This morning I gathered with my congregation at Temple Emanuel, a synogogue very similar to the Tree of Life in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, where a hate inspired massacre occurred yesterday during a baby naming ceremony. Temple Emanuel is in Newton, Massachusetts, in a community very similar to that of Squirrel Hill. Our rabbi, Wes Gardenswartz, called us together this morning to mark and mourn the tragedy.
I grew up in Pittsburgh. When my father died in 2005, I spent the summer there with my mother, helping to ready my parent’s home for sale. Each morning I walked to the Tree of Life synagogue to say the Mourner’s Kaddish for my father, the ancient prayer for the dead. It was a soothing and uplifting ritual. The murderous attack yesterday on the worshippers at the Tree of Life feels deeply personal and I am in a state of shock and grief.
I found the rabbi’s sermon this morning profoundly moving, meaningful and helpful. I wanted to share it with you. His message was that we do not need to experience ourselves as helpless and powerless in the face of this violence and evil. He framed the massacre at the Tree of Life as a call to each of us to be a force of love in the world, and to fully devote ourselves daily to making the world a better place. He enjoined us to wake up each morning until the day we die, setting an intention to be of help to others and to go to bed each night asking ourselves, what had we done to make the world a better place.
He quoted the words of the modern day prophet Dr. Martin Luther King engraved on his memorial in Washington:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
I am writing to encourage each of you, to be a endless source of love and light in your communities. This will empower you and will serve as an antidote to the natural helplessness and fear we are all feeling. It is the most important thing we can do for ourselves and each other during these dark times.
I chose a pomegranate tree as the image for this post. Pomegranates are sacred in many traditions and are a symbol of fertility and abundance. May your love and good deeds be as abundant as the seeds of the pomegranate and the stars in the sky, and may we all in this way honor the dead and bereaved, and make our lives a blessing.
Dear Dr. Tsafrir:
My best friend and good friend of you. Louisa Rees sent this to me. It is quite beautiful and I thank you for posting such loving thoughts. Blessings, Susan Henry
Thank you, Susan, for reaching out. Your kind words are greatly appreciated.
Thank you for bringing your memories into the present domain. The quote about “darkness cannot drive out darkness” rings eternal, something I remember from high school, and is much needed today.
Thanks for writing, Stan. The support of friends has meant so much to me. We were blessed with valuable messages from high school.
Thank you for sharing this post. Pittsburgh is a very sad event. I share your recommentation to focus on love, giving and repairing the World.
Thanks for writing. I treasure every comment and gesture of support and solidarity. May these tragic events serve to awaken our hearts.
Thank you for such a beautiful message about such a dark tragedy. Dr. Kind would be proud as you are certainly chasing away hate with lots of love. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thanks for writing. You are welcome. The world could use the ministrations of Dr. Kind.
Your personal history with the Tree of Life Synagogue is very moving and I am sending support and love to you and the community.
Your compassionate reflection and words of hope and healing in the face of such darkness reaffirms my faith in all things positive and possible. Thank you for being on the planet and sending your light out into the world.
Thank you for your love and support. It means a lot.
Judy – There you are, as usual, allowing yourself to step fully into the darkness, yet seek and share your light. Thank you for reminding us of ours, and beseeching us all to walk towards it together.
The silver lining is hearing from so many friends. Thank you, dearest Janna. this is such a difficult time on our planet. Sending love.
Your post is a compassionate reminder that we should refrain from lashing out with anger, but instead find ways to send out love.
I found your article inspiring. And how sad that people find it necessary to kill those who think differently be in racial, religious or cultural.
For the majority of us, such acts of senseless violence which ruin lives in a second, are unfathomable. We see this kind of hatred as the left attacks the right and the right attacks the left. What happened to respecting others freedom of speech and opinion, the cornerstone of any democracy? And the rise of anti Semitic much in the UK Labour Party is not something any of us could have envisaged 5-10 years ago. But there are good people, people who show their dismay at all atrocities by resigning, by speaking out, by offering the hand of friendship and inclusivity to help bring extreme factions closer together. Luckily there is a great majority that embraces acceptance of difference and inclusivity and this helps, I believe, to fight dark with light, hatred ( or fear) with love. My thoughts go ou to all those who e lost their beloved family members or friends in any extremist attack. Peace be to us all.
