Rabbi 360

This week’s Torah portion in our weekly cycle is Acharei Mot, which means “after death.” The death referred to is that of the sons of Aaron, priests like their father and nephews to Moses, who make a mistake in the sacrificial offerings and are incinerated by God in the process. The text describes Aaron silent in the face of this destruction and loss, and other priests swiftly moving in to clean up and tend to the dead. (The narrative of the death takes place a few chapters prior to this week’s portion.)

We feel the same way “acharei mot”–after death, after Boston. The news out of Boston this week was terrible, just terrible. The death of three, including a child, the loss of limbs by many, the sense of security and trust shattered hits deep at our core. We watch in silence as others move in to clean and investigate.

But we are all impacted by these events. On the one hand, it is because we turn inward and see our own vulnerabilities. We imagine the places we have been, exercising our right of freedom of assembly, only to have it disrupted by terror. With ArtsWalk looming on the Olympia horizon, I’m sure many of our thoughts turn to that spectacular event, and the risks associated now with gathering in such a public, and vulnerable, space.

On the other hand it is because we share a common bond with those thousands of miles away. Not all of us are runners, who find meaning in the achievement and solidarity in running a marathon and being with the community of runners. Not all of us have ties to Boston, or Massachusetts, who are oriented to the celebration of Patriots’ Day, a day set aside in that state to mark the battle of Lexington and Concord and the start of the American Revolution. But we are a part of the same greater (American) community, committed to the same values, inheritors of the same history, living under the same tent.

The same feeling is what connects us as Jews to what happens in the State of Israel. The bombings in Boston occurred during the “High Holidays” of civil Israeli society–Yom Hazikaron, memorial day for fallen soldiers, and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day, this year marking 65 years since the founding of the nation.

We all know that discussing Israel is sometimes difficult, that we in this community have differing opinions about Israel’s future direction. But we can not dispute one fact, that all of us do have different opinions and struggle how to talk about Israel at times because we have a connection to what happens there. That we, as Jews, are part of the worldwide Jewish community, and thus committed to the same values, inheritors of the same history and living under the same tent to Jews everywhere.

Which is why an attack in Boston is an attack on us. Which is why (to cite one example) a struggle to make the Western Wall in Jerusalem more open to egalitarian prayer is our struggle. We are a part of the greater whole. And moving beyond, we remember that we are connected to all humanity. There is no “over there.” There is only “over here.”

Earlier this week we found glimmers of hope in those who ran towards the scene as opposed to away from it (though we can all sympathize with the latter, can’t we?), in those who reached out to help others and carry them to safety, to the doctors who made difficult decisions, to the first responders who are always there in times of crisis.

Let us remember that hope.

The day of the Marathon, Patriots’ Day, is a day of hope–the hope that a struggle against a tyrannical power would result in a new reality based on values not power, based on individual rights and communal responsibility. Let us remember that hope.

Yom Ha’atzmaut is a day of hope–the hope that an oppressed people, traumatized by history, can find peace, recognition, an end to conflict and the realization of future potential. Let us remember that hope.

Let us remember the hope. Let us remember the hope and abide by it, so that the hope of the aftermath of the bombings, the hope of Patriots’ Day, the hope of Yom Ha’atzma’ut can continue to guide our lives and be extended to all.