If you haven’t heard by now, Elmo’s Twitter was hacked. You know Elmo: the beloved red muppet monster from Sesame Street, the children’s show. Elmo unsurprisingly has a Twitter account (like all inanimate objects) and it was compromised – to say the least. Not just with libel against Big Bird, but with vile, antisemitic, horrifyingly profane words against the Jews. One tweet simply said: “Kill the Jews.” That’s all you really need to know.
It was just a hack, Sesame Street reported, but word on the street is that we’re living in a time where this type of hate speech is tolerated. Where blood libel and antisemitic rhetoric are not discouraged, and where Ivy League institutions turn their backs on Jews to support the woke antisemitism of today. Elmo recently made a guest appearance on another children’s entertainer’s show, one known for spreading antisemitic messages, making some wonder if this “hack” was really so random after all. As always though, I want to take you back to the Torah, to the source, because there’s a story from Scripture that can teach us and give us insight into the modern upside-down world we live in. Where red furry puppets can double as Neo Nazi propaganda.
The strikingly similar tale of Queen Jezebel and her manipulation of justice can be found in 1 Kings 21. When Jezebel wanted Naboth’s vineyard for her husband King Ahab, she didn’t storm in with swords blazing. She was far more sophisticated. She wrote letters in the king’s name, sealed them with his seal, and orchestrated a legal proceeding that would result in Naboth’s execution. The text tells us she “wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city”.
She used the very systems meant to protect the innocent: the legal system, the monarchy, the religious establishment, to commit murder. But God’s justice caught up with her. Years later, Jezebel met her end exactly as the prophet Elijah had foretold, proving that those who corrupt justice will ultimately face it themselves.
This is precisely what happened with Elmo’s account. The hackers didn’t create their own platform to spread hate; they hijacked a beloved children’s character, complete with his recognizable voice and trusted brand. They weaponized innocence itself. Just as Jezebel used the king’s seal to give her evil plans the appearance of legitimacy, these modern-day wicked ones used Elmo’s digital seal to spread their poison.
The Hebrew Bible has a name for this phenomenon: sheker or falsehood, masquerading as. When Isaiah surveyed the moral landscape of his time, he saw something that should chill us to the bone:
The prophet wasn’t just describing political corruption, he was diagnosing a society where the very categories of right and wrong had become so blurred that good people became targets simply for standing up.
This is our world today. Truth doesn’t just stumble in the public square; it’s actively hunted down. The same platforms that should connect us and educate our children have become vehicles for the most ancient lies. When a children’s character can be transformed overnight into a mouthpiece for genocide, we’re witnessing something far more sinister than a simple hack.
The Talmud teaches us that evil speech is equivalent to murder because it kills three people: the speaker, the listener, and the one being spoken about. But when that evil speech is delivered through a trusted children’s character, it does something even more devastating. It murders innocence itself. It teaches children that nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and no one can be trusted.
Yet Isaiah’s lament contains a hidden blessing. He observes that “he who departs from evil makes himself a prey,” meaning that in corrupt times, righteousness becomes a target. But here’s what the wicked don’t understand: being a target means you’re doing something right. When evil has to work this hard to silence truth, it means truth is still powerful enough to threaten them.
This is why we must teach our children to recognize the difference between authentic goodness and its counterfeit. Real righteousness doesn’t need to hide behind masks or hijack other people’s identities. It stands in the light, speaks clearly, and builds rather than destroys. When we see hatred masquerading as playfulness, or genocide disguised as justice, we must call it what it is: the ancient enemy wearing new clothes.
The Elmo incident is a warning about what happens when a society loses its moral compass. When, you have to quite literally wonder how to get to Sesame Street – because this, this is not it.
But it’s also an opportunity. When the world continues to stumble in the public square, those who help it back to its feet become partners with God Himself. And that, more than any tweet or hack, is a legacy worth leaving our children.
