Solidarity Shabbat: Remembering the Victims of Tree of Life Synagogue

This has been a tough week.  I’ve personally been in a cloud from the moment my Shabbat joy was shattered last Saturday.  I’ve been filled with utter sadness at the loss of precious life at the Tree of Life Synagogue.  I’ve been filled with fear.    Fear for myself.  Fear for the Jewish Community.  Fear for the future of our country.

I know that I am not alone.  The Jew’s heart is breaking.  All in our wider community are hurting.  All of us are in grief, in mourning.  That is why we are here together.

Each week, we gather to read a section of the Torah, the five books of Moses.  We began a few weeks ago with the very beginning of Genesis.  And now, we are in the midst of the story of Abraham and Sarah.  It completely confounds me that no matter what is happening in our lives, no matter what is happening in our world, the week’s Torah portion seems to fit perfectly to our communal mood and mindset.  This week is no exception.

Our Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, begins with death and mourning.  Sarah dies suddenly, and Abraham mourns the loss of his beloved wife.  The Torah teaches that Abraham grieves for Sarah in two distinct ways: he wails, and he remembers her.

We are in the midst of shiva, the seven days of initial mourning, for the eleven souls of Pittsburgh.  We’ve cried.  We’ve grieved.  We’ve wailed.  We Jews also mourn by sharing stories of the dead.  Abraham remembered Sarah by reflecting upon her very essence.  We too need to remember the dead: what they believed, what propelled them in life, and what mattered most in their world.  You may have heard their stories, but they bear repeating.

Joyce Feinberg was a research specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center for more than 25 years.  She was an elegant and warm person who was enormously caring with a huge personality.

Richard Gottfried was a dentist who along with his wife shared a dental practice.  Richard and his wife were fixtures in the community and they volunteered together at the Catholic Charities Dental Clinic.  He was an avid runner who had recently been attending services at Tree of Life Synagogue.

Rose Mallinger was spry, vibrant, and full of life.  At 97 years old, she was the quintessential bubbe (Jewish grandmother) where family was everything.  She was mother of three, grandmother to five, great-grandmother to one.  Rose attended services every Saturday, sitting next to her sister in synagogue.  She was always quick with a friendly greeting, a hug, and a smile.

Jerry Rabinowitz was a primary care physician.  During the early days of HIV treatment when stigma was high, Jerry was known to hold patients’ hands without gloves and to embrace them.  He was known for wearing bow ties to help make people laugh.  Jerry escaped the initial assault on Saturday. and turned around and ran inside to see if anyone was hurt or needed a doctor.

Cecil and David Rosenthal – were two incredible brothers.  Cecil was a gentle giant who greeted everyone with a smile and a strong handshake.  He had a youthful exuberance and a laugh that was infectious.  He had developmental challenges and was a beloved member of the community.  David was quieter, but no less beloved.  He was a greeter, standing in front of the sanctuary handing out prayer books.  The brothers were inseparable.

Bernice and Sylvan Simon were married at the Tree of Life Congregation more than 60 years ago.  A neighbor shared that they were the sweetest people you could have imagined.  They were always giving back to people, they always stepped up, and were kind and generous. 

  

Daniel Stein was a simple man who didn’t require much.  He had a dry sense of humor and was a great guy.  He was a former president of the New Light Congregation and is remembered for his kindness.

Melvin Wax was known as Mel to everyone.  His greatest passion besides the Pittsburgh Penguins was his grandson.  Mel was generous and a sweet man who would help anyone.  At almost 88 years old, he’d always park his car a few streets away from the synagogue to leave closer spaces to those who needed them.

Irving Younger greeted each member with a big smile and a handshake.  He liked to make sure that everyone knew what page they were on in the prayer book.  He went to synagogue every day, he never missed a day.  He felt a true responsibility and a role to serve the community.

These eleven precious souls are us.  They are young and old.  They are singles, couples, siblings, and friends.  They are Jews, interfaith couples, Jews-by-choice, those with disabilities; the rainbow of our Jewish community.  They are the greeters, the Torah readers, the prayer leaders, and the board members.  They are the regulars and those who come every once and a while. They are us.

As I read their stories this past Monday, I began to cry.  I know the Rose Mallingers, the Jerry Rabinowitz’s, the Cecil and David Rosenthal’s.  I know the Bernice and Sylvan Simon’s and the Joyce Feinberg’s.  Pittsburgh is us.  Squirrel Hill is us.  We are Squirrel Hill.  I cried because we are one big family.  We lost precious lives.  We are all in this together.

As we mourn, I’m cognizant that our shiva, our initial seven days of mourning, is almost complete.  As one rabbinic colleague shared: “Today we mourn, tomorrow we act.”  What happens tomorrow?  Where do we go from here?

I find my answer by going back to the Torah.  Halfway through our portion, we meet Rebecca, the matriarch, for the first time.  Rebecca sits by her town’s well.  When Eliezer, servant of Abraham, appears, she welcomes him with open arms.  She provides him with water and also draws water for Eliezer’s many camels.

