.And the old shall dream dreams, and the youth shall see visions,
And our hopes shall rise up to the sky.
We must live for today; we must build for tomorrow.
Give us time, give us strength, give us life.
Debbie Friedman based on Joel 2:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wahrvf_uAYc

Let the peace of Oseh Shalom settle over you. Dan did a great job of leading it this morning. Today’s sermon feels decidedly unfinished. And it is guaranteed to make none of you happy.

Today is Shabbat Hazon, the Shabbat of Vision, the Shabbat just before Tisha B’av, which we observe tomorrow because in fact today is Shabbat and we don’t mourn on Shabbat.

We’ve spent several weeks talking about prophecy and call. Today I want to talk about vision and Isaiah.

At CKI we have a vision statement that was developed by the vision committee and adopted by the entire congregation, almost 10 years ago. That statement says that we are a Jewish congregation dedicated to lifelong learning, meaningful observance, building community and embracing diversity.

What does vision mean to you? People answered that it was more than sight. It had to do with seeing into the future with hope and aspiration. It is what we can and should become.

Vision means at its basic level sight. The second definition according to Merriam Webster is “something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy especially : a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation, b: a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination, c: a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial”

For the prophets it meant something more. It meant the ability to offer hope for the future while looking at the past.

Today we begin to read the book of Deuteronomy. The entire book can be seen as Moses’ farewell address, where he reminds people of the covenant and repeats the 10 commandments. It is beautiful Hebrew. It gives us the Sh’ma and the V’ahavta and promises us a good land, one flowing with milk and honey. And it assures us that even though Moses is not going with us, somehow we will be alright. It transitions the leadership to Joshua and then it tells us never again would there arise a navi, a prophet like Moses who knew G-d face to face.

Today we also read about another prophet, Isaiah. Isaiah too had a vision. We know part of Isaiah’s vision, “Every one ‘neath their vine and fig tree, shall live in peace and unafraid. And into plow share beat their swords, nation shall learn war no more.”

George Washington quoted this very verse to the members of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport RI. It is part of the Isaiah Wall at UN Headquarters, designed by Ralph Bunche, the first African American to win a Nobel peace prize in 1950. It is the basis for Yehudai Amichai’s poem:

An Appendix to the Vision of Peace
Tosefet Lachazon Hashalom
Don’t stop after beating the swords
into plowshares, don’t stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into plowshares first.
– Yehuda Amichai

What is your vision of sitting under your vine and fig tree? There was actual silence. Unusual in my place. Then one brave woman said, “It is hard to even imagine these days. I’m scared. All the time.” Chilling.

I was fortunate. I lived it out last night, sitting on my new deck, watching the sunset while some ducks swam and sipping a glass of Shabbat wine.

This was a hard week. This was not a week of Isaiah’s vision. Far from it. Since we gathered last we learned of the horrors of El Paso, of Dayton, of Chicago, where last weekend alone 7 were killed and 46 were wounded. This was a week that saw Elgin’s first shooting, a homicide, in over a year, that began over a dispute. A senseless dispute.

This was a week where I spent more hours as a trusted advisor to the city in my role as rabbi and chaplain watching the police shooting video from last year. And then more conversations about it with more to come next week.

And I have homework. To read a book written by Dave Grossman, On Killing, The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. I’ll be honest. I’m not looking forward to it, but when the deputy police chief recommends it, you listen. This week we also lost (lost is never the right word here. He was murdered.) a young man, a 19 year old stabbing victim clutching a different Dave Grossman book as he died. He was bringing it to his rabbi to discuss peace on the West Bank.

This is what I know. I am angry. Outraged. Scared. I know we have to do something. Because doing nothing is no longer an option.

This is what I didn’t know. Knives are actually more dangerous than guns. They are more “personal” but guns can kill more people more quickly. I didn’t know that bulletproof vests don’t stop knives. I should have but I didn’t. I didn’t know that the ambulance had been called but was being held by the state police back where 90 was closed until the scene was “secure”. I didn’t know that the officers had seen two knives. I didn’t know she had slit her throat and her wrists. I didn’t know until this week that she did have two feet on the ground, pointed toward the officers not away from them. That she died clutching both knives.

This is what I know. These events are never as clear as they may at first appear. They are very, very nuanced. Causing us to ask again, what is vision? How do you know even what you have seen? For months I had said I couldn’t see the second knife. Now I can. And had I been there would I have seen it sitting on the seat? Would I have wondered if there was also a gun? Would I have worried about that car on fire would blow up?

That burning car with its fuel tank changed everything.

This is not me doing apologetics for the EPD. This police shooting fits a national pattern. Sadly. A national problem. This is me having spent hours, too many to count, watching, and listening and asking really hard questions. Is the lieutenant a racist? Or exhibiting implicit bias? Would waiting another second, two, three, four make a difference. Would more mental health training and not screaming at her produced a different outcome? What is the difference in verb choice between charge, stumble, fell out, exited the vehicle? What do you see?

