We heard nothing from Sarah.
And now, this week, soon after God saves Isaac’s life, Sarah’s life ends.
Rashi brings us a midrash to explain this jarring, sad, and tragic juxtaposition of life and death.
Our Rabbis teach – Sarah, hearing the news of what happened on the mountain, how Abraham had almost sacrificed her son – her soul flies from her, in shock, and she dies.(Pirkey De Rabbi Eliezer 32)
She hears the news of what did not happen or what almost happened, and she cannot handle the shock. Perhaps we can add to this midrash that she considered what Abraham had almost done, that her own husband had almost taken the life of their long awaited child.
Many of us this morning are likely still in shock by the murder of 11 Jews at a synagogue much like our own, in a neighborhood of Pittsburgh much like our own, murdered while we were also praying together last Saturday. The news came to us when we were about to begin the Kiddush, to bless the sweetness of the Shabbat day.
For the first few days, I will share that the shock penetrated to my core, and though I sense that for many of us there has been a death of innocence, we are less like Sarah in this moment and more like Aaron, the first High Priest. When God consumes by fire two of his sons Nadav and Avihu – the Torah describes his reaction, “Vayidom Aharon,” ‘Aaron was silent.’
Ramban explains to us that Aaron was crying loudly, painfully, with his whole heart, and then he fell silent. There were no more outward tears to shed, only tears on the inside.
Aaron’s reaction reminds me of a story about my teacher Rabbi Edward Feld – who tells the story of the time his mother passed away, and the next Shabbat arrived, and he joined with his father for Shabbat. His father raised up the Kiddush cup the first Shabbat after the death of his wfie, the way we here lifted our Kiddush cups right after hearing the news from Pittsburgh, and he couldn’t at first recite the Kiddush. His eyes were red. And he said, “Oyf Shabbat mir ton nit vaynen,” On Shabbat we do not cry – on a day of thankfulness to God and the celebration of creation we should not cry -- So he began, recited a few words, stopped, took a breath, continued and so on until he finished the Kiddush.
Today, we join with fellow Jewish communities across North America to celebrate Shabbat in response to the violence and hate that tore apart our last Shabbat. We welcome among us friends from other religious communities here in Cranford. We thank you for your support. And we all join together to support one another, to lean on one another, and maybe we’ll live up to oyf Shabbat mir ton nit vaynen, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do so, and we should feel comfortable here if tears start to fall, or if we just need to sit in silence, if we need to wander to a window and see the leaves falling that will return to the earth and nourish it through the long winter months until spring comes again.
The Pittsburgh victims have, for the most part, been returned to the earth from which we were all created.
We recite Kaddish so their souls can make aliyah, can go to heaven. We take aliyot here in our sanctuary, we continue to go up to the Torah because, like the name of the Pittsburgh synagogue, it is our Etz Chayim, our Tree of Life, our source of wisdom, a rock when the world smashes against us like powerful waves.
In our Ark here we have a Torah that survived through the Holocaust years and now has an honored place in our Ark as a testament to strength, to perseverance, and a reminder that anti-Semitism is a living and breathing hatred.
One of the more poignant images I saw this past week was a cartoon drawing – on one side a woman walks with her daughter, a star on their chest, by the barbed wire fence of a concentration camp – on the other side of the picture people from the present day. The woman looks over to the people of the future and says, “Still?” And the man in the present day looks at her and says “yes”.
In the days after Pittsburgh, there have been swastikas and hate messages painted on cars, on a synagogue in California, on a synagogue in Brooklyn.
And hate casts a wider net. Not long before Pittsburgh, a hate-filled white individual looked to enter a predominantly African-American church in Kentucky, and when he found it locked, entered a Kroger grocery store and gunned down Maurice Stallard and Vickie Jones, two African-Americans. And we all heard about how pipe bombs were sent to political opponents recently as well. Our most fundamental rights and protections continue to come under attack. The safety of our religious institutions as places of peace, harbors of community and hope, are, like schools, in need of additional security measures.
We’re thankful to the Cranford Police Department for being on site with us this Shabbat. Please thank the officer (s) here on duty for keeping us safe.
We’ll join together tomorrow evening with the entire Cranford community in a vigil right in the middle of downtown at the clock, a place that serves as an unofficial center of town.
We know that in our tradition of shiva that mourning is not something we do alone. Our community surrounds us, and so that is our plan for tomorrow evening.
But for now we are here in this holy place. The Torah here in front of us, about to read about a shock to Sarah that suggests the shock to our souls we feel after the horror in Pittsburgh.
Before we read our Torah portion, I’d like to read from Psalm 11 in memory of the 11 victims as we continue to pray for those who are injured, like Daniel Leger, nurse and chaplain at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and like the police officers Daniel Mead, Michael Smidga, Anthony Burke, Timothy Matsin, John Persin and Tyler Pashel.
In the Lord I am safe. How can you say to me, “Fly away as a bird to your mountain? 2 For look, the sinful raise their bow. They make their arrow ready on the string to shoot in the dark against the pure in heart. 3 If the base of the building is destroyed, what can those who are right with God do?”
4 The Lord is in His holy house. The Lord’s throne is in heaven. His eyes see as He tests the sons of men. 5 The Lord tests and proves those who are right and good and those who are sinful. And His soul hates the one who loves to hurt others. 6 He will send down fire upon the sinful. Fire and sulphur and burning wind will be the cup they will drink. 7 For the Lord is right and good. He loves what is right and good. And those who are right with Him will see His face.
May God keep the victims under the embrace of God’s sheltering wings.
May God heal the injured.
And May God give us the strength to turn our shock into inspiration to protect the Jewish present and create a bright, joyful, Jewish future. Amen.
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