On the Kansas City Shootings

 Every good person will feel his or her heart break today.  As a lone human brazenly shot at a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish assisted living facility in Kansas we weep.  We weep for the victims and their families.

Such hatred must have no place in this world.  It needs to be scourged from the minds of all.  And it starts with us.  

If we are not moved by such evil to find the places where it will likely dwell and root it out we are culpable.  

The cry of Abel still resonates in the ears of humanity as his blood seeped into the earth.  For as it is stated in the Bible, the Hebrew word for "blood" there is in the plural form leading us to understand that when one person is murdered, untold generations will never live.  Indeed, society fails when its individual components perpetuate hatred and acts of cruelty.   We weep for the victims and we weep for us.

It is not enough to feel bad for the victims of violence we must speak out against it.  Every person is called upon to dismantle bigotry, fight hatred, and make a determined stand against acts of utter evil as now with these violent shootings in Kansas City.  Enough.

Especially cruel is the timing as we the Jewish community gets ready to observe the Festival of Freedom from slavery where families gather to recall a time when God intervened to redeem the Israelites from unmentionable hatred.  Perhaps that was our lesson too.  It may be that tale is about how we are supposed to be one another’s guardians.

May our passion for fighting evil be stronger than their passion for being inhuman.