Rabbi Janine's Messages

There are no in-person Shabbat services tonight.
​​​​​​​Please join us on Zoom tonight at 7 p.m. for a brief service to say Kaddish. The link is our usual Friday night service link which can be found in the ebulletin as well as a seperate email that was send today from the office. 

Dear Community,

We are heartbroken following Wednesday's horrific murder of two Israeli embassy employees, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. The murdering of innocent civilians is never justified.

It feels impossible to speak about this senseless tragedy or about the ongoing devastation that has occurred in both Israel and in Gaza since October 7th, 2023. But at this moment, I am reminded of the words of Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin whose son, Hersch Goldberg-Polin, was among those taken and murdered by Hamas on October 7th. Upon the news that the IDF had identified their son's body almost a year later, they responded to the public by saying, 

There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain, there are no winners. In our Jewish tradition we say: Kol adam olam umlo’o, every person is an entire universe. We must save all these universes.

Yaron and Sarah were each a universe. Every person killed in this ongoing war was a universe. We can't save Yaron and Sarah, or Hersch, but we can heed the words of two grief-stricken parents who lost an entire universe and cried, No more war. 

I remember during the early days of the war in Iraq, post-9/11, there was a large sign posted on the lawn of the Gwynedd Friends Meeting Quaker church on Dekalb Pike. The sign read, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” I was struck by this quote because it didn’t make sense to me at the time. 

I’ve seen this quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. I’ve also seen it attributed to Christian pacifist A.J. Muste. It’s also been attributed to Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who lived and worked as a peace activist during the Vietnam War. Regardless of who said it, this quote has stayed with me all this time. 

There are people who know tremendous grief and choose war and then there are people who choose peace. Upon hearing of the 1968 bombing of Bên Tre, a small city in Vietnam, an unidentified American officer reportedly told AP reporter Peter Arnett, “We had to destroy the town to save it.” But to Thich Nhat Hanh, this captured the madness of war. 

There is no way to peace, peace is the way. 

Judaism also teaches this. We read in Psalm 34, “Seek peace and pursue it.” Midrash explains this verse further with a teaching by Rabbi Yohanah who explained, “[To] have peace one should be like a captain on a boat. A person should always be on the lookout for an opportunity and then pursue a course towards peace.” (Levitus Rabbah 21:5) 

It is not enough to avoid fighting or to wait for the day when peace shall arrive. We all must actively pursue peace now. 

May the memories of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim be for a blessing and may their memories push us, drive us, to pursue peace at all costs. It is the only way. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Janine Jankovitz