To Fight The Darkness: Vayeitze In Memory of Ezra Schwartz, HY"D

To Fight the Darkness

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeitze

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

To the Memory of Ezra Schwartz, HY"D

The hardest part of being a rabbi is to eulogize or speak after a death of a young person.  There simply are no words to convey the pain one feels; nor can words by themselves comfort the bereaved.  The pain is immeasurably deep.

This week was particularly bad.  The attacks in Paris a week ago today were horrendous.  On top of other terror attacks in various places around the world, it seems that those who wish to inflict pain and suffering on the innocent are reaching a crescendo of evil intentions and tragic results.

All over the world tonight there are hundreds of families engulfed by grief.  Families of those who were murdered in cold blood, families of those who are wounded and still fighting for their lives, families of those whose broken lives or bodies will never be quite the same ever again.

We can look for “rationale” behind the attacks, but that would be futile.  Hatred needs no rationale, it feeds itself. 

All that is left right now is an ache in all of our hearts.  Those who were more directly affected, feel it the worst.

So why am I so much more affected by the death of one, when so many were killed?  Maybe because Ezra Schwartz was from a neighboring town, Sharon, MA.  Maybe because he just graduated from the Maimonides School, where many of my acquaintances have either studied, taught or still teach.  Maybe because he went to Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire, a great camp that many of my children’s friends have gone to.

Maybe it was seeing his picture, seated by his brothers and sister, beaming with gentle kindness and sweetness—adjectives used to describe Ezra by all who knew him.

Maybe it’s because Ezra represented the best we human beings have to offer:  bright, caring, compassionate, helpful.  He was always there to help other people and cheer them on.  The kind of person we would all want to have as a friend, counselor, teacher or mentor.  And now the world is that much less of a loving, caring place, because where he existed there is now a gaping hole—in the already-blood-saturated, hallowed ground of the Land of Israel, in our hearts and souls.

The present as well as the future seem gloomier today.

Maybe I’m even sadder because Ezra is just the latest—and probably not the last—victim of the oldest hatred of all, anti-Semitism.  This demonic hatred, responsible for so much of our people’s suffering, seemed to have diminished in the years immediately following the Holocaust, but it is now rearing its ugly head again.

I am sad because the terror attack that took Ezra’s life happened in Israel, our people’s homeland, established to make sure that such murders would not take place again.  “Never again” is the Jewish post-Holocaust motto, yet it does happen again, again and again.

We hope that the governments of the world’s enlightened countries will wake up in time to fight this scourge of terror.  But it will take more than that.  It will take nothing less than an uprising among the more peaceful Moslem population of the world to win back the religion that had been hijacked by radical, perverted people who think that God speaks only to them, only through them, a God who commands them to kill without pity or mercy anyone—man, woman or child—who does not believe as they do.

In the meanwhile, however, our pain is still there, and hope for a peaceful tomorrow seems more distant than ever.

It is a darker world today, less kindly, less compassionate.  There is more fear in the world today, more distrust.  Bubbling just under the surface for many of us are anger and frustration, perhaps even hate.

There is no way we can just walk away from this gaping hole in our midst.  Wherever we turn, we see ghosts of people who were with us just a day or two ago but are no longer there, and who will never again sit at our table for a Sabbath dinner.

The Sabbath candles somehow seem less brilliant tonight.

That’s why I plan to light an extra candle tonight.

There will be more light!  I refuse to give in to the darkness, to the fear, to the anger, to the hurt.  We will sing, we will make our voices rise, we will vow to be more caring and compassionate—all in the name of Ezra Schwartz, because I am sure that’s what he would want us to do.

And we will pray.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeitze (Genesis 28:10—32:3), our Patriarch Jacob leaves his homeland, chased by his bloodthirsty brother, Esau.  Deprived of the love, comfort and joy of home, on his first night away from home, Jacob sleeps in a desolate place, with a rock serving him as a pillow.  At night, he dreams of a ladder that reaches heaven, and he comes to realize that despite the darkness and loneliness, God’s loving presence surrounds him. 

It is a comforting thought.  Tonight and tomorrow, Shabbat, I will pray as Jacob did.  I will pray to see God’s presence in our midst; I will fervently beseech God to let God’s justice appear on this earth soon and in our own day.  I will pray for peace, not war; for love, not hate.

May God comfort Ezra’s family and community of friends among all mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.  And may Ezra’s name become a blessing for us all. 

© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman