Once Again, Horror Brings Us Together - Respponding to Pittsburgh

Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night after our Sabbath observance) I went to reconnect to the world (as we stay completely unplugged during our Shabbatot/Sabbaths and Hagim/Holidays) and found a flurry of emails talking about the tragedy in Pittsburgh and the community response. Immediately my colleagues from various faith communities in the community in which I live had already been moving on all cylinders to make sure we had a place and service to gather for the following evening at 7:00 pm, less than 24 hours of my viewing these emails.

My assigned task as President of our Cheltenham Area Multi-Faith Council was to get the word out to as many people as possible in different communities of faith. We live in a celebrated and acknowledged community of diversity, not unlike Squirrel Hill and people feel safe in this diversity and acceptance as well as valuing of each other. The fact that Squirrel Hill is such a community makes this already horrific occurrence even more startling. Truly nowhere is safe if we ever were naïve to think otherwise. I quickly blasted the information for a service that had to yet be planned, which would be done the following day, to as many people in our Jewish world and in our larger world of communities of faith in Montgomery County, where we live.

After another flurry of emails and phone calls, it was clear that there would be a meeting to organize this even at 3:00 pm Sunday afternoon. I entered the room and there were Rabbis, Cantors, Pastors and Reverends from other faith communities and whoever could be reached “on the fly” with absolutely no lead time. In one hour, we had ourselves a plan. We then each went our ways to go over our parts and figure out how to bring it together and less than two hours later, reconvened to gather with whoever was reachable and could come.

We found sanctuary in our very large sanctuary that was truly filled to the brim – with Jews across the ideological spectrum, many Christians of various iterations, Muslims and people of other faiths from our community as well. We all came together to share words of healing, honor the lives of those who were snuffed out tragically, and to take comfort and bring comfort to each other. I have received such an overwhelming avalanche of thank you emails and remarks from people about how meaningful Sunday night was.

So in that context, I want to offer a few remarks. First, we do tragedy really well. The majority of those of humanity who are good and caring find our ways to each other in times of need. How wonderful it would be if we could do the same at moments that are celebratory and those of shared observance. We in the Jewish faith always say at such times – May we all be worthy of sharing many joyful moments together. Yes, if we want to really feel community, let us share those moments too such as acknowledging our shared valuing of Thanksgiving as Americans, or coming together for important community conversations about critical issues that threaten even the peaceful and celebrated existence of communities like Squirrel Hill and Cheltenham, on opposite sides of Pennsylvania.

Secondly, and this is not a statement of politics, but of common decency at least and a foundational Jewish value (shared by other faiths) at most – WATCH OUR WORDS and teach our children to do the same. HOLD OUR LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE for what they say, for words certainly do lead to deeds and anyone who claims otherwise has not been paying attention to the world in which we live, like, forever. That is why in Proverbs we read “Death and life are at the hand of our tongue” – the mercy of what we say. Notice death is mentioned first, emphasizing the known idiom THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK.

Finally, remember that our faiths ask us to be the best we can be. The fact that it was communities of faith who came together throughout this country and elsewhere in our world is significant. G-d wants us to love each other and to care about each other, for EVERY HUMAN BEING is made BeTzelem Elokim. Islam, Christianity and Judaism all hold as core the notion that we should love and care for the other as we do ourselves. When you look at someone else and see the reflection of yourself in their eyes and the God piece of their soul, one has to love one’s neighbor as oneself, maybe not always like, or agree with, but love as in respecting and honoring that at our core, we are all little tiny pieces of God who created us all.

When one forgets that, one loses their humanity. May the memories of eleven souls and the worlds they represented from the Tree Of Life Congregation and those of the policemen and first responders who have left this world for us to tend and fix always be for a blessing.