Since Monday, the attention of much of America has been focused on Damar Hamlin, a Buffalo Bills safety who suffered cardiac arrest on the field after a seemingly routine tackle, and remains in critical condition. Jonathan Silver reflects on this sport’s martial nature, and on the reaction to it of a supposedly secularizing society:

In football, the life of the player is not usually on the line, whereas in the actual field of battle, armed soldiers consciously attempt to take the very life of their adversaries. The players and the audience are used to seeing sprains and tears and even broken limbs, and to watching years later when retired players break down. But Hamlin’s immobile body, furiously pumped by doctors attempting CPR, revealed where the sport’s analogy to life and death ends, and how different it feels to be confronted with the real thing.

We read and hear much talk of how Americans are losing the religious impulse. But it was in that instantaneous transformation of a sporting event into a matter of life and death that America heard the whisper of angels. Religious people believe that the world we live in is englobed by a larger reality. Without knowing what else to do, or to say, and when confronted with the limitations of their own abilities to help a fallen comrade in arms, the Buffalo Bills, the Cincinnati Bengals, and millions of Americans all closed their eyes, and bent their heads in prayer.

The Biden administration’s apparent abandonment of Israel is matched by the White House’s feckless handling of rising anti-Semitism. Seth Mandel explains:

On Thursday, May 2, Biden made public remarks condemning the campus pro-Hamas protests. The very next day, major Jewish groups pulled out of a White House meeting on anti-Semitism with [the domestic policy adviser Neera] Tanden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The reason? Jewish activists who have spent their careers opposing Israel, attacking the Jewish community, and now supporting the very anti-Semitic demonstrations [the meeting was called to address] were added to the meeting after the mainstream groups had already accepted.

When Joe Biden speaks about anti-Semitism, he usually says the right words. But in charge of his deeds, he has put political incompetents manifestly unqualified for this responsibility. He should fix that immediately, because his speeches won’t much matter without a way to implement the ideas animating them.