Vərakh haleivav is often translated something like “fainthearted” or “cowardly”, but as an adjective, rakh primarily denotes softness, tenderness, delicacy. A child’s skin is said to be rakh, as are the words that Proverbs 15:1 says can defuse wrath. A soft heart is a vulnerable heart, a heart not walled off from the sorrows of the world, a heart that is marked by the humanity of those our governments tell us to hate, to disregard, to kill. A soft heart refuses to let “enemy” become a shorthand for “undeserving of moral reckoning”.