The January 13, 2015 edition of Charlie Hebdo will include this cover picture of the Prophet Muhammad holding a sign that reads, “JE SUIS CHARLIE” (“I am Charlie”) below the headline “TOUT EST PARDONNE” (“All is forgiven”).   Do fanatics of any religious tradition have this much compassion? This much humanity? This much common decency?

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A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.    -Abraham Joshua Heschel