by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep. I feel a pain in my soul. I’m reading stories about the seventeen people murdered on Wednesday in Parkland, Florida.
I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about eighteen-year-old Meadow Pollack who was a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. She was the same age as my oldest daughter, preparing to graduate in a few short months. I think of her father, Andrew, who described her as a “strong-willed young girl who had everything going for her.”
My soul aches for Helena Ramsey who was “bright, kindhearted and thoughtful.” And for Scott Beigel, a teacher who was killed moments after pulling a student to safety inside a classroom. And for fourteen-year-old Martin Duque Anguiano, described as a “funny kid” by his brother, Miguel, who wrote that Martin was “sweet and caring and loved by all his family.”
I can’t sleep. I lie awake thinking about these children and their teachers. I think about their families. I think about the shooter and about how he might have been helped, about how the many warning signs could have been heeded.
And I think about how we have failed, miserably, as a society to regulate firearms sensibly. We have fallen short of what Jewish tradition considers to be the highest value: pikuach nefesh, the saving of a human life.
Our Torah portion for the week asks all those whose hearts move them to bring gifts for the building of the Tabernacle, a Sanctuary for God’s presence.
I’m not sure why God would need a Sanctuary or if we flawed, fallible, fragile humans are even worthy of building one. But I am sure that we need Sanctuary and that we must do what’s required to make our schools and our streets and our cities safer for our children and our teachers and ourselves. And I know that most Americans, including gun owners, favor legislation that would ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and require broader background checks.
In time, most of us will move on with our lives. Most of us will sleep through the night instead of being kept up, agitated by the soul-crushing fact that our nation is a horrifying outlier in the developed world in terms of gun violence.
We shouldn’t rest until we actually accomplish something that will save lives, until we respond meaningfully to the words of Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, a participant of our Reform Movement’s Camp Coleman, was killed in the shooting: “I hope she didn’t die for nothing.”
If your heart moves you to take action as part of your Wise community, email me at [email protected].