Rabbi's Message

Rabbi Elyse Wechterman
Read about the Rabbi
May 2007

A response to the questions raised by the Virginia Tech shooting
See “Reflections by Deb Oster”

Dear Deb:

I was really moved by the words of your D’var Torah this evening. You very beautifully and eloquently expressed the sense of helplessness, frustration, anger and bewilderment we all feel in the face of tragedy – particularly human-initiated tragedy like the campus shooting earlier today.

I also detected in your words a challenge – not necessarily to me specifically but to me as a rabbi, to Judaism, to the tradition, to spirituality in general. I heard a challenge in your words that said: “tell me how to make sense of this – tell me what it means and what I am to do about it? Tell me what this tradition you hold so dear has to say about one college student walking onto campus and gunning down over thirty of his fellow schoolmates.”

So not because I have any great insight or answers or because I think I know anything, but because your question is one that I know many members of this community are also asking, and because if Judaism is to be at all relevant to our lives, and because I would be doing you a disservice not to, I feel I must attempt an answer – if any answer can properly be found.

On the one hand, I keep coming back to the idea that we Jews have been here before. This is also the place I came to after the tragedies of 9/11 Unfortunately, there are very few imaginable calamities with which we do not have direct and national experience. And each time we experience them, someone seems to say that the world is now changed forever, things can’t go on as they had before.

But the remarkable thing is that they in fact, do go on. Jews are nothing if not resilient. Although resilience in the face of tragedy does nothing to explain the tragedy, contextualize it or comfort us, it is, nonetheless miraculous. The fact that life continued after 586 BCE or 70 CE or 1492 or 1945 is nothing short of a miracle. Looked at through this lens, the awfulness of one day, one moment, is fleeting in the face of human history. What we witnessed today was the worst shooting incident in American history! We can only pray that this will stay “the worst.” As horrific and awful for the young people and families involved, we know that most young people who go to college do so in relative safety and security with only minor scars from their experiences. Life does go one – normalcy is possible.

But this isn’t the answer we need –in fact it is callous and cruel to see any one human loss, any one act of violence, any single murderous death as insignificant. Every life has value – our tradition teaches – and if we are to believe that we are all created in God’s image then we must accept that each violent and early death – even that of the shooter himself – is as painful to God as it is to each and every parent who lost a child today.

As we learn more about the victims we will learn this over and over again – how precious, how valuable, how meaningful their lives were to somebody. We will be stunned by the waste and meaninglessness of this crime and the cruelty of ending life at a place where, for so many of the victims, it was just beginning. We will see the images of the funerals and the caskets and the crying mothers and will feel, deeply and sincerely, their pain and remind ourselves just how precious life is. Maybe we will hug our children a little longer and call our parents a little more often – for a while any way – and we will be reminded (once again) what it is we really value in life and try to pay more attention to those little details.

We will also witness the strength of the Virginia Tech community as it rallies together to support one another. We will hear the stories of young people reaching out from campuses across the country to lend support, offer words of encouragement. We will hear the stories of bravery – the 72 year-old holocaust survivor who threw himself in front of the shooter so that his students might live, for example. And we will see that humanity is as potentially good and brave and courageous and loving as it is potentially evil and stupid and callous and wasteful.

So in this tragedy, we will have the opportunity to learn these very real and important lessons once again: That life is precious, that nothing can be taken for granted and that people are capable of the most searing acts of pain and the most profound acts of love. OK.

But these are lessons we already know and could learn in a myriad of other, less violent, ways. If this is what it takes, personally, I would rather not register for the class. Yes – we all learn and grow from the painful events of our lifetime- but that isn’t a good enough reason to explain the tragic events – even if they are far away and not a direct hit (this time).

So now I am left with the anger - overpowering tidal waves of anger that this could be allowed to happen. Anger at the shooter for his actions, at the gun lobbyists for providing easy means to commit violence, anger at the entertainment industry for making violence seem normal, anger at whatever system failed to step in and help this obviously troubled person get help and treatment, anger that once again, I have to find a way to explain to my child that the world is not nearly as safe, secure, peaceful and comfortable as I wish it to be for them.

Anger isn’t always a useless and vain emotion. Anger is a good Jewish response to injustice and brutality. Abraham yelled at God over Sodom and Gomorrah. We can yell at God, the NRA, society, any other “responsible” party. Anger can motivate action and change. Anger got the laws about drunk driving changed in the 80s (think MADD), anger got funding for AIDS research and treatment in the 90s. Maybe, just maybe, today’s anger can be channeled toward gun control or against the glorification of violence.

Anger is useful and a natural response to tragedy and trauma. And out of this some good may yet come. But it doesn’t explain, justify, contextualize or make meaning from this tragic event in any real way – does it?

The fact is that neither an historical perspective, nor a change in focus, nor valiant and convincing calls to action will make Monday morning not have happened. Nothing will give 33 people back their lives, restore the peace and serenity of a bucolic college town or undo the anguish of family and friends.
The fact is, this world is an imperfect place populated by a deeply flawed species.

And this precisely is the place where Judaism and its traditions start.
If there is one thing Judaism teaches, it is that redemption is possible. The world is indeed imperfect – as are we. But every moment of every minute of every day is the next opportunity you have to change that - even if only by the tiniest fraction of a percent.

Every year, as we get ready for the High Holy Days, we talk about teshuvah – repentance or return. Invariably, we study the teaching that God created teshuvah – the possibility of return and repentance – before creating the world. Whether we believe in a personal God or not, what this story tells us is that the human condition is one of imperfection and misstep; that we understand that the price we pay for our freedom of thought and the ability to make choices is that we will sometimes – maybe often – make the wrong choices.

But it also teaches us that we understand humanity to be capable of growth, change, evolution and development. The human being - and in aggregate, human society - is a work in progress. This gift of teshuvah is a gift of grace and love and faith that we will make things better; that we will move one-step closer, if only we take that step.

Monday morning’s shooting rampage tells us how very far we have to go. There really isn’t much more to learn from it then that. But today, this very next minute, is our chance – as individuals and as a society – to continue the journey. Despair, fright, anger, caution, hugs are all proper responses to the events of Monday morning. But the next Jewish step must ultimately be the one of living and working toward tikkun (repair) of this broken world one step at a time with whatever God-given opportunities and skills you have.

B’Shalom
Rabbi Elyse

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