I am grateful once again to be with family in London after such an awful and devastating few weeks. The trauma of the June 1st attack is still impacting many of us, most especially the victims, the witnesses and their families. On Tuesday morning we held the memorial for Karen Diamond in which we acknowledged the brutality of death, but mostly we honored her beautiful life, as a woman who lived every day, even those grim last two weeks, with love, kindness, compassion, grace and beauty. The service was so moving with testimony after testimony from family members and friends to the extraordinary qualities that defined her life. That morning, I had received a letter to the family from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, which I read aloud and it was very meaningful to the family. Governor Polis, Congressman Joe Neguse and other dignitaries attended the memorial and Congressman Neguse presented Karen’s family with the folded US flag that had been flying half mast at the Capitol. It was a very moving moment for the family. We also heard a magnificent musical tribute from fellows of the Colorado Music Festival that had been so important to the Diamonds for decades. The music was healing, comforting and so profoundly appropriate. Karen’s memory lives on as a blessing to all who knew her.
The morning before I left for the airport, there was another memorial service, for Mike Samuels and this week began as shiva for Joe Secor ended on Sunday morning. Three losses of beloved Bonai Shalom members within two weeks, each in very different circumstances and each a very sad loss. May their memories be a blessing and may their families receive strength and comfort.
In the wider world, we also saw the aftermath of the catastrophic floods in Texas with over 120 people confirmed dead, including so many children, and many still missing. Sending our prayers of strength and healing to all impacted by this awful tragedy. This week also saw another meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump in Washington, DC. Behind all the media attention and theatricality of these meetings, all we hope is that a deal will be reached with Hamas that will release the 50 remaining living and dead hostages from Gaza and end this bloody war and the suffering on all sides. May it be so!
Landing in London early on Thursday afternoon after these last few weeks felt so surreal, as if I was waking up from a nightmare, but obviously the events happened and the world feels very precarious and fragile. I am aware that increasing numbers of Jews do not feel safe in the world, and here in the UK there have been some sinister incidents of antisemitism that are pretty terrifying. Although I am here in London this Shabbat, my heart is very much in Boulder with our beloved community, as we heal and gain strength from one another.
This Sunday is the Fast of Tammuz, the 17th day of the month of Tammuz, which corresponds to the day the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem beginning a siege that ended three weeks later with the destruction of the second temple. This three week period, culminating with Tisha b’Av, is a time of mourning that reflects thousands of years of Jewish persecution and loss, and now includes recent events too. The rabbis of the Talmud remind us that, although the first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and the second by the Romans, the real force that led to destruction was sinat chinam, the energy of baseless hatred among Jews. However much we may be hurting and raging at the enemies that hate us and want to harm us, the rabbis remind us that we also need to look within ourselves. In her last days suffering from unbearably painful burns, Karen Diamond told her family that the response to this abominable, antisemitic hate crime was love, not more hate.
Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of pre-Israel Palestine, taught that the antidote to sinat chinam, baseless hate, is ahavat chinam, baseless love. There are ways in which tragedy and loss has brought us closer as a community, yet we are also so divided on many issues, especially Israel, Palestine and the continuing war. We may strongly disagree on some major issues, but we cannot cancel each other and refuse to listen to opinions that we find hard. I am a Zionist rabbi in a Zionist congregation, which is part of a Zionist movement, but that can mean different things to different people and does not mean that we have to support everything that Israel does, just as we don’t have to support what our own government does in the US. It is so incredibly hard to engage with those whose views offend us, but maybe that’s the ultimate expression of ahavat chiman and what might save us.
Whether you agree with this or not, relatives and friends of Karen, Joe and Mike, our recent losses, all said that the best way to honor their loved one’s memory is to bring more love into the world, to reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to for a while, to repair a broken relationship. The world does not need our anger and our hatred, it needs our love and compassion.
May all the victims of June 1st be healed, may the 50 hostages be released, may the wars end, may those impacted by the floods be comforted and healed, may we all feel safe.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Marc
