My day started with such promise. We have out-of-town company from Massachusetts, seeing our home in Elgin for the first time. Dear friends. We have opened businesses together, shared holidays, celebrated our wedding, the birth of Sarah, any number of holidays. They come to us for Passover and Chanukah. We revel in clever Halloween costumes. We decorate their Christmas tree. We sit around the table and share stories and our favorite meal of steak, asparagus and baked potatoes. We discuss politics. This is a deep, deep friendship and we are excited to show them our new town of Elgin.

We met my nephew, a recent graduate from Swarthmore and four of his friends for coffee. They are driving from Swarhmore to Palo Alto to develop a new ap as a start-up company. They are full of life and excitement and promise. They are driving straight through a thunderstorm to camp in the Badlands. They are polite. Thoughtful. Intelligent. Delightful.

And then we got the news. The three Israeli boys–not much younger than my nephew and his four friends, were found. Murdered. Half-buried in a shallow grave. The news took my breath away. I read the news story, slowly, out loud. I couldn’t read it without crying. I don’t know these boys. And yet, like Brennan, they were full of life and hope and optimism. Just kids waiting to start their lives. Kids on their way home from school.

How could anyone think that this is a good outcome? Walking home from school should not be dangerous. Not for three boys on the West Bank. Not for the 223 girls. Not for children in Columbine, Paducah, a small Amish town, Sandy Hook. Not for children walking home from school in Chicagoland.

How do we respond to such unspeakable grief. Tears, fears, anger, vengeance, frustration, despair, doubt. We want justice. But what is justice? An eye for an eye? Life for life? As has been said before, that leave the whole town blind. That leaves everyone wanting, demanding, craving more life.

Early this morning, before the household awoke, I was reading My Promised Land. I am in the chapter about Lyddia. I put it down. It tells the story about what happens to an elite group of Zionists, trained to found a kibbutz but changed by invading Safed, then Lyddia. War changes people. The book speaks an uncomfortable truth we don’t want to hear.

As I write this, I am waiting out a thunderstorm. It is a scary one with possible embedded tornados. I wonder where the boys are that wanted to camp in the Badlands. Did they make it? Are they in a tent? Did they maybe stop at a hotel. I text them. Brennan answers they are in Minnesota. They are safe.

As I do this, CNN flashes on the screen that Israel has attacked Gaza by air. For several days now southern Israel has been under attack. 50 rockets fired into Israel. The news that Israel has responded with firepower of its own especially after learning that the boys are dead does not surprise me. But it saddens me.

When will this cycle of violence end? The killing of more children. The tearing down of houses. The air raids. These will not bring back our boys. These will not act as a deterrent or stop another terrorist attack. Instead, I fear, it will further anger, further alienate.

Judaism teaches that “I have placed before you life and goodness or death and evil…choose life.” (Deuteronomy 30:15) I understand the anger we all feel tonight. I wonder about another boy from another decade whose life was cut short by a terrorist bomb. I still wonder what might have been.

Judaism teaches “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” (Deuteronomy 20) It is something we have to actively run after. It also teaches that we must “Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:15).

For me, then, the only response to this evil–and make no mistake–killing three boys is just that–evil–is to redouble my efforts to work for peace. To actively pursue peace. To run after peace.

Please join with me. Find a way to comfort the mourners and a way to choose life. Pursue peace.