FROM RABBI ARNOLD SALTZMAN
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are part of the remarkable cycle of sacred time the Torah and Jewish tradition have us set aside for reviewing our lives and our deeds. Judaism allows for free choice and gives us an active role in determining our future. We are encouraged to change our ways, to return to God, to pray for the New Year, to ask for forgiveness, for strength and for courage to accomplish the goals of life.
All of the demands made upon us every day, are part of the fabric of life, yet these demands can be balanced by the love we share, by being supportive and occasionally demanding of those who surround us. We can share the HolyDays with each other.
Recently. we have been shocked as a people and as a nation by the terrorist attack in Bulgaria on Israeli teens who were vacationing. Having just arrived in Bulgaria, a high explosive was set off on a bus which had been scheduled to pick them up at the airport. No sooner had that occurred when a lone deranged young man massacred people attending a movie in Colorado, killing a dozen and wounding fifty more.
I watched the news stories on television, shedding tears, as I witnessed the friends and family members reacting in fear and disbelief. As a country, no country in history spends more than we do on protection. We have Homeland Security checking tens of thousands of people every day, yet, many of these ‘checks’ are not necessary. These resources need to be used in other ways. We are wasting so much, and agreeing to participate in order to protect everyone, yet we may not be able to protect everyone from someone who wishes to harm them.
There is a so called thrill involved for the person who points a gun and pulls the trigger. Movies have known this ever since early movies tried pointing a gun at an audience as the screen goes dark.
We reward those who advocate violence in children’s games, in video games. We ignore ‘abuse’ in pursuit of sports, and even the abuses of religious leaders. It is no surprise that those abuses are found in politics as well with a recent report in the Washington Post indicating that a number of leaders in the Afghan government participated in massacres and killings.
The shooter in Aurora, Colorado was able to have 6,000 bullets in his home without anyone questioning who he was or what he was going to do them. The news stories will no doubt be a signal to yet more dangerous individuals that they too can plot their ‘doomsday’ fantasy.
Can it be stopped? Do we need metal detectors and guards in movie theaters to protect and reassure the public? Israel went through a period of attacks, close to one hundred attacks. Many decided to abandon public venues, and instead went to private restaurants and clubs. Over protests, Israel built a wall to keep out those who would do them harm and succeeded in reducing the attacks. Yet, how do we wall out Americans within our own society? The perpetrators are not outsiders, they are mainstream Americans. The shooter was a student in a Doctoral program.
Out of three hundred million people we are bound to have some severely disturbed individuals, yet that fact is of little comfort to us or the families of the innocent victims. For those who have lost a loved one, or who are coping with recovering from dangerous wounds, both emotional and physical wounds, I would say it is for you to speak loudest and to tell Americans how to go forward.
At this time of year, one contemplates the many destructions we have experienced over the course of history and wonders how was it that we had the strength and faith to continue? We ask for Life in the New Year. We ask for Atonement on Yom Kippur: Forgiveness. We ask for courage to remember those who suffer, and courage to help those who survive these tragedies to know that life is worth living.
We begin our year by reading of the ‘Tohu Vavohu’ – ‘Void and without form’ which is followed by ‘Y’hi Ohr’ – Let there be light. Our world, God’s World, is built on the concept of creation itself, not destruction. For goodness, God has saved the world. Man’s nature is that ‘Sin couches at the door. Its urge is towards you, yet you can be its master.’ We can curb man’s desire to do evil.
In the darkest nights of the Holocaust, we saw the Rescue of the Danish Jews, and thousands of others rescued from the Holocaust including Klaus Zwilsky, Mina Parsont and her late sister Dr. Nelee Langmuir. Y’hi Ohr!
We must find a way in the New Year, even as we recover from these terrible events to find the light in life, the reason for creation, the reason for friendship and companionship, the reason for life itself. It took many years for me to create an opera, a work of contemplative beauty and dramatic content in order to compose a work which would refresh people in this pressured world, even if only for a short while.
We must find ways of doing more when a young person is so disturbed as the young man in Aurora, Colorado. How is it possible that no one noticed anything? In Bulgaria, how did someone put a bomb on a bus which they know was picking up Israeli students?
No one has the answer. All we can do now is to pray for the future, to go on living and hope that together we can make life worth living, finding solutions to prevent these terrible events. Perhaps there will never be any understanding of this. However, we must do whatever we can to preserve and increase the good in the world, so that these tragic events tragic will be less likely to be repeated.
Carol, Michael, Joshua, Hagar and Keren join me in wishing you and your loved ones a Shana Tova U’metukah – A Good, successful, healthy, and safe New Year!
Rabbi Arnold Saltzman
Rabbi, Sha’are Shalom, Waldorf, Maryland