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As many of you know, I grew up in Houston. I am a proud Astros fan ever since 86 and the days of Mike Scott and Nolan Ryan. I loved my Rockets during the heyday of Hakeen Olajuwon, who actually lived just a few doors away from me, back when we knew him as Akeem. I was also a die-hard Houston Oilers fan, until they became the Tennessee Traitors, err, Titans. And I only became a Longhorn fan when I attended college at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 90s. So you know about my sports-ball allegiances. But what you may not know is a little bit more about my rabbinic journey.

You may know that I served a pulpit in Rockland County, New York for seven years. Before that I was a rabbi in Baltimore, Maryland. But my first full-time position, not counting a High Holy Day pulpit in Vicksburg, Mississippi, was in Tucson, Arizona. I was in Tucson for five years. As an aside, Emily and Noah were both born there. They are both native Arizonans. However, I digress.

During my time as the Assistant the Associate for Temple Emanu-El in Tucson, I was involved in every facet of congregational life including covering all life cycle and worship services when the senior Rabbi was either away or on sabbatical. It was during my time in Tucson that I learned about Rodeo Shabbat. During one week in February, Tucson likes to get its cowboy on in preparation for a weeklong rodeo celebration. At Temple Emanu-El we did this by getting dressed up in our finest Western wear. Of course, being the Texan I am, I already had a cowboy hat and boots ready to go. Bolo ties were encouraged, and spurs were always optional.

It was during one of these Rodeo Shabbat services, where the Senior Rabbi was away, that I got to meet and introduce our Congresswoman who was the guest speaker at services that evening. She was relatively new to Congress having served in the Arizona House and later Arizona senate before winning Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. Congresswoman Giffords could not have been more gracious. She showed up to services in her finest Western wear and she certainly charmed the congregation. Being a town, somewhat similar to Omaha in both in size and scope, I got to meet or bump into our Congresswoman on a handful of occasions. So, you can imagine my horror, when not a year after I left Tucson, I heard of the tragic assassination attempt on her life at a Safeway grocery store where 19 people were shot and six were killed. I shopped at that store. This was my Congresswoman. These were certainly not the first victims of political gun violence, nor as we know, have they been the last. 

In just the handful of interactions I have had with some of you since the tragic events of a few days ago, I know this is on many of your minds. Yet I realized, it has been a long time since I have spoken about gun violence from the pulpit. I was looking through my notes, the last time I addressed this was in 2018 following the tragic school shooting in Parkland. Once again, that was not only tragic, but also personal as one of the young victims, Alyssa Alhadeff was the first cousin of my congregants. In that sermon I said, “I can tell you one class they never offered at HUC was how to comfort a 14-year-old who just received the news that her cousin was one of the victims of a mass shooting. The cousin she used to spend summers with and go on fun vacations was now a blessed memory and would no longer be a blessed presence in her life.”

In this week’s parasha, Ki Tavo, we learn all about the blessings and curses that are promised to the Israelites as they are about to enter into the land of Canaan. Not only that, but the leaders are also divided into two groups of six to stand on two mountains as the Israelites pass through. The first six from the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin stood on Mt. Gerizim shouting blessings unto the Israelites as they passed by. The other six from Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Nephtali stood on Mt. Ebal shouting curses as the Israelites passed by. At the heart of these blessings and curses is the principle of what happens if the Israelites choose to follow the mitzvot or if they choose not to do so. 

Or to put it another way, these blessings and curses are really both a reminder and also a forewarning about what happens when a society lives up to its ideals versus what happens when it ignores its responsibilities.

When it comes to the recent shootings including Charlie Kirk as well as at the students at Evergreen High School in Colorado including victim Matthew Silverstone, who as the writing of this, remains in critical condition; I had no words. I have no answers. All I had was deep, abiding sorrow. But like so many, that sorrow has turned into anger. When will we as a nation accept our chatat, our collective sin against our young people, against the poor, against people of color, against victims of domestic violence, and the list goes on and on? When will we say enough?! We can do something to curb the preponderance of gun violence in our society?! 

But rabbi, now you are bordering on the political, and I don’t come to synagogue to hear political sermons. Fair point, except preventing gun violence is not only a human issue, it is also a Jewish issue. The ultimate mitzvah in our tradition is pikuah nefesh, to save a life. This mitzvah overrides almost every other commandment issued by the rabbis and the Torah. A doctor can work on Shabbat for the sake of pikuach nefesh. An ambulance can drive on Shabbat for the sake of pikuach nefesh. A policeman can patrol on Shabbat for the sake of pikuach nefesh. All of this is because, as the rabbis teach us, if we save a single life, it is as if we save the world.

But rabbi you are just against guns. Also not true. I grew up in Texas, the embodiment of gun culture. I can recall on one Easter, going to a gun range. Because that is what Jews in Texas do. And there we shot a WWI German Mauser, a .356 Magnum, and even an Uzi. It was thrilling and scary and loud. But I also appreciated what I held in my hand. Guns are not tools. Guns are weapons whose sole purpose is to kill. And they are very effective at it. This is why they are so popular. If they weren’t as effective people wouldn’t own them. Why do you think swords fell out of popularity with the rise of gunpowder?! It is much harder to kill with a sword than with a gun. And even our tradition states that “when someone threatens to kill you, you may prevent being killed by slaying the person before harm befalls you.” But the argument here is not about self-defense. 

What is missing from the conversation is something Judaism so fiercely advocates which is personal obligation and responsibility over rights. The term “rights” does not exist in the Jewish lexicon. Instead, we hear over and over again, even in this Torah portion, about the obligations of the individual and the community to fulfill the mitzvot. Or to put it another way, if we, as a society decide that people can have guns, how can we then work to ensure that our society does not commit another sin?

As Gabby Giffords, as her friends and former constituents know her, wrote, in an Op-Ed, “I mourn for Charlie Kirk’s family. I didn’t agree with almost anything he said, but he had a right to speak. Just as he had a right to go on a work trip and return safely to his wife and two young children at home in the state we share, Arizona. 
Just as Melissa Hortman, the Speaker of the Minnesota State Legislature, deserved to be safe at home with her husband and her dog. Instead they were all three shot dead together one night in June. 

Just as President Donald Trump had the right to campaign without fear of being assassinated, as two different people tried to do last summer. 

Just as I had the right to meet with my constituents safely on January 8, 2011 — the day when instead I, a young congresswoman in a purple district, was nearly assassinated. Eighteen other people were shot and six were killed.

Our stories are unique, but what Charlie Kirk, President Trump, Melissa Hortman and I all have in common is that someone who wanted to kill us had a gun. 
We can and should talk about political violence, and its toxic relationship to political rhetoric. We can and must talk about social media’s role in these moments. We all, as individual Americans, need to do a better job considering our words and their impact. But anyone who responds to preventable tragedies like this—tragedies that over time begin to erode the very fabric of our country—by refusing to face the problem of gun violence and crime head-on is missing the point. 

What we share, and what puts all of us in danger—from elected leaders to little children, like those shot while praying in church in Minnesota a few weeks ago—is the overwhelming prevalence of guns in this country and the loopholes that make it appallingly easy for dangerous people to access them.”

Now I know I am mostly preaching to the choir. And we are almost all frustrated by the continued lack of action. But what is really even more fascinating and disheartening is that the vast majority of Americans agree on common sense measures to help curb gun violence and to keep these weapons out of the hands of the people who should not have access to them. And because of this lack of action, we are not immune or unaffected, instead we are disheartened and feeling a sense of hopelessness and helplessness.

Today we are symbolically standing at the precipice between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal. We too can see and hear the blessings and the curses. The curses were never intended to cause the Israelites to fall into despair, but instead were to remind them that it was through their choices and their actions they could, in a way, help determine their own fate.

Yes, the politics of today are ugly. They are divisive, and they are cruel. But we have lived through such times before including in the 1960s where it seemed that political gun violence was running rampant. And through that we did find a way forward. We just need to begin or continue to do the sacred work that needs to be done.

In their book Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice, Albert Vorspan and David Saperstein argue, “No one claims that gun control legislation is the neat and total solution to violence and crime. But the fact is that it does cut down both the incidence of crimes in which guns are involved and the general rate of violent crimes.” 

But it does mean we have to fight against the curses. It means we must do the hard advocacy work even if it doesn’t always look like it will bear fruit. What we cannot do is give up hope. None of this is acceptable. None of it is ok. None of it should ever be considered normal or just the cost of the Second Amendment. As Jews, we are uniquely situated to remind our larger society that with rights also comes responsibilities. And if we can get our society to at least understand that, if not agree to it, then we can count that among the blessings we were so commanded to bring out into the world. And we can do that through the continued advocacy work necessary to help curb, if not end, the preponderance of gun violence in our world. And if you want to know more, I encourage you to go to the URJ Religious Action Center’s website who not only give some very sobering statistics, but also ways you can make a difference to help end this scourge, this plague of gun violence atrocities in our nation. 

I pray we find the strength to march together and do the sacred work and inspire the world to join us in helping to save lives rather than spend all of our time mourning the lives that should not have been lost.

Shabbat Shalom
 

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Watch the entirety of Friday’s service here.

Temple Talk is a recap of sermons given from the Bimah for those who missed a Sermon or who wanted to revisit the words spoken at a previous sermon.