ATROCITIES HAPPEN

Excerpted from the High Holy Day Yizkor (memorial) Service.

“Some of us call to mind children, entrusted to our care all too briefly, taken from us before they reached the age of maturity and fulfillment, to whom we gave our loving care and from whom we received a trust which enriched our lives... We are sustained and comforted by the thought that the goodness which they brought into our lives remains an enduring blessing…” Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan

May God remember the souls of the victims of the Newtown School shooting who have gone to their eternal rest. In tribute to their memory, I pledge to perform acts of charity and goodness. May the deeds I perform and the prayers I offer help to keep their souls bound up in the bond of life as an enduring source of blessing. The Yizkor Prayer

Rabbis and clergy of every denomination sat down this week to face a blank page, a blank screen. What could they possibly say to their congregations when they, themselves were struggling with the questions: Why? How? Where was God? Why does God let bad things happen? And when we hear “sound bites” on the radio, why is it that words like “we need a time for healing” or “the children will be angels, gathered to God” sound so hollow…almost as hollow as cries for gun control and better psychiatric care. Almost as hollow as the oft heard pronouncement that ‘this time is different’ and ‘this time we must bring about change.’

But “change” isn’t always something we can count on or believe in. In 1966, Charles Whitman, a student at the University of Texas in Austin mounted the stairs of the University Tower, and from his vantage point above the campus, killed 13 people and wounded 32. The night before this, he killed his mother and wife so they wouldn’t have to “suffer” the ramifications of his pre-meditated actions the following day. Shortly before all this happened, he spoke to a mental health professional to say he just didn’t feel like himself. The doctor asked what he felt like. “I feel like I could climb up to the Tower and just start shooting.” There had never been any follow up on this visit, and Whitman never returned for another appointment.

There were no video games in 1966. There were fewer guns. Psychiatry was in its infancy. Try as we (or the media) wish to apply reasoning to horrific scenarios the fact is that atrocities happen. They’ve happened throughout history. They happen somewhere in the world every day.

The difference is that now, due to intense media coverage we can tick off the names of mass shootings with the familiarity of the Ten Plagues brought upon Egypt: US Postal Service – Oklahoma, Long Island Railroad Massacre, Columbine High School, Aurora Theater Shooting, Fort Hood Massacre, Amish School Shooting, Virginia Tech, Sikh Temple Shooting, The Portland Mall and now Newtown School.

We will never become immune to these tragedies. We will never become de-sensitized. And that is how we can retain OUR HUMANITY when we question the inhumanity of others.

Our prayer for the dead, EYL MALEY RAHAMIM, begins with the words “Merciful God,” somewhat ironic for times such as these. But it is a prayer of love and compassion for those we have lost. In reciting this prayer at a time when we would like to lash out or accuse or shake our fist at God, we remind ourselves that God did not commit these acts, and God could not have prevented them. Instead, we REACH OUT to GOD to help restore our internal peace so that we may continue to live in a world that is imperfect.

“Merciful God, who dwells on high and in our hearts, grant perfect peace to the souls of these beloved children and teachers who have gone to their eternal rest. Shelter them in Your Divine Presence among the holy and pure whose radiance is like the brightness of the firmament. May their memory inspire us to live justly and kindly. May their souls be at peace; and may they be bound up in the bond of eternal life.”

Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Rose Lyn Jacob