Blogs

As a child in Sunday morning Religious School, I remember looking raptly at a poster hanging in Mrs. Fogel’s third grade classroom.  “Whoever saves one life,” it said, “saves an entire world.”  I may not have entirely grasped the depth of this statement, but I understood enough to sense that it pointed to a world in which our actions and choices are important.  Maybe more important than we realize at the time.  What I didn’t yet know is that this is a Talmudic teaching, and is mirrored by another one: “Whoever destroys a single life, it is considered as if he (or she) has destroyed an entire world.”

It is this second teaching that has been most on my mind over the last few days.  Renee Nicole Good’s murder in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning has broken so many hearts, and fueled our collective feelings of outrage and futility.  By all accounts, this was someone who lived with joy and integrity – a poet and a partner, a friend, a daughter and a mother.  And by all video and eyewitness accounts, she was not acting with belligerence or impunity in the last few moments of her life.   

How we name what happened says everything.

It is a terror and an outrage.

Her assailant should be jailed.

This has happened before and was bound to again in this dark period of our nation’s history.

What happened was tragic, but interfering with law enforcement carries such risks.

ICE is out of control.

He was just doing his job.

This naming, this categorizing, is significant partly because it reminds us just how divided we are, and how much work it will take to make us even a little less so. It is also powerful because how we measure this loss is bound up with how we view the dignity of every human life.  In Shemot, the first Torah portion in the Book of Exodus which we read this Shabbat, the opening lines do not dive right into the Israelites’ enslavement.  Instead they reiterate the names of the sons of Jacob who first went down to Egypt with their families.  It is a way of portending change, a way of reminding us of who we were before our journey towards who we became.

And who we become.  We are well aware that we may not always agree on… well, anything!  We’re Jews after all, and respectful debate has always been part of how we grow and thrive.  That said, I believe we can unite in empathy and respect for lives extinguished, and can continue to use all that is in us to keep strengthening our beloved TBD.  May we continue our work of learning, creative prayer and tikkun olam… our hopes sometimes darkened but never extinguished.

I hope to see you at our 6:30pm Family Service tonight, preceded by a family Shabbat program and dinner at 5:30pm.

B’vrachah (with blessings),