Every time I write something, it feels incomplete, unable to describe the immensity of this moment and all that needs to be said.
The feelings of heartbreak, rage, and sorrow are overwhelming. When I close my eyes tight, feeling the pressure in my eyelids, I desperately seek flickers of hope in my heart.
I am not an Israeli, and I’m not there on the ground. I cannot truly understand what it feels like. I am a Jew, and we are deeply connected as a people. My feelings stem from standing together at Sinai, shoulder to shoulder. I am not a Palestinian, but I am a human being who cares for others made in the image of God.
All of this and my experience as a rabbi in Pittsburgh, serving the community after the shooting, inform my heart and my responses.
I learned how trauma impacts all of us, even those who didn’t experience it first-hand, and that it stays with us. Forever.
From days that feel like blurred moments to the bitter taste of adrenaline in your mouth. From failing to remember how to do something you’ve done a million times to lashing out at the smallest things.
When it comes to trauma, we each own our truth of it.
How it feels, the kind of support we need, how we externalize it. All of it matters, it’s real, and it requires care and love.
In the wake of my wedding and the shooting, I served as the primary pastoral presence for my people for the first two weeks. Followed months and years of shared support. We hosted the three congregations and gathered thousands in prayer. I sat with congregants wrestling with theology, safety, and the real impact of violence in our community.
A lot has changed in the past, almost, five years, but these remain fundamental:
1. It is hard to hate people you know.
I focused my time on building relationships with people from different races, ethnicities, and religions than me. My improved understanding of them, and them of me were the building blocks of a better shared future.
2. People don’t really get it.
I used to get very frustrated when people would talk about my neighborhood as if they knew what we were going through. They would claim to speak for us and our experiences. But they didn’t know. They didn’t experience it.
That’s true today, too. I don’t know what it’s like in Israel or Gaza right now. I can only imagine. I can have feelings. I can reflect on my experiences, but that is not the same as living it right now.
3. Compassion, love, care, and peace are the goal.
The path we are on, individually, communally, and societally, must end in a place of peace and caring. That is our shared goal. There are many pathways there, and they are not always direct, but keeping that as our guide matters.
As I reflect on all of this, five years later, I think of my role as rabbi, teacher, and leader.
I often reflect on what my responsibility is at any given moment. What am I to do right now in this situation? It is a part of human nature to want to try and fix things. To solve these kinds of crises with a sense of immediacy.
For most of us, that is not possible.
Certainly, there is only so much we can do at this moment.
We’re too far away, or don’t have authority, or don’t know exactly what to do to help. We sit and scream into the void, hoping that perhaps it will improve the situation.
There is a text on Shabbat 54b that I think about a lot.
Anyone who had the capability to effectively protest the sinful conduct of the members of their household and did not protest, they are apprehended for the sins of the members of their household and punished. If they are in a position to protest the sinful conduct of the people of their town, and they fail to do so, they are apprehended for the sins of the people of their town. If they are in a position to protest the sinful conduct of the whole world, and they fail to do so, they are apprehended for the sins of the whole world.
Though it is in the framing of sin and being apprehended, I have always understood it to be a broader framework.
Wherever we have the authority and power to enact change, we are responsible for doing so.
Do you have power in your household? Focus on that. Your town? Focus on that. City? State? Country? The whole world? Use your power for good wherever you can.
I have also understood this text to recognize where we do not have power.
I am not an elected official.
I am not a military strategist or security expert.
I am not a diplomat or peace negotiator.
I am not an international policy expert.
I do not have the power or the expertise to impact Israeli or US policy, whether it’s military, international, or domestic policy.
I use my vote and my voice, the best that I can. I speak to those I have relationships with and send my desires to my elected officials and other leaders.
And, I can talk to you, dear reader.
I can share my thoughts with you, and you will do with them what you please with whatever authority or power that you have. That is what I can do.
So, what authority or power do I have?
My experiences, as a person, and as a rabbi, my power comes from being a student of Torah and the trust you give me by reading and subscribing to this newsletter.
And when I think about that power and authority, I turn to our Tradition for guidance. What does the Torah say? What do our sages say? What wisdom calls out to me? What Torah do I need to hear at this moment?
I can tell you that as I held my child yesterday, all I wanted to do was keep her safe, to teach her love, compassion, and good works. To stand for what is right. To teach her the sanctity of human life, and to love those who are different from her. To not be afraid and to feel pride in who she is.
In the sorrow and rage that I feel, I need to be reminded of peace and mercy, to be an example to her, to teach her to lean into the best of who we can be.
That is the Torah that I sought. Not just for her, or for you, dear reader, but also for me. To be the best I can be amidst the heartbreak, while we hear stories of suffering and evil, as we hold innocent lives in our hearts.
