After the Parkland Shootings – Is Prayer Enough?
After the Parkland Shootings: Is Prayer Enough?
There are a number of things on my mind this morning. In the aftermath of the most recent shooting at a school, I am thinking about prayer and about Yom Kippur and about the tragic shooting and the killing that once again has befallen us and about messages from our tradition.
A few weeks ago, we read about the Israelites’ escape from Egypt and Egyptian bondage. As the Pharaoh’s army was closing in on the unarmed, defenseless Israelites who stood before the Red Sea, the people cry out in anguish to Moses, for they have no options and nowhere to turn. Moses tells the people to have faith, that God will deliver them.
And then the text continues, “VaYomer Adonai el Moshe, God said to Moses, “Mah tizak alai: Why do you cry out to Me?”
About this exchange the Midrash comments – God is letting Moses know that there is a time for prayer, and there is a time for action. He is telling the designated leader of His beloved people — This is the time, as the Egyptians are converging upon you, and there are few options available to escape their certain onslaught, this is the time to act, not to pray. God is saying: “Don’t just stand there. Do something.”
And so Moses raises his staff, and the sea parts.
We read in the Talmud, “Lo hamidrash haikar, eleh hama’aseh: The study or the discussion is not the main thing, but rather the deed.” Meaning: actions must be accompanied by words. It is not enough to merely study our sacred texts without acting upon them, without interpreting the words and putting them into actual deeds. This is consistent with and indicative of Judaism being a religion which emphasizes study as well as prayer, but which also places an emphasis upon what we do.
Prayer is powerful for a number of reasons – it connects us to our heritage, and those who came before us. It connects us to the perspective of the generations who humbly stood before God in prayer. When I daven, I often feel the presence of my father and grandfather with whom I went to shul, standing over my shoulder, as if they are with me, and I am with them.
Prayer connects us to our fellow Jews around the world, wherever they may be. We are united by something we share in common, something I am especially cognizant of when entering a synagogue to pray where I have never been before. Immediately, I feel at home with the familiar and even that which is new and unfamiliar is somehow not strange or foreign.
Prayer connects us to the Almighty, Eternal God – the God who is present in the world, who is both transcendent, ie – the Creator of the massive universe, and the God who is immanent and near to us, the still small voice within each of us.
Our sages tell us that part of the purpose of prayer is to connect us to the ideals of our faith – to think not just of what it is that we ask of God, but what it is that God asks of us; to be reminded of what our obligations are to others, what are the ethical demands of our heritage. As we pray and hear these words and thoughts, we are to be thinking and evaluating how we fall short of the ideals bequeathed to us.
Prayer connects us to our deepest hopes and anguishes, our inner, private feelings, hopes and doubts.
And prayer connects us to each other – as when we pray for health or the well-being of another person.
And so when we put all of this together, we say that prayer is important for many reasons, and that it is significant on many levels.
But many have asked after the recent shootings and violence that has struck down so many innocent lives: What does it mean when we say, our prayers are with the victims of the families and their loved ones.
Some are beginning to say this response is inadequate.
I understand them and am not unsympathetic to the cynicism.
Prayers serve an important purpose. They are a vehicle and means to express solidarity, empathy, and of standing with others.
We dare not cease from these expressions of love and compassion, nor should we underestimate their importance or efficacy, for they possess much power and convey important emotions which are critical and helpful. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that, “Prayer cannot bring water to a parched field or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city, but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.”
They are a response to isolation and an affirmation that people are not alone. They bring comfort. But we need to do more than bring comfort. We need to work to try and prevent future tragedies like the kind that happen too frequently in our country from occurring again.
It is my prayer today, that our prayers and our outpouring of love for the victims will help console those who have lost loved ones; that it helps them realize they are not alone, and that good people stand with them, on the side of mercy and with those who are suffering.
As God told Moses, there are times when prayer is not enough.
A number of the families of the victims of these acts of violence have said they will be truly comforted when they know that actions will be taken so that guns will not be so easily accessible to those who should not be able to get them so readily. They want to avert future tragedies.
It is my hope that we will take actions to accompany our prayers.
That we will do what we can to fulfill the vision of the prophet who dreamed that, “we will come to see the day when war and shificoot damim shedding of blood will cease;”
It is my hope that the words of our prayers will become a reality, and we will realize as we have prayed, “we have not come into being to hate or to destroy, but to praise, to labor, to know God, and to love others.”
We read in this week’s Torah reading about the construction of the Tabernacle that the acacia tree is used for the Ark of the Covenant and in the Tabernacle. The midrash notes that the tree is not native to the Sinai Desert, and asks how could the people have found this wood?
The sages say that the patriarch Jacob planted the trees on his way to Egypt, for he anticipated that one day his grandchildren would need them. This particular breed of tree was chosen because it is not a fruit-bearing tree since God did not want to destroy future fruit harvests, even to build the sacred Aron, the ark that would house the tablets of the Ten Commandments.
And so, Let us learn from this of our obligation to our children and grandchildren, to do what we must to protect them. Let us as a society do what must be done to ensure that weapons of destruction do not fall into the hands of people who have no business being allowed to possess them.
Let us learn from this that we should do what we can to protect our children and grandchildren from destructive violence, and from having to worry when they go to school or a concert that this may be their last day.
And the connection to Yom Kippur?
It is my hope that when we stand before the throne of judgment on Yom Kippur, and we confess our sins, we will not be guilty of the sin of inaction and of indifference.
Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt
February 17, 2018
