Rabbi Sherman - Honorable Mensch-ion

Each morning, I say the blessing pokeach ivrim: We thank God for opening our eyes. I take these words literally. Without the assistance of a heavy prescription of contact lenses, I see a blurry world as I wake up.

Each week, words freely flow from my fingertips while composing a Shabbat message to our community. Yet, this morning, I stared at a blank page for hours. What words can describe the week that was, the murder of 19 children and two lifelong educators? After days like Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, and a litany too long to list, the simplest question we ask and most difficult to answer is, “Why?”

When I lived in Israel in 2007, I had a return flight to the United States on Lag BaOmer. As the plane took off over the land, you could see bonfire after bonfire, town by town, light up the night sky. That image is hard to recreate in the United States. For many years, my good friend, colleague, and neighbor, Rabbi Jason Fruithandler, and I would take our children to the backyard and attempt to create a small flame as we roasted marshmallows and celebrated the joys of Torah study.

There is a fine line between sacred and profane, holy and ordinary, pure and impure. That grey area is where the prophets live.

We as Diaspora Jews have a dual identity. We celebrate Israel’s birthday and we celebrate America’s birthday. We have feasts both on Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving.

As the synagogue has fully opened over the last several months, the constant question is: “Will they come back?”

We are a people that remembers. This week, we will commemorate the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah. The next week, we will remember on Yom HaZikaron, the fallen soldiers of Israel who gave their life to give us a life in the Jewish state.

My son was recently awarded the game ball in his Little League. He put the ball in a glass case and proudly displayed it in the living room. Last week, we found the case shattered and asked him why he did not properly take care of his prized possession. He told us this: “It’s really too hard too explain.” After a bit of hesitation, the truth came out.

Mah Nishtana: Why is this night different than all other nights? That is the question that the youngest child will ask at our Seder Table next Friday night.

In the summer of 2010, my father and I led our respective synagogues on a trip to Israel. Besides the typical tours of Masada, Golan Heights, and Old City of Jerusalem, we searched for the local stories that were not in the headlines at the time. Day after day, we witnessed a small crowd of people under a white tent, set up in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. We saw a man in a black t-shirt and jeans greeting all those who approached him. His name was Noam Shalit, and his son Gilad Shalit, had been help captive by Hamas for the last few years. Noam was a father, not only praying for his son’s return, but actively pursuing a way for his son to sit again at the family Shabbat table.