Virginia Tech in the next days and weeks.
Topping the list is Professor Librescu, who gave his life to save so many others. May his family find comfort in the Lord and in the knowledge of the greatness of their husband and father.
5 comments:
Great story. He is truly a hero. Wish I had time to post on him, as well as the shooting itself.
The thinking around the globe that targeting and killing innocent people is a proper response to a perceived injustice is growing.
The thinking around the globe that targeting and killing innocent people is a proper response to a perceived injustice is growing.
If that's really a proper response, then what's everyone so upset about?
Disgusting that anyone believes that. It dehumanizes the victims.
The Jewish faith believes God has a purpose, for all of us, in life.
For this fine man to live through the horrors of the holocaust, and all that came with it, only to end his life saving others, well, I think that was Gods purpose.
Janice,
Cool point. I wonder if some of those kids saved by him will think of it.
It boggles the mind to think "if this had not happened this way, then this would have happened".
In my case, if I had not selected a certain transportation over 20 years ago, I would not likely have met a girl under just the right conditions to fall in love with each other. The girl who became my wife and the mother of my kids.
There have also been other stories where somebody has died tragically and I mull over all of the unlikely events that happened, that if any one of them had not; the person would be alive.
Sorry, but a topic that has always interested me.
Janice/AICS,
There was an article last year (I think I posted on it--or I may just have thought of posting on it) where a young man saved the life of a woman who turned out to be the woman who saved the young man's life several years before.
We never know what purpose God has planned for us or how we fit into His grand plan, and we won't know until we get to heaven. But we get glimpses of it now and then here on earth.
I hope the professor's students understand what he did for them and give him the proper honor, especially to his wife and children.
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