Rebecca’s quintessential feature is kindness.  She welcomes Eliezer, a stranger, into her home.  She goes out of her way to help him through his troubles.  It might seem like a small thing to provide someone with a glass of water but remember she didn’t have a tap or a sink!  The well was far away.  And camels after a long hot journey drink much water.  This was a big moment and a lot of hard work.  Rebecca lives her every moment with kindness and with a welcoming personality.

There is real fear in our community.  There is so much hatred and anger in the world.  We wish to guard ourselves by building a fortress around our community.  There is an urgency to protect ourselves with ever greater walls, doors, guards, and guns.  After this attack, the trauma, pushes us to look inward, to circle the wagons, to protect our own.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  We must keep our community safe.  With our President, Melissa Zieve’s leadership, we have already begun conversations about security and safety.  New protocols and new procedures have been implemented and will be implemented to make our community secure in the days ahead.

Yet, it’s not just safety procedures, it’s also outlook and prospective.  Do we look inward?  Do we close the door?  Or do we look outside our walls?  As a community, Bolton Street Synagogue has always stood for warmth, welcoming, and community.  Our new tagline is: “Doors Wide Open.”  Our identity is about opening ourselves up to the broader Jewish and non-Jewish community.

It’s more than us, it’s also the lives who were lost in Pittsburgh.  I shared their stories because each person whose life was lost, lived his or her days with kindness and compassion.  They focused their days living life with: generosity, kindness, caring, giving, warmth, laughter, smiles, and love.  As Rebecca’s essence was kindness and a welcoming personality, so too did the eleven who died at Tree of Life Synagogue.  We can’t put up barriers.  We can’t turn in the wagons.  We Jews need to live our lives with kindness in our hearts and with our doors open to the world.

Our Torah portion begins with mourning.  Abraham grieves with wailing and remembrance for his beloved wife Sarah.  But, our Torah portion ends in an entirely different light.  It ends with comfort.  Isaac, the son of Sarah, also grieves.  He finds comfort in his new wife Rebecca.  We learn in the Torah that: “Isaac loved Rebecca and finds comfort after his mother’s death.”

Isaac finds comfort not through vengeance and anger, not through rage and resentment, but through kindness, love, and togetherness.  It’s through relationship and friendship, that Isaac finds peace.

Even more powerfully, our Torah portion ends with the burial of Abraham.  We learn that Isaac and Ishmael, Abraham’s two sons, come together to bury their father.  Jewish tradition teaches that Ishmael is the patriarch of the Arabs and Islam.  How powerful that two brothers, of two different religious traditions, come together, to bury their father.  To comfort each other.  To support each other.

Tonight, I’m overwhelmed at the number of non-Jewish friends, family members, and allies who are here to support us.  In addition, we have a dozen members of the clergy: pastors, reverends, priests, and ministers, who are here with us in solidarity.  We know that we as a Jewish community are not here alone.  There are so many of you, who have our back.  You are here to comfort us, support us, and be our friend.  There is fear for the future, but there is also great optimism that together we can make a difference.  Together we can help change this world for the better. 

I firmly believe we do that by getting to know each other better, by building deeper relationships across religion, ethnicity, race, and community.  That’s why we invited you to be here with us tonight.  Don’t just leave after the service and never see us again.  Let this be the moment to renew our relationship with each other.  As Rebecca opened her home to Eliezer, we too open our home to you.  After the service, lets join together to talk, to get to know each other, and to break bread together.  Let this moment of sadness and grieving, lead us to comfort, to friendship, and to peace.

Walking in Each Other's Shoes

This blog article was also published on the Religious Action Center Blog

This summer, I found myself in rural Georgia alongside dozens of other people of all races, religions and ethnicities who marched together for justice.  This was “America’s Journey for Justice,” a forty day, 1,000 mile journey from Selma, Alabama, to Washington, D.C., sponsored by the NAACP.  As I marched, carrying the Torah safely in my arms, I heard the stories of racial injustice and prejudice that my fellow travelers endured.  I prayed that the Torah’s words of justice and righteousness would impel us all to create a better tomorrow.

After returning from Georgia, I realized that I must do something to heal the rifts and the cracks in our world.  I decided to preach about my experience at the High Holy Days, sharing my journey as well as the stories I heard during my time in the South.  This was a good start, but in my heart of hearts, I knew that marching and preaching were not enough.  We as a Jewish community could and must do more.

I decided to reach out to Pastor Victor Lewis of the Friendship Baptist Church of Roslyn, a predominately African-American church just minutes from my synagogue.  Over the years, our two houses of worship have joined together for musical programs and debated theological differences in various lectures.  As Pastor Lewis, Rabbi Michael White and I sat down to talk, we recognized that it was only now, after years of friendship, that we could truly discuss issues of deep significance to our various communities.  Our relationship, built upon honesty and trust, allowed each of us to speak openly and candidly about the prejudice, discrimination and fears we each faced.