Thank you for your hopeful comment and wishes. It feels so important during these times to hold a positive perspective life affirming perspective when there is so much that is conspiring to create a feeling of hopelessness.
Augustine, it’s sad to see this happening (and escalating) around the world. Of course, the more light there is in the world, the more darkness will be exposed for what it is as it tries to continue its hold. Eventually, light will overcome with our help.
My dear Judy, I am so sorry for reading what happened in the synagogue. It is so sad, and words cannot describe how wrong and evil it is. I would like to let you know, however, that your article is so meaningful, and that your message called deeply in my heart. I hope, sincerely, I can become a better human being each day. I’ll save your post as a reminder of this. All the love to you and your community. My prayers for all the victims.
Thank you, dear Ana. The connection with friends and support and love has been the silver lining in this terribly sad event.
Oh Judy,
Of course my first thought was of you when I heard the news. We are all in pain and I know your closeness and history to this synagogue make the pain deeper.
So grateful that you shared this. You are helping many who can now find the strength to help many more!
Sending you love and peace,
Pam
Thanks, dear Pam. Its a call to action for us all.
Beautiful and healing…Thank you. I love pomegranate and fig trees, the symbolism around this time of the year is also powerful. Blessings to you and all.
Thank you, Judy, for this beautiful expression of hope and love in the face of tragedy and hate. I will renew my commitment to being a beacon of love in the world, and continue to ask myself daily, “How have I helped make this world a better place, and alleviate suffering?”
peace and love going out from my heart to you today.
Yours always,
Robert Catlin
Thank you, Judy, for this eloquent response to the awful events in your home town. I hope that writing this essay helps you come to terms with the situation as much as I know it will be helping others to read it.
Thank you so very much Judy. I really needed to hear this message, again. More as a confirmation to continue to do what I have been doing, truly the only thing I have been able to do. And perhaps I can do a bit more every day.
I love this post so much. Inspiring in the face of darkness and hate. Sending love and healing to your community and the whole world.
Thank you, Kelli, love and healing is so welcome.
Judy,
So very meaningful…
and written with such clarity.
My heartfelt thanks go out to you for
sharing this important message with
us.
Thanks for writing, Joan. This is a time to gather together and be a force of love in the world.
My heart hurts for our country and aches to its depth for those who lost lives and loved ones. But your post is heartening. I will try harder to show and share the love and compassion our country so needs.
Yes, heart aching for our country. We are in the midst of such a difficult passage.
Thanks for sharing Judy. I will share with Quaker meeting here in Durham. Love and light were spoken of today as indeed a most important response. Someone referenced a Jewish prayer that asks for healing- for the perpetrators of such horrific acts. People the world over cry in solidarity.
Crying yes and solidarity yes. Love and light is the medicine.
This is beautiful and moving, Judy. You deal–eloquently and truthfully–with exactly the feeling I have in the face of horrifying events such as this. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Lawrence. It feels our only prayer to transcend these times.
Thank you, beautiful!
You are welcome. So sad.
Thank you so much for this, really appreciate the message during such challenging times.
Hi Felicia. I feel like its our only prayer.
What a beautiful, touching, and empowering message, Judy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing it and sharing it with us.
Thank you, Janet. Connecting with each other and supporting each other brings light to the darkness.
Judy, I cannot imagine how you and your community are feeling to your core in ways those of us who are non-Jewish can fathom. This is a beautiful ecumenical post which needs to be widely read. Can you correct the link on FB so that it doesn’t require a WordPress password? ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ have been so over used now and I think are vacuous, but what else do we have? Holding the light in the darkness…Gaye
Thank you, Gaye, for writing, and also for alerting that there was a problem with the link on Facebook. I fixed it. Yes, I am reeling.
Very sad, thanks fr your beautiful post.
Thank you, Arthur. Its so good to hear from friends at this devastating time.