On October 22, a fervent Trump supporter mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democratic leaders and media outlets. On the 24th a white supremacist tried to attack a black church. Unable to get in, he left and randomly murdered two black customers at a nearby grocery store. On October 27, an anti-Semite attacked a synagogue in Pittsburgh, murdering 11 people during Shabbat services. These incidents rocked the nation and they rocked me. Feeling a strong need for healing and renewal, Monday night, October 29, I went into Washington, DC, to Temple Adas Israel to worship at a service “In memory of the victims and in honor of the wounded of Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh, PA.”
Would that everyone in this nation had had the opportunity to share this service, a service aimed at the very heart of pain, a service that underscored the essential need for community while urging unwavering resolve to go forward together in love.
I arrived 45 minutes early to find only three vacant seats, against the back wall. 1,500 people filled the temple. Almost 3,000 gathered outside.
Before the service began, all were talking, hugging, sharing, glad to be with each other, near each other, grandmothers with kids in arms, people rushing in from work, clergy of all stripes – Singh, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Bahai, and of course Jewish – crowding the front altar, greeting each other, hugging each other.
It was a family gathering “Where,” said one of the rabbis, “we grieve, mourn and resolve to go forward in love…we will commit to a capacious love…love that gives us strength to look inward at our dark places of fear, a love that then pushes us out to embrace, to bring light…a fierce love for the poor and marginalized, for the low whom we lift up.”
Then the music, a chant in the minor key – “yai dai dai” – repeated for five minutes. “What do these words mean?” I ask the woman jammed in the back with me. She responded, “They have no rational meaning. They are our cleansing breath, for me, for you, for us.” Later in the service we again sang this chant, but this time twinned with the words: “I will build this world from love…yai dai dai/And you must build this world from love (chorus)/…And if we build this world from love (chorus)/…Then God will build this world from love.”
One of the many public officials who attend, DC’s Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to help “hold each other up…to stand united in love…to bring presence and love to those who hate.”
Citing anti-Jewish graffiti and the white supremacists march in Charlottesville, VA, Governor Ralph Northam intoned, “Hatred has no home in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Our doors are open. Our arms are open. The lights are on to welcome all who come to the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan quoted Eli Weisel: “Where violence is, that place must become the center of the universe.” Hogan’s words seemed a passionate call to action, “Religious freedom is at the heart of America.” And quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., “…darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can drive out darkness.” He reminded us that the Kaddish, the service for the dead, never mentions death, only the celebration of life. He raged, “Pipe bombs. Blacks killed in Kentucky and 11 killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue…something has become rotten …we must reclaim civility, reclaim America.”
Rabbis throughout kept returning to the themes of family and community emphasizing that in the face of the deadliest attack on Jews in American history, “We will not let them define us. We are sisters and brothers helping each other move from hopelessness to action.” And another: “We will go to school. We will worship. They will not take America. We will define who we are, not them.”
Each Tree of Life victim was named and remembered: “His life was greeting people at the synagogue…” “His little grandson thought he was the funniest man alive…” So critically important this “naming,” for “they are part of our family, and we will not forget them.”
Major themes kept returning: Biblical injunctions to welcome and love the stranger, “…for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The necessity to “repair the world.” To fight against the urge to retreat, to cower in fear alone, rather than to move forward together, as family. That “We define who we are, not evil.”
While no one mentioned President Trump, Ron Halber, of the Jewish Community Relations Council, angrily pointed to the “normalization” of anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry. He virtually shouted for gun control, mental health services and other policy changes and a return to “America’s moral fiber.”
Words, music, calls to action were all finally sealed by touch. We sang: “May the source of strength/Who blessed the ones before us/Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing/and let us say, Amen.” Far up front the assembled clergy jamming the altar started to put their arms around each other. Together they swayed. It rippled back. I put my arm around the woman on my right, a man on my left. Within minutes the entire packed congregation was linked, arm in arm, swaying, singing.
We knew with total certainty and at our very marrow that we could only go forward in love with each other, with the beloved community holding each other, supporting each other, inspiring each other to move forward, always moving forward in unwavering resolve.
Written by Jack Calhoun
Mr. Calhoun is an internationally renowned public speaker and frequent media guest, editorial contributor and author of three books. He is the founder and CEO of Hope Matters. For more than 20 years, Mr. Calhoun was the founding president of the National Crime Prevention Council, prior to which he served under President Carter as the Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families.
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