When it comes to life and death, thoughts and prayers are not enough.
While I was planning what I would say today, days after the deadly shootings at a Florida High School, I was eating lunch at home. Lunch consisted of a leftover piece of sautéed wild salmon and a side of raw organic kale. And I thought - this is a caricature of an east coast self-righteous liberal lunch. And how sad is it that as a country we can’t seem to talk about anything without labeling each other politically in ways that stereotype and shut down the conversation. You talk this way, eat that way, and we have very little to say to each other.
But I’m not standing here today to talk about lunch.
I’m standing here to talk about what we can all do, as Americans - left, right and center - to make sure that the horrible things that are happening in our country are less likely to continue happening.
17 people in Parkland, Florida - students and teachers - don’t have the luxury any more of worrying what to have for lunch. They were gunned down by someone carrying a semi-automatic weapon.
Was he mentally unstable? It appears so. Was it hard for him to get hold of the weapon he used? Not at all.
You’ve likely read the statistics. America has more firearms per person than any other country in the world. 1 per person. America has roughly 10 deaths per 100,000 people per year due to firearms. The countries that have more include Honduras, Venezuela and Swaziland.
You’ve likely heard and read the responses of many political leaders. A Florida senator tweeted that this is the day we all pray will never happen. Many other leaders said and wrote that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims.
Judaism is very clear on the following:
When it comes to life and death, thoughts and prayers are not enough. The Torah says, explicitly, לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל-דַּם רֵעֶךָ Lo ta’amod al dam re’ekha. you shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor. Rabbinic interpretation of that verse emphasizes that in matters of life and death, what’s called for is action.
The call to action is embedded in our history.
When the Israelites are oppressed by the Egyptians, God doesn’t say to Moses, send the Israelites your thoughts and prayers. God says go to Pharaoh and tell him שַׁלַּח עַמִּי, וְיַעַבְדֻנִי shalah et ami v’ya’avduni. Let my people go so they can worship me.
When the Jews are in danger of being killed in ancient Persia, Mordecai doesn’t say to Esther, send the Jews a message filled with your thoughts and prayers. He charges her לָבוֹא אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ לְהִתְחַנֶּן-לוֹ וּלְבַקֵּשׁ מִלְּפָנָיו—עַל-עַמָּהּ
To come before the king, to supplicate him on behalf of her people.
Thoughts and prayers have their place - though in a Jewish context, prayer is more important than thoughts. But even prayer is not enough when life is at stake. Frankly, it’s not enough in many situations when the stakes are not life and death.
At the beginning of the week, I spent a few days at the conference for alumni of the Wexner graduate fellowship program, a program I participated in starting 30 years ago which funds and educates rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, academics and communal professionals from across the ideological spectrum.
One of the participants, whom I have known for years, is Dr. Shani Bechhofer.
She identifies as Orthodox, is married to a rabbi and has a doctorate from Northwestern University. She taught in the education department at Yeshiva University and now works as an educational consultant.
She lives in Monsey and she recently ran for election to be part of the Ramapo Town Council. In one of her campaign speeches, she indicated that she never thought of herself as a politician. Her motivation to run stemmed from her dissatisfaction with the way that zoning issues were being handled. During her campaign, she met with members of the community she felt would be allies, including members of the Haitian community.
She did not win the campaign, but at the conference this week, she told us that she will definitely run again. She said to all of us, you cannot just complain. When you see in injustice you need to get involved.
If that is true regarding the issues Dr. Bechhofer's community is facing, how much more true it is in matters of life and death?
So back to Florida. And Connecticut. And Colorado. And Virginia. And California. And on and on.
What can we do? What can we do to help to advocate for sensible approaches that include revising what types of weapons should and should not be accessible to whom, approaches that most Americans approve of, approaches that will make our nation’s policies much more in line with those of countries that experience significant fewer gun-related deaths than we do?
For one thing, we can educate ourselves on the issues. Statistics are readily available as are the proposals that have been brought before congress in the last decades.
