Dear TBZ community:
I have no words. No words that can fill the void, that can express the pain, the anger, the sadness after nineteen children and two of their teachers were killed. Since Tuesday I have been trying to write this message, realizing that all I have is tears.
Wednesday morning, as I was about to wake my 6-year-old to go to school, I cried. Looking at her sweet face sleeping, I could hardly bear the thought that just the day before other parents had woken their children, had kissed their sweet faces, had sent them off to school, only to never see them again.
Like so many of you, I am angry at lawmakers who, for the sake of their own power, are not willing to pass laws that could have prevented this shooting and so many others. I am angry at lawmakers who are not willing to pass basic laws to provide us with background checks that would prevent private gun sales and show sales.
As a religious person, prayer is what comforts me. But I also know that at this time “thoughts and prayers” without action, without change are not only meaningless but are an affront to what being a religious person means, an affront to Godself.
I go back to the essay “On Prayer” by Abraham Joshua Heschel written in 1969:
Prayer is either exceedingly urgent, exceedingly relevant, or inane and useless.
Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.
The world is aflame with evil and atrocity; the scandal of perpetual desecration of the world cries to high heaven. And we, coming face to face with it, are either involved as callous participants or, at best, remain indifferent onlookers. The relentless pursuit of our interests makes us oblivious of reality itself. Nothing we experience has value in itself; nothing counts unless it can be turned to our advantage, into a means for serving our self-interests.
We pray because the disproportion of human misery and human compassion is so enormous. We pray because our grasp of the depth of suffering is comparable to the scope of perception of a butterfly flying over the Grand Canyon. We pray because of the experience of the dreadful incompatibility of how we live and what we sense.
This week’s parasha begins with the words:
אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ וְאֶת־מִצְותַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם
If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments
And goes on to list all the blessings we will encounter if we follow God’s direction: rain, prosperity and peace.
Verse 6 reads:
וְנָתַתִּי שָׁלוֹם בָּאָרֶץ וּשְׁכַבְתֶּם וְאֵין מַחֲרִיד
וְהִשְׁבַּתִּי חַיָּה רָעָה מִן־הָאָרֶץ וְחֶרֶב לֹא־תַעֲבֹר בְּאַרְצְכֶם
I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone
I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.
Torah teaches that there are consequences to our actions – to our collective actions as a people, as a nation.
Verse 12 reads:
וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי בְּתוֹכְכֶם וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ־לִי לְעָם
I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people
God will walk in our midst – if we follow the path of values. God can’t reveal godself to us if we are not able to see God in other humans and live by that.
I hear this verse of the Torah as a plea from God saying, I want to walk in your midst, I want to be in relationship with you, but you ought to do better, you can’t be selling guns as if they were not made to kill.
Ebn (my spouse, Rabbi Ebn Leader) reminded me of the verse of Isaiah 1:15
וּבְפָרִשְׂכֶם כַּפֵּיכֶם אַעְלִים עֵינַי מִכֶּם גַּם כִּי תַרְבּוּ תְפִלָּה אֵינֶנִּי שֹׁמֵעַ יְדֵיכֶם דָּמִים מָלֵאוּ.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
Our hands are full of blood, and God can not look at us, our prayers are meaningless and can not be heard, unless we act.
TBZ has a Gun Violence Prevention Action group, please join our efforts in this group, email tikkunolam@tbzbrookline.org if you would like to get involved.
Heschel ends this essay with the words:
This is an age of spiritual blackout, a blackout of God. We have entered not only the dark night of the soul, but also the dark night of society. We must seek out ways of preserving the strong and deep truth of a living God theology in the midst of the blackout.
For the darkness is neither final nor complete. Our power is first in waiting for the end of darkness, for the defeat of evil; and our power is also in coming upon single sparks and occasional rays, upon moments full of God’s grace and radiance.
We are called to bring together the sparks to preserve single moments of radiance and keep them alive in our lives, to defy absurdity and despair, and to wait for God to say again: Let there be light.
And there will be light.
May we be able to find the light in this very dark hour.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing.
May we have a joyful, sweet, and peaceful Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom שבת שלום