My starting place is here:
דְּרָכֶ֥יהָ דַרְכֵי־נֹ֑עַם וְֽכׇל־נְתִ֖יבוֹתֶ֣יהָ שָׁלֽוֹם׃
[Torah’s] ways are ways of pleasantness, and all of her paths are of peace.
(Proverbs 3:17)
We sing these words four times weekly, every time we return the Torah to the ark. We physically and metaphorically carry our Torah into safety, we centralize peace. We pray for peace, we hunger for peace. We use our waking moments hoping for peace.
The language here is also that of pathways, of a choice to walk down those roads.
Peace does not just happen. It is something we intend and must put into action.
In the Psalms, we find:
שַׁ֭אֲלוּ שְׁל֣וֹם יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם יִ֝שְׁלָ֗יוּ אֹהֲבָֽיִךְ׃
יְהִי־שָׁל֥וֹם בְּחֵילֵ֑ךְ שַׁ֝לְוָ֗ה בְּאַרְמְנוֹתָֽיִךְ׃
לְ֭מַעַן אַחַ֣י וְרֵעָ֑י אֲדַבְּרָה־נָּ֖א שָׁל֣וֹם בָּֽךְ׃Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem;
“May those who love you be at peace.
May there be peace within your ramparts,
quiet in your citadels.”
For the sake of my kin and friends,
I pray for your peace.
(Pslam 122:6-8)
The bolded line also appears in our liturgy. It shows up on Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. It appears on Rosh Hodesh and on all the holidays.
Over the course of this week, when I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, I’ve hummed these words, using them as a salve.
It feels resonant to me at this moment, as we stand on the brink of more violence, that the Psalmist uses the language of militaries while talking about peace. The locations we use for war should be quiet and calm.
And, because this is not just for places but for people. We focus on those “who love you” and our siblings and friends.
This is a peace for all of us.
The sages have comments on peace, our role in it. They also share guidance on war. But when I think about the Torah I need to hear right now, it isn’t that. Many are already calling for war. That voice doesn’t have to be mine. That can be found already.
I need to hear voices of peace. We all will, eventually.
The future will be made of peace, and we will have to take on the task. It will have to be an identity we take on. That of peace seeker.
Hillel used to say: be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving humans and drawing them close to the Torah.
One of the greatest sages to exist reminds us to be one who rodef shalom, one who chases after peace. Along the pathways Torah guides us on, we should run down them, search and seeking peace along its winding roads.
Along with that, we are reminded to love humanity, habriyot.
Love humanity.
Our fellow holy vessels of the Divine. Each of which is unique and of unceasing value. We are meant to love them.
And to love our fellow humans, we must also retain our humanity.
In a place where there are no humanity, strive to be a human.
The stories we hear right now are gruesome and awful. We know that more will be coming, which, God-forbid, could be worse. Grounding ourselves in our shared humanity is essential.
To lose that, to cease seeing each other as human, is a curse none of us want.
It doesn’t mean we cannot be angry. I know that moments of red-hot rage have overtaken me in recent days. But to remain there is dangerous and harmful.
In the Talmud, Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha describes this powerful moment of encountering the Divine, as a Godly manifestation sitting upon a throne. God asks Rabbi Yishmael to bless God. He says on Berakhot 7a:
I said to God the prayer that God prays:
“May it be Your will that Your compassion overcome Your anger,
and may Your mercy prevail over Your other attributes,
and may You act toward Your children with the attribute of compassion,
and may You enter before them beyond the letter of the law.”
God accepts this blessing with a nod with the explicit lesson that we should not discount the regular person’s power to bless. We are each a regular person in this world.
But the blessing itself is the key. A reminder that our anger can be real, justified, and reasonable, but that God, Godself, wishes to have mercy override that anger.
If we are to be like God, this reminds us that our compassion should guide our actions more than our anger. This does not negate our anger but instead provides us a pathway, a direction for it. To let it transform, and thus change us, into compassion, into care, and into love.
The truth is that no one has all of the answers.
This is a moment in history that will be remembered.
The tight knot that has sat in my chest for days will probably remain there. I will probably keep stopping in my tracks, choking a sob, praying this wasn’t happening. You might be feeling the same.
We are grieving, not just human lives, but the path we are now on.
All we can do is make the best decisions we can.
To our siblings in the Holy Land, we hold you in our hearts, praying for safety, good choices, and that peace should come speedily in our days.
How can you help?
For those of us in the diaspora, much of what we can do to help share our resources with those who need it.
You can donate via your local Jewish Federation, or check with your local community for specific projects they might be raising funds for. In addition, you can check this out, which lists highly-rated charities serving the communities impacted at this time.