We can also determine that we will join efforts to mobilize on the issue. On Thursday March 8, my colleague and friend, Rabbi Michael White, of Temple Sinai in Roslyn will be hosting a program to galvanize advocacy for gun violence prevention. The program is entitled “Do not Stand Idly By." The speaker will be Rabbi Joel Mosbacher who dedicated himself to this issue after his own father was murdered in 1999. I am planning to attend and I hope others will as well.
If you’re wondering what Judaism says about gun violence, while the Torah doesn’t speak about guns, there are multiple sources, going back to the Torah, that demand that we do what we can - including building fences around our roofs and making sure our animals can’t inflict harm on others - to ensure that we create the safest environments possible.
Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle - what did you do?
That’s the question we may be asked by subsequent generations. What did we do to address this scourge which plagues our nation?
I hope we won’t just say that we thought. And we prayed. And then we conveyed our thoughts and our prayers.
When the Israelites left Egypt and were being chased by Pharaoh, they arrived at the sea and the people were terrified and said to Moses, were there no graves in Egypt so that you brought us to die here? And Moses said, don’t worry, God will take care of us.
And God said to Moses, מַה-תִּצְעַק אֵלָי; דַּבֵּר אֶל-בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְיִסָּעוּ.
Why are you crying out to me? Speak to the children of Israel and move forward.
This is not a time for prayer, God was saying. This is a time to speak and to act.
There is a profound Persian proverb which expresses this concept and I’ve heard it from a number of people in our community:
Az to harekat az khoda barekat. You take the initiative and God will provide the blessing.
Thoughts and prayers are often admirable and often inspirational. But generally speaking they are not enough, especially when life is at stake.
Generations are looking to us to make things better. For their sakes, for all of our sakes, let us find the courage to take the initiative. To speak up. To move forward.
And may God bless our sincere efforts.
Originally delivered on February 17. 2018, several days after shootings in Parkland, Florida killed 17 people
While I was planning what I would say today, days after the deadly shootings at a Florida High School, I was eating lunch at home. Lunch consisted of a leftover piece of sautéed wild salmon and a side of raw organic kale. And I thought - this is a caricature of an east coast self-righteous liberal lunch. And how sad is it that as a country we can’t seem to talk about anything without labeling each other politically in ways that stereotype and shut down the conversation. You talk this way, eat that way, and we have very little to say to each other.
Two people embracing before the funeral of Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, a victim of the Parkland shootings
But I’m not standing here today to talk about lunch.
I’m standing here to talk about what we can all do, as Americans - left, right and center - to make sure that the horrible things that are happening in our country are less likely to continue happening.
17 people in Parkland, Florida - students and teachers - don’t have the luxury any more of worrying what to have for lunch. They were gunned down by someone carrying a semi-automatic weapon.
Was he mentally unstable? It appears so. Was it hard for him to get hold of the weapon he used? Not at all.
You’ve likely read the statistics. America has more firearms per person than any other country in the world. 1 per person. America has roughly 10 deaths per 100,000 people per year due to firearms. The countries that have more include Honduras, Venezuela and Swaziland.
You’ve likely heard and read the responses of many political leaders. A Florida senator tweeted that this is the day we all pray will never happen. Many other leaders said and wrote that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims.
Judaism is very clear on the following:
When it comes to life and death, thoughts and prayers are not enough. The Torah says, explicitly, לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל-דַּם רֵעֶךָ Lo ta’amod al dam re’ekha. you shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor. Rabbinic interpretation of that verse emphasizes that in matters of life and death, what’s called for is action.
The call to action is embedded in our history.
When the Israelites are oppressed by the Egyptians, God doesn’t say to Moses, send the Israelites your thoughts and prayers. God says go to Pharaoh and tell him שַׁלַּח עַמִּי, וְיַעַבְדֻנִי shalah et ami v’ya’avduni. Let my people go so they can worship me.
