Personally, coming off this weekend of Yom Kippur, my soul is still resonating. I am still moved and humbled and awed by our world and our places in it–by the sacred gift that life truly is, and of the meaning of living a Jewish life.
And now, we wake up to death and destruction in Las Vegas.
What can we do?
The soaring feeling of possibility, of change, of growth that inspires us through the High Holidays cannot be shot down by a murderer’s gun. There will always be evil in the world. But that does not mean that we are free from our obligation to do good.
And so as we sit, watching and listening to the infinite platitudes and tweets and gestures–none of which will bring back the loved who have been cut down before their time–we may feel powerless.
But we are not.
Moreover, all that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. And so, I offer you this:
—Do 50 good things today in memory of those who were murdered because our nation values guns more than people.
—Be decent, as loudly and often as you can.
—Our country needs it. Our country needs you.
—Be as loudly kind and inclusive as you can possibly be. Do not give up. Make phone calls. Talk to people.
—Work as hard as you can to change the world for the better.
—Maybe it seems small to you. Maybe it seems as though you can’t have the wide-ranging impact, all at once, of someone with a loaded magazine and no sense of humanity.
—You can. It just takes more time, more effort, more patience and more dogged, fierce love. And it is worth it.
—Be as alive as you can—because over 50 (as the numbers of the murdered grow) Americans don’t have the chance to see a new day today.
—May their memory be for a blessing.
And you must be that blessing.
