Grounded Resident or Alien Stranger: Reflection and Call to Action After Pittsburgh

On Monday at JCHS - Jewish Community High School of the Bay -  we reflected in a number of ways on the horrible tragedy in Pittsburgh. I am writing to share what I said at Monday’s school-wide gathering and to encourage you to support the Pittsburgh community of Jewish day schools (see link at the bottom). I hope you will join us in taking action to embrace them at this difficult time.

Since Saturday’s shooting, my JCHS colleagues and I are grateful for the many touching expressions of sympathy and support we’ve received from educators across the Bay Area. In that spirit, here is a picture from the makeshift memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue on Sunday as members of the Pittsburgh Muslim community step-up in support. (Photo by Alexandra Wimley, Post-Gazette.)

Here’s what I told JCHS students and educators on Monday:

This morning during Tefillah you had a chance to reflect individually or privately on the tragic shooting in Pittsburgh. We are making time now as a unified community to seek to understand, relate to, and stand in solidarity with the Pittsburgh Jewish community and Jewish communities everywhere.

What happened in Pittsburgh touches us deeply, close to home -- even at a distance of 2,500 miles. Some of us are feeling shaken or saddened. And some of us are not sure what to feel.

For many centuries now, the Jewish community has developed a well-exercised muscle for juggling tragedy and the life-affirming activities of daily life. We do that to ensure that daily life is not swallowed up by those who impose tragedy on our community, or by those who seek to extinguish the light of our community. We do that so that tragedy does not swallow our lives or our communities.

The Folly of Imagining There's Only One Path (Noach 5779)

Tower of Babel by Dr. Seuss

This week JCHS welcomed undergraduate guests from Shalem College in Israel, whose motto is "leadership for Israel begins here." We enjoy our annual encounter with these students because, in a country where many college students specialize as undergrads, Shalem undergrads dedicate themselves to four years of conversation across the ages and disciplines. 

For them, “shalem” (lit. completeness) does not come from developing expertise in a single academic or professional discipline or following a single path, rather it comes from integrating diverse disciplines, being in conversation with a diversity of voices and perspectives. We love hearing that their JCHS visit is a highlight of their Bay Area tour because of the school community's vibrant, living laboratory of intellectual and Jewish pluralism. 

All of that is amplified by an infamous story in this week's Torah portion: The Tower of Babel. Its infamy always has intrigued me because the Tower could easily have been swallowed up by the even more famous introductory story this week's Torah portion: Noah and the Flood. Torah's Noah narrative is told over four full chapters with lots of detail and drama. By comparison, the Tower tale uses a mere nine verses.