A Time To Mourn

A Time To Mourn

A Response to the Shooting at Poway (San Diego) Chabad’s Passover Celebration

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The tragic and terrible shooting at the Poway Chabad has left us all devastated yet again. This is a time of mourning for the Jewish community all over the world, not only in the United States. We mourn not only the tragic death of a Jewish woman who came there to celebrate Shabbat--and no ordinary Shabbat, but also the last day of Passover. Passover celebrates the birth of the Jewish People; an attack on a Jewish Synagogue during this holiday is an attack against the entire Jewish People. 

We mourn whenever a Jew is attacked by anti-Semites. An attack against one of us is an attack on all of us.

We mourn for the lost innocence of our generation, a generation that by and large did not know anti-Semitism. Now we do. It's here, in America, as it is everywhere else around the world.

This is a time of mourning. Perhaps we should also find some time for reflection on the meaning of our Jewish existence, and what we owe ourselves and our People. "Never Again!" has been our motto since the Shoah, the Holocaust. Now we will have to consider what that means for us today, and how we can better ensure that IT doesn't, ever again. 

May the memory of the righteous be a blessing.

© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman