After Torah Study this week where we looked at Chapter 37 of the Book of Genesis, I watched the news. Chapter 37 starts with Jacob vayeshev, he sat down, he dwelled, he settled. After all that he had been through—tricking his brother out of his birthright, running away from home, finding Rachel at the well, working for seven years for Rachel, being tricked himself and working another seven years, he is finally his own man. Four wives, twelve children, and a large flock, he headed home. He settled down. Perhaps he retired.
And he loved Jospeh, his favored son. And he gives him a gift, a katonet pasim, as our translation calls it, an ornamented tunic. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain and earlier this year I got a phone call from a Lutheran pastor who is helping the director of an upcoming production of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Could it be that the translation is long in the sleaves or just long coat. After some study of classic texts we concluded it could be, but that it is ambiguous, so we are back to meaning of Hebrew uncertain.
In any case, this was a special gift. And it enraged the brothers. They were jealous. And Joseph’s dreams didn’t help any. They wanted to kill their brother. Only Reuven objects to the plan and convince them to throw him into a pit. After he is sold into some form of slavery, the brothers take that coat, smear it with blood and convince Jacob that his beloved son is dead. Jacob goes into deep mourning. This is a horrible story on so many levels. The text demands of us, we have to do better.
Back to the news. There was a very sad story on Thursday night. Earlier in the week two brothers were murdered in their own alley right behind their house. Their mother had told them not to go out. They went any way. The lead story on NBC Chicago Thursday night was that it was a crime of jealousy. Apparently, whoever killed these two young men wanted the coat that one of them was wearing. They stole the coat and left the brothers to die. This is a horrible story on so many levels. We have to do better.
This week we marked the sad anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT. Now Newtown is about half way between Boston and New York and it was common for me to stop there on my way home from rabbinical school. My college roommate lives there. We would often enjoy a sushi meal together with her young son before I would journey on to Boston. That son was a kindergartner when Sandy Hook happened. He was in a different building, but my college roommate went through the predictable panic until she could hold her son. I was newly in Elgin. We kept our phone line open all afternoon as the horror became clearer. It was the first night of Chanukah. I had taught the kids in Torah School, the Debbie Friedman song, Not by might, based on the haftarah for Shabbat Chanukah. We made a video, sent it to my roommate and she shared it with her friends and other moms.
Since Sandy Hook, there continues to be too much gun violence. This year according to Forbes citing Gun Violence Archive there have been 611 mass shooting through Nov.25, 2022. This statistic does not include the two brothers in their alley killed over a coat. But it does include stories that continue to be in the headlines. Uvalde. Highland Park Fourth of July Parade. This, too, is a horrible story. We have to do better.
Perhaps you will not agree with me, but when I called our state representative’s office about two other issues, the IL Safety and Security Grant, a funding bill she helped write and her recording of her talk on stumbling stones in Munich, we would up talking about gun violence. She is one of the co-sponsors of a bill to ban assault rifles in Illinois. If that bill passes, and I pray that it does, it will not end all gun violence. If it is in your nature, I urge you to check out organizations like the Sandy Hook Promise, Moms Demand Action, Everytown and Brady United. None of them are partisan. If you are so willing, I urge you to reach out to your elected officials, of whichever party and make your views known. We have to do better. Jealousy over a coat—Joseph’s or a teenager in Illinois in 2022 is not a reason to resort to violence. Period.
In the words of the Chanuakh haftarah, which always being me hope:
Not by might and not by power
But by spirit alone
Shall we all live in peace.
May we rededicate ourselves to this vision.