Rabbi's Message

This Shabbat we read parashat Naso, which include one of the most well-known and ancient blessings in Judaism. God instructs the kohanim, the priests, to bless the people Israel with these words: 

Today we give this blessing to children born, b’nai mitzvah, couples under the huppah, and on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur our kohanim bless the congregation with these words.  They also appear in the repetition of the Amidah of Shaharit and Musaf all year round.  Commentaries note that the ultimate blessing in these words is shalom.  We usually translate shalom as peace, but as Professor Jacob Milgrom points out in our Etz Hayim Humash commentary, shalom really encompasses “the blessings of prosperity, good health, friendship, and well-being.”  Shalom here is both a desire for inner peace as well as to live in a world at peace.  Neither of these are easily achievable.  There are many things in world today that disrupt our sense of peace, and one of the most pressing is the terrible rise in gun violence in our country.  According to the Gun Violence Archive, as of this writing, 17,736 souls have been killed by guns so far in 2023, and another 14,714 have been injured.  These numbers include unintentional shootings, mass shootings and suicides.  The pain and fear this has wrought on our national psyche, as well as our own mental health, is immeasurable.  This weekend TBS will once again, with the guidance of our Social Advocacy Committee, participate in Wear Orange Weekend.  We wear orange to honor survivors of gun violence and to once again unite in our call to end gun violence in our country.  We should not have to live in fear of gun violence when we go to the grocery store, send our children to school, or come to celebrate together at our synagogue.  This is not normal, and we must not accustom ourselves to it.  This weekend let us stand together, in shul on Shabbat and online, to increase shalom in our world by standing together to end this plague of gun violence. 

Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who visited us last November and who is the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence, wrote this:  “Yes, the ongoing American Gun Violence Epidemic is unfathomable.  It defies our hearts’ capacities with staggering pain and loss.  But what makes us human is our defiance of that limitation…So let us be brave.  Let us defy the darkness and will our hearts to pulse with hope in the face of it all.  Let us imagine a world free of violence, cleansed of hatred, a world that is safe for our children.”  This is a world where we see the realization of that ancient ultimate blessing of shalom.  Shalom for our bodies, shalom for our souls, and shalom for everyone in our nation.  Kein yehi ratzon – So may it be.