Death and Mourning
In the Torah, God says to Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt” (Exodus 3:7). Moses feels inadequate to the task and complains that he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue,” but in the end, he overcomes his fears and accomplishes the task God chose him to do. Moses’ divine mission was preordained. For most of us, however, discovering our higher purpose in life may require a leap of faith. To complicate matters, according to the great Jewish mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed (1534-1572), it is the divine mission of every... Read More
Less than six weeks since the massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, still it feels as if we stand with our mouths open in silent disbelief. We, who live at “ground zero,” try to pick up the pieces. So many ripples of horror and aftershocks of pain and suffering reverberate still in the human heart of all who were touched directly or indirectly by the violence that took 17 innocent lives on Valentine’s Day 2018. How to make sense of the senseless? How to comprehend the incomprehensible? ... Read More
This Shabbat, we honor lives lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, and say Mourner's Kaddish for the following individuals, as well as all those killed by gun violence thus far in 2018: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, URJ Camp Coleman camper and soccer player with Parkland Travel Soccer Scott Beigel, 35, Geography teacher and staff member at Camp Starlight, a predominantly Jewish summer camp in Pennsylvania Martin Duque Anguiano, 14, U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps member Nicholas Dworet, 17, incoming freshman at the University of... Read More
At least 17 people are dead and more injured in a horrific shooting Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Once again, in the wake of senseless and devastating gun violence, we mourn, we come together, we offer words of condolence – and we ask how we can prevent these tragedies from happening again. Says Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in a statement from the Reform Movement issued after the massacre, I can imagine the Holy One sobbing along with us, distraught over the senseless bloodshed we’ve collectively allowed... Read More
“God spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person, whose heart so moves them.” How painfully ironic it is that the perpetrator in this week’s school shooting in Florida chose Valentine’s Day to carry out his fatal plot. A day of love, romance, flowers, chocolate, amorous notes, and intimate poems turned into one of hate, fear, bloodshed, tragedy, and death. Cupid’s arrows were destroyed by the high-powered bullets of an automatic rifle. Our greatest gifts were gruesomely gunned down. It is the word gift, t’rumah,... Read More
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