After months of preparation, our two communities came together for a discussion entitled “Walking in Each Other’s Shoes.”  Pastor Lewis opened and spoke candidly about the day he taught his teenage son how to drive. Right before he handed over the keys for the first time, he taught his son step-by-step how he must act when the police pulled him over.  Pastor Lewis told his son to call him right away and put the phone on speaker, so that he could listen to the entire conversation.  He reminded his son to put both of his hands on the wheel so that the police could see him clearly and won’t be worried that he’d have something in his hands.  And he should politely answer, “No sir, or yes sir.”  Hopefully that would be enough to prevent anything from happening to him. The room was silent, many totally in shock of the fears our neighbors live with each and every day.

What followed was truly remarkable.  Members of our two faith communities gathered in groups of eight around round tables to share their own stories about prejudice, racism and discrimination.  We listened to one another and shared ways that we could come together in the future to help build upon these conversations and create a world of justice and righteousness.

In the wilderness, the Israelites joined together to build the Mishkan, a home for the Holy One. As the Book of Exodus teaches: “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.”  Our conversation that evening was only the beginning, but all of us in the room recognized that we had begun to build a sanctuary together.  When our hearts, minds and souls are truly present, we can become one and work together to build a community of fairness, of justice and of hope.

Lessons Learned in 2015

When the clock hits midnight in a few days, the whole world will celebrate the arrival of a new year.  New Year’s Day is not considered to be a Jewish holiday (we have our own New Year, Rosh Hashanah in early autumn), however, January 1st is a big marker of time!  It serves as a reminder to stop and think about where we are at this moment both as individuals and a society.   In light of this calendar change, I’d like to reflect upon the lessons that I personally learned in 2015 and my hopes for the future.

Stand up for what you believe

Earlier this summer, I received multiple invitations from Reform Rabbis to join “America’s Journey for Justice” a forty day march from Selma, Alabama to Washington, DC coordinated by the NAACP.  This march highlighted the deep racism and income inequality that pervades our society.  After hearing about the march, I thought about whether I had the time or the inclination to travel down to rural Georgia.  Luckily, I made the right decision and stood alongside people of all ages, races, and religions, to march for justice.  The lesson I learned is that talk can be cheap.  We must stand up for what we believe and act in order to better our world.

Support Our Friends

Just a few weeks ago, our society was rocked by the vicious terrorist attacks in Paris, France and San Bernardino, California.   Certain politicians and the media began to spew hatred about Muslims.  Our leaders began to talk about closing the US border to Syrian refugees, while others lambasted the Muslim community saying that many were terrorists.  Just days after the attack in Paris, I was contacted by my friends from the Islamic Center of Long Island to join with them to condemn ISIS and to state publicly that moderates of all religions care about human life.  I was proud to join them and be one of the few Jewish representatives.  When our friends need our support and our help, it is our obligation to stand by them and speak out against hatred and fear.

Change Does Happen

It can be hard to be an optimist in today’s world.  It seems that our country is becoming even more polarized and that politicians utter whatever is in their hearts without thinking about the ramifications of their words.  Terror and fear pervade our world and too many still are affected by the economic collapse.  It sometimes feels that we are moving backwards instead of forwards.  However, this June, we celebrated a major victory: Gay Marriage became the law of our land.  Millions of same-sex couples, their friends and families, were able to celebrate as their relationships were now legally recognized.  Change does happen!  It might be slower than we like and there might be many downs before there are ups, but change does happen!  It’s a tough road ahead, but when we support our friends and act for justice, our world can become a more peaceful and transformative society.  May we continue to do our part in 2016 to bring Tikkun Olam, healing to our world. 

A Prayer for Peace and Compassion

Earlier today, I joined a dozen other ministers, priests, and imams to speak out against terrorism and hatred.  The Islamic Center of Long Island invited me to join them to denounce the terrorism that occurred last week in Paris.  It was a privilege to express to the world that people of all religious traditions deplore violence.  Below are the words I shared this afternoon:

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In a few hours, the Jewish Sabbath, Shabbat, will be upon us.  Jewish communities around the world will gather to read words from the Torah, the Jewish Bible.  We will reflect upon the story of Jacob’s dream.  Jacob dreamt of a ladder that went from the Earth all the way up to the Heavens above.  On that ladder, were angels, going up and going down!  When Jacob awoke from his dream, astonished, he replied, “God was in this place, and I did not know it!”

Thousands of years after Jacob dreamt his dream, we gather on these steps to proclaim that “God is in this place and we know it!”  Those of us, from the Jewish, Christian communities gather with our friends from the Islamic Center of Long Island to stand as one.  We recognize that not only is God in this place, but God is found everywhere around the world.  We value human life because we believe that the spirit and the soul of God is inside each and every person.

Sadly, there are a few people, who are unable to comprehend Jacob’s dream.  These men and women possess hatred in their hearts.  They believe in the idolatry of violence and destruction and death.  They allow animosity to rule over life and companionship and peace.  Today, we join with the Islamic Center of Long Island to cry out in unison, that we deplore violence.  We stand against everything that the terrorists believe to be true.  We value human life and freedom and liberty.  We care about religious pluralism.  We respect difference.  This afternoon, we speak out forcefully against violence and terrorism and say, “No More!  No more shall hatred rear its ugly head!”

The prophet Isaiah shares this utopian vision for the future: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."  We believe in Isaiah's vision.  Together we join hands and pray for compassion, for respect, and for peace.  Amen.