And I am coming to a possible new conclusion. This is me thinking about our tradition of teshuvah and forgiveness and healing. We believe in yeshivah, that the gates of repentance are always open. I am uncomfortable when someone stands up at a meeting and states that the city can never heal. As painful as it is, the city has to heal. Somehow. At some point.

And I don’t know. I don’t know what the answers are.

What I do know: events like National Night Out and Soccer for Peace work. They decrease the violence. That guns kill. That this, too, is a national problem. That too many black and brown people die. That too many people devalue human life and turn into killers. That we have too much easy access to guns. That the desire (?) to kill cannot be attributed to one factor. It is too easy to say it is violent video games, or mental illness.

On a special on the Today Show a psychiatrist said that hostility, anger, bigotry, craving infamy, blaming others for the their problems and easy access to weapons are some of the causes. I would add a history of domestic violence. We as a community also need to concerned with the documented rising anti-semitism. Yet that fits in the category of bigotry.

https://www.today.com/video/is-there-a-link-between-gun-violence-and-video-games-65829445509

She cautions however, while we maybe feeling anxious, “We cannot let these examples of mass violence steal our joy.”

This is what I know too. In Isaiah’s vision in today’s portion, he says:

“Your rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves, Every one avid for presents and greedy for gifts; They do not judge the case of the orphan, And the widow’s cause never reaches them (Isaiah 1:24).”

Some say the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same thing. We can no longer afford to do that. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. They ring hollow. Even from this rabbi. Especially from this rabbi.

I have been too close to too many of these shooting for too long. I too am a victim of a violent crime that involved guns, legally issued guns by the Israeli army. Because of that I have spent decades working on this very issue. And then…my sister-in-law was the district director for Gabby Giffords’ predecessor. That is their grocery store. My other sister-in-law was at that very mall to get her nails done that morning. They knew everyone shot. And then…my college roommates kid was a 6 year old in Newtown, CT that fateful day. He was not harmed but he lost friends that day. And then…a friend of mine from Israel, who made aliyah because of Columbine, moved back to the Denver area because it would be safer, only to have a daughter at the movie theater the night of that shooting. And just last year, one of my students from Chelmsford, was wounded in Parkland. This insanity has to stop. Isaiah’s vision includes being able to go to school, to the movies, to the grocery and yes, here to synagogue without fear.

We have spent lots of time thinking about safety and security here at CKI. There are no perfect answers. There will be police for the High Holidays. We are continuing to beef up other options. The reality is that hiring the police costs $213 every single time. That is not a sustainable model, even if we do get the homeland security grant. While having an officer maybe a deterrent to some, it does not stop someone hell-bent on committing these kinds of mass murders, as we sadly learned from Gilroy and Dayton.

Our own rulers seem unable to recognize that what we are doing as a nation isn’t working. I am not talking about dismantling the Second Amendment. I am talking about it being more difficult to obtain guns, high powered assault rifles with large magazines, designed as instruments of war, only to kill people. That’s why I have been proud to support Rabbi Joel Mosbacher’s organization, Don’t Stand Idly By, which advocates for Smart Gun Technology. His own father was killed by a gun in a robbery in Chicago. The mayor of Elgin and the former police chief have both signed on.

This is what I still don’t know. I don’t know how get people to understand one of the central messages of Deuteronomy. “I have set before you blessing and curse. Choose life that you may live.” Let us all choose life that we may live.

Reading before Kaddish
The words that the rabbi in Dayton used, words of my good friend Alden Solovy, professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union College:

After a Deadly Rampage
Author of life
Source and Creator,
Grant a perfect rest under Your tabernacle of peace
To the victims of the massacre
In _________________________ [add place of the event],
Whose lives were cut off by violence,
A rampage of witless aggression beyond understanding.
Their hopes were severed.
Their dreams were lost to brutality.
May their souls be bound up in the bond of life,
A living blessing in our midst.
May they rest in peace.

G-d of justice and mercy,
Remember, too, the survivors of this attack,
Witnesses of shock, horror and dismay.
Ease their suffering and release their trauma
So that they recover lives of joy and wonder.
Grant them Your shelter and solace,
Blessing and renewal.
Grant them endurance to survive,
Strength to rebuild,
Faith to mourn,
And courage to heal.

Remember the families and friends
Of the dead and the wounded.
With comfort and consolation.
Grant them Your protection,
Your wholeness and healing.
May they find hope and renewal.

Heavenly Guide,
Source of love and shelter,
Put an end to anger, hatred and fear
And lead us to a time when
No one will suffer at the hand of another,
Speedily, in our day.© 2012 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.