Sometimes, there is a spiritual fire inside of us that moves us to action.
That flame serves as the foundation of what I do as a rabbi and as a human being. I don’t always have the ability to do everything that it is trying to push me to accom- plish at a particular moment. If I don’t answer that call one day, I try to do it as soon as I can.
Perhaps some of you had that feeling after the fatal shooting at the Walmart in El Paso on August 3. I know of congregants who attended the Interfaith Alliance vigil the next day, and others who were at our downtown plaza for the Las Cruces vigil arranged by the city. I participated, by leading music, at another event in El Paso on Sunday, August 4, at the request of my Jewish music colleague
Alison Westermann, at the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. We sang several songs to begin the gathering and one at its conclusion. Appearing there were Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son, Joaquin, was one of the victims in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February, 2018.
I contacted Ned Rubin, chairperson of our Temple Social Action/Adult Education Committee, that Sunday to begin to plan the spiritual response and memorial service that we held at Temple on August 7. 60 people, including Mayor Ken Miyagishima, City Council members Yvonne Flores and Greg Smith, local clergy and community members and congregants, participated and had a chance to share feelings and thoughts with one another during the service. That gathering was a response to that internal “fire,” for sure.
I was motivated to engage in one more important act. Before a meeting I had scheduled in El Paso on August 6, I visited the memorial near the Walmart store. There were many people paying their respects, media personnel (from various networks noted by the logos on their vans with satellite dishes), and chaplains of various Christian groups. I went to quietly witness for myself. I read the signs that had been brought to the memorial, and walked by as people prayed in silence. One woman held a sign that said, “Free hugs!” Before I left, I recited the Mourner’s Kaddish.
On August 19, I returned to the memorial to see that it was twice, if not three times, as large as it had been on August 6. The banner from the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh was displayed alongside an Israeli flag and a sign that noted the concern and solidarity of the El Paso Jewish community. This time, I specifically photographed the signs with messages that I considered to be the most meaningful. Here is what I saw:
- Love still lives here.
- We are the future and the future is full of love. Sincerely, the Youth of El Paso
- We will push back against boundless hate, and rebuild ourselves with boundless love.
- We are El Paso: White, Black, Mexican, Asian...Color doesn’t matter, Religion doesn’t matter. We love! We are united! We are together! We are family! We are one!
- Hate has no place! We will never forget!
- Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that (Martin Luther King, Jr.) I choose love!
- The Lord is close to the broken-hearted. He rescues those whose spirits are crushed (Psalm 34:18)
- Believe there is good in the world.
- Where there is hate, let us find love; where there is injury, let us find healing; where there is despair, let us find hope; where there is darkness, let us find light; where there is discord, let us find unity. (Based on a prayer of St. Francis of Assisi)
I again recited the Kaddish before I left to return home.
I discussed the nature of the site with one of my local clergy colleagues the next day, as I tried to determine what was drawing me and others to that place. We mentioned how certain other sites may be similar, on some level: the memorial at the Oklahoma City Federal Building, the names list and waterfalls at Ground Zero in New York City, and the flower-surrounded graves of President John F. Kennedy and Yitzhak Rabin before the more permanent memorials were placed there.
What makes this site different for us is that we live nearby. It feels real to us, and because of all of
those messages on the signs at the El Paso memorial, we know that we have to find a way to instill enough love and hope in people’s minds and hearts so that, when they see another person —ANY OTHER PERSON — they will stop themselves before they turn internal hatred into outward violence. Every human being needs to respond to the spiritual fire in his or her soul that declares, as if from a bush that is not consumed, “I am a child of God, and these people before me are children of God. I cannot harm them. I should try to not dislike or despise them. If I do, I need to change my direction, show them compassion, learn their stories, and share mine. And if I approach them with concern and empathy, perhaps they will reach out to me in return, and we can discover healing together.”
May it only be so.
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