When the Jews are in danger of being killed in ancient Persia, Mordecai doesn’t say to Esther, send the Jews a message filled with your thoughts and prayers. He charges her לָבוֹא אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ לְהִתְחַנֶּן-לוֹ וּלְבַקֵּשׁ מִלְּפָנָיו—עַל-עַמָּהּ
To come before the king, to supplicate him on behalf of her people.
Thoughts and prayers have their place - though in a Jewish context, prayer is more important than thoughts. But even prayer is not enough when life is at stake. Frankly, it’s not enough in many situations when the stakes are not life and death.
At the beginning of the week, I spent a few days at the conference for alumni of the Wexner graduate fellowship program, a program I participated in starting 30 years ago which funds and educates rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, academics and communal professionals from across the ideological spectrum.
One of the participants, whom I have known for years, is Dr. Shani Bechhofer.
She identifies as Orthodox, is married to a rabbi and has a doctorate from Northwestern University. She taught in the education department at Yeshiva University and now works as an educational consultant.
She lives in Monsey and she recently ran for election to be part of the Ramapo Town Council. In one of her campaign speeches, she indicated that she never thought of herself as a politician. Her motivation to run stemmed from her dissatisfaction with the way that zoning issues were being handled. During her campaign, she met with members of the community she felt would be allies, including members of the Haitian community.
She did not win the campaign, but at the conference this week, she told us that she will definitely run again. She said to all of us, you cannot just complain. When you see in injustice you need to get involved.
If that is true regarding the issues Dr. Bechhofer's community is facing, how much more true it is in matters of life and death?
So back to Florida. And Connecticut. And Colorado. And Virginia. And California. And on and on.
What can we do? What can we do to help to advocate for sensible approaches that include revising what types of weapons should and should not be accessible to whom, approaches that most Americans approve of, approaches that will make our nation’s policies much more in line with those of countries that experience significant fewer gun-related deaths than we do?
For one thing, we can educate ourselves on the issues. Statistics are readily available as are the proposals that have been brought before congress in the last decades.
We can also determine that we will join efforts to mobilize on the issue. On Thursday March 8, my colleague and friend, Rabbi Michael White, of Temple Sinai in Roslyn will be hosting a program to galvanize advocacy for gun violence prevention. The program is entitled “Do not Stand Idly By." The speaker will be Rabbi Joel Mosbacher who dedicated himself to this issue after his own father was murdered in 1999. I am planning to attend and I hope others will as well.
If you’re wondering what Judaism says about gun violence, while the Torah doesn’t speak about guns, there are multiple sources, going back to the Torah, that demand that we do what we can - including building fences around our roofs and making sure our animals can’t inflict harm on others - to ensure that we create the safest environments possible.
Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle - what did you do?
That’s the question we may be asked by subsequent generations. What did we do to address this scourge which plagues our nation?
I hope we won’t just say that we thought. And we prayed. And then we conveyed our thoughts and our prayers.
When the Israelites left Egypt and were being chased by Pharaoh, they arrived at the sea and the people were terrified and said to Moses, were there no graves in Egypt so that you brought us to die here? And Moses said, don’t worry, God will take care of us.
And God said to Moses, מַה-תִּצְעַק אֵלָי; דַּבֵּר אֶל-בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְיִסָּעוּ.
Why are you crying out to me? Speak to the children of Israel and move forward.
This is not a time for prayer, God was saying. This is a time to speak and to act.
There is a profound Persian proverb which expresses this concept and I’ve heard it from a number of people in our community:
Az to harekat az khoda barekat. You take the initiative and God will provide the blessing.
Thoughts and prayers are often admirable and often inspirational. But generally speaking they are not enough, especially when life is at stake.
Generations are looking to us to make things better. For their sakes, for all of our sakes, let us find the courage to take the initiative. To speak up. To move forward.
And may God bless our sincere efforts.
Originally delivered on February 17. 2018, several days after shootings in Parkland, Florida killed 17 people
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