Once again, gun violence leaves us breathless, and leaves some of us dead.
We have reached a point in our nation where, when we see an American flag at half-mast, it is no longer clear to us why. There is so much death around us, so many incidences of murder by gun. And once again this week we are in mourning, this time for the violent deaths of innocent people at prayer, including the very young.
This week our parashat hashavua begins with a death announcement. Sarah, first matriarch of the Jewish people, is dead. Before we reach the end of this parashah, we will also read of the death of Abraham. The first Jews, gone – and further gone, the sunny vision they had once shared of the life before them. Sarah died in the area of Hebron, and a sensitive reader will note that Abraham is described as “coming to mourn” – the question provoked, of course, is “coming from where?” And indeed, a thread of midrash considers the possibility that Abraham and Sarah had separated; it is suggested that the trauma of the Akedah had caused Sarah to end their relationship.
And here Abraham is now, an old man who has lived to see that his life’s vision is nearly undetectable in his life’s work, one whose best efforts led to rejection by Sarah, the companion of his life, distance from his son Isaac, and the loss of his son Ishma’el along with Hagar, his mother. He is left alone, with only a faithful servant as head of his household. He was called by a sense of the sacred to a new evocation of that sense in his life – but for what? What is he thinking as he travels the distance to Sarah’s deathbed?
It all seems to be for nothing. Here is the difficult and dark place in which we all may find ourselves at some point: what has my life meant? what does it all add up to? Looking back at regrets and mistakes, it is hard not to see them as definitive, and the lasting meaning of a single human life as a laughable concept. We see the violence that takes so many lives and we may entertain despair.
The light of life in twenty-seven human beings was extinguished on November 5 in Sutherland Springs Texas. The number of mass shootings in the United States in 2017 stands today at three hundred and nine. The number of incidents of gun violence in the U.S. in 2017 stands today at 53,038. The number of deaths stands today at 13,326. (Gun Violence Archive 2017)
What has happened to the vision we thought we shared in this nation of a good place, a place where we might each pursue life, liberty and happiness? or, at least, a place where we would allow each other the space simply to live? …and is there anything, at all, that each of us can do about it?
The Jewish tradition that Sarah and Abraham began says this: each life is worth the life of the whole world; each life matters. Yes, we have lost untold worlds of potential and promise and love. But in each one of us there is a connection to All That Is – and each one of us carries a world of promise and of potential, too.
Never get numb, we say. Bewail the violence and the dead, as Sarah did and as Abraham did; come to mourn, and to consider the way of this world we share. Know that this will not end soon, and take a moment to appreciate that once you did not know this. And keep looking for the mitzvah that needs doing in each moment, for no matter how the storm rages, there is always the need for a quiet hand to reach out to answer a need. That small moment can save our world, even now, even now.
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 