I could not have imagined in my worst nightmare that we would be dealing with the horrors of a hateful terrorist attack in Boulder, with Jewish bodies literally burning on Pearl Street Mall. I know so many of us are deeply traumatized and reeling from the shock of it all. We are in pain, sad, grieving, broken and filled with rage. My heart goes out to Rachel Amaru, Bruce Shaffer and Omer, and all of the Run for their Lives Boulder community, especially the victims and the witnesses along with all of us who have ever walked for the hostages still in Gaza. The injured and the burned are constantly in my heart and we continue to pray for their healing and their recovery, though we know that the physical and emotional scars will never fully heal. Six of the most seriously injured victims are Bonai Shalom members, wonderful, loving, generous people who have given of themselves in so many ways and helped build this community. These are people who deeply care about justice and have been activists in all kinds of ways, caring about human dignity and peace. It is incomprehensibly cruel that they now have burned bodies.
Run for their Lives is a peaceful, weekly walk with the sole objective of raising awareness and pressure to get the 56 remaining hostages, dead and alive, out of Gaza. Today is 608 days of captivity. The group is politically diverse, but united in its mission to bring them home now.
Amidst the agony of all of this, there have been some beautiful moments of connection and the beginning of healing. The way in which R4TL’s community has worked in collaboration with the Boulder JCC, ADL, JFS, the synagogues and the rabbis, has been inspiring and brought us all together to gather, to pray, to sing, to hold and support one another. I am so grateful for the team at Bonai Shalom. Allison Schwartz, our interim executive director, has shown up in the most extraordinary and helpful ways with a calm presence. Mags, April and Rav Jacob have all been incredible as we navigate these uncharted waters together. Thank you!
The outpouring of love from local faith and community leaders, elected officials and concerned neighbors has been so moving and comforting. The Jewish community has been given a strong message that we are not alone, that we are seen and loved.
Yesterday I got a call from Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi of The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the tears flowed as he selflessly offered his support saying “I’m here for you. I know what you are going through and I will be on the next plane if it will help you and your community.” On the one hand, it is so tragic that we now have a shared history of attacks on Jews, however different these two hateful acts of violence were. On the other hand, it is amazing that someone who led his community through the horrors of 11 people killed in cold blood just seven years ago, wants to show up in this way for us. We had a really good conversation. I cried a lot and we will likely speak more.
I am not someone who hides from public attention, but I have also never sought it, and it is overwhelming and exhausting that this horrendous crime has led to an assault by the media with dozens and dozens of local, national and international outlets trying to get interviews. Some of them have been positive and even healing, but some have been awful, with aggressive journalists wanting me to reveal everything about the victims and their families, which I of course have never done, or TV film crews trying to pound their way into our building. We must continue to respect the privacy and dignity of the victims and let them tell their own stories only when they are ready.
The inevitable politics of all of this is really hard and some of the articles have slightly twisted my words or emphasized the wrong part of the story. There is the continuing circus in the Boulder City Council, which I don’t want to rehash here other than to say again that hateful, violent speech and demonization can so easily become a physical threat and Jews here and everywhere have not been feeling safe. Then there is the deeply painful reality of a horrible, deadly war still happening in Gaza. We are divided in our opinions about what should happen next, but for many of us, wanting the hostages released does not mean continuing this war and we certainly cannot ignore the horrendous suffering of Palestinians and some of the extremist voices within Israel who want them all either dead or resettled to who-knows-where. Obviously the heinous act on Pearl Street does nothing to help Gaza or Palestinians and cannot be justified or excused in any way and must be renounced as a targeted, antisemitic attack against Jews, but it also does not serve us to respond to this by joining the militarist war cries for total victory at any cost. As far away and hopeless as it seems to be, we have to find a way to real deals, ceasefires, release of all the hostages, increased humanitarian aid, and ultimately a path to peace.
It is unbelievable that just last Friday night, we were co-hosting a Shabbat dinner for the Jerusalem Youth Chorus. Mostly from East and West Jerusalem, these are young Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians, who sing together in Hebrew, Arabic and English and who engage in deep dialogue, sharing and listening to each other’s painful stories and very different narratives. Eating challah and hummus and other yummy home cooked food with this group gave us all a shred of hope, and the following night they performed a beautiful concert weaving together music and gut wrenching stories. And then Sunday June 1st happened. So tragic, so sad, so enraging. Of course, the chorus, like so many others, released a very strong statement condemning the violence and supporting us in our grief and rage.
In this week’s parsha Nasso from the Book of Numbers, we read the Birkat Kohanim, the priestly blessing, which is the quintessential biblical blessing in three parts, “May God bless you and keep you. May God’s face shine on you and be gracious to you. May God lift up God’s face to you and give you shalom, peace." In the text of the Torah, God instructs Moses to teach his brother Aaron and his sons the words of this blessing and afterwards the text says: “they will place my name over the children of Israel and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:27) The Kohanim, the priests are not the source of the blessing, they are the channel that brings God’s blessing into the world. We all have priestly powers and prophetic imagination if we allow ourselves to, and we can all be channels of blessing at a time when we need to bless each other with love and with kindness, with strength and healing. My Jewish meditation teacher Rabbi Sheila Weinberg has taken this blessing and turned it into a metta (lovingkindness) meditation:
May you feel safe. May you feel happy. May you feel peaceful.
It is hard right now to feel safe, happy or peaceful, but let’s each open ourselves up to be conduits of blessing, wishing this for ourselves and others amidst the agony and chaos.
May I feel safe. May I feel happy. May I feel peaceful.
May you feel safe. May you feel happy. May you feel peaceful.
Refuah shlemah, may the physical and emotional wounds of the victims of this attack be healed, may the witnesses and all of us be held in our trauma, may all the hostages be released, may the suffering of innocent Palestinians end, may the war be over, may there be peace.
We hope that being together over Shabbat will bring with song, prayer, good food, interfaith friends, celebrating our graduates and those going off to summer camp will bring us some solace and some joy.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Marc
