I was in synagogue this past Saturday.
I was there, like I am on many a Shabbat morning, to study Torah with a group of regulars who over the years have become like family to me. Sometimes I stay after Torah study to daven and sometimes, like on this particular day, I leave before the service begins in order to observe my Shabbat in a variety of ways usually filled with Oneg and Menucha. (Joy and rest.)
We are Jews. We observe.
We, who are regulars, often joke about our routines and our repetitions. We find ourselves sitting in the same sections of the room, if not the same seats from week to week. We know instinctively who will be late, who will be early, and we worry when somebody is missing, often calling or texting to check on their well-being. We know who are the active talkers and who are the passive but intent listeners. We openly welcome the newbie, warmly inviting them to our table and encouraging them to participate and badgering them to return.
We are Jews. We badger.
We bring each other breakfast and we help with the set-ups beforehand and the cleaning afterward.
We are Jews. Eating is a major component of our DNA.
We leave our coffee mugs in the shul's storage cupboards, a sign of our permanency in this space and we take turns teaching when the rabbi is occupied elsewhere. We are a close-knit community, we who have learned together, celebrated together and too often cried together. These are my people, my synagogue, my Jewish family, my community.
We are Jews. We are communal.
As I left shul on Saturday, I was blissfully unaware of the horror taking place at that exact moment at a sister community in Pittsburgh. When my phone started vibrating with intent, I instinctively knew that it was catastrophic. We all know these people. We are these people and we all know the hate that inspired their murders.
We are Jews. We know.
When the carnage was over and the dead revealed, I could see in my mind's eye the longtime members, the regulars, who are the spine and structure of every congregation. I could see the retired teacher who lost her husband two years ago. She is a face I see every week across my Torah study table. I recognized the two brothers who did everything together. They are the siblings in my congregation who lovingly care for their aged mother. I know the longtime married couple who attended weekly. They are my parents.
We are Jews. We understand suffering.
On the Shabbat before this last one, my Torah study cronies discussed the story of the Tower of Babel and whether or not The Divine Spirit was indeed punishing us with the fracturing of language. As is often the case with our discussions, we headed off into a tangental talk of modern anti-Semitism in our own community. A young man of the age of Older Son, a millennial for whom I have great respect, stated quite forcefully that he has never felt uncomfortable or held back from opportunity in his city or country simply because he is Jewish. I wondered aloud if that was blissfully generational and asked if others around the table felt similarly. There were people there old enough to recall a time in Toronto when Jews were barred from country clubs and public beaches. My own mother was part of a quota of Jewish girls accepted into her nursing program in the late 1950s. To this thirty-something, those stories were historical and distant. I gently reminded this gentleman that an avowed white-supremacist was standing for election for mayor of Toronto a mere two days later and that her following was vocal and growing. He simply couldn't fathom it and dismissed her as a crackpot. On election day, more than 25,000 of my fellow Torontonians voted for a woman who wishes me dead.
We are Jews. We understand the hatred is always there.
So, we are now in mourning...all of us...all Jews. We will leave the debates about responsibility to others while we bury our dead, sit shiva, and comfort our mourners. It is what we do, what we have always done. We search for answers where there are none and we search for scapegoats where there are many. In Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 we read, "Whoever destroys a soul [of Israel], it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life of Israel, it is considered as if he saved an entire world." We have lost eleven souls. We will return to fight for our lives, for our very essence, for our very right to be. We are diminished but we are not defeated.
We are Jews. We survive.
Zichronam Livracha. May their memories always be for a blessing.
Thank you!
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