Shabbat Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5773, April 20, 2013: After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack Rabbi Eric Yanoff. Shabbat Shalom.

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1 Shabbat Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5773, April 20, 2013: After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack Rabbi Eric Yanoff Shabbat Shalom. This past week, I was with my family for our first-ever trip to Disney World that magical and self-contained bubble that Disney creates down to every detail, every cast member aware of the effect that every interaction can have on the overall experience I saw performers in a barbershop quartet stopping to pick up trash, and trash collectors stopping to help someone who had lost his bearings to ask and give directions. It made me appreciate some of the things about community holiness that Kate, you and I reflected on together and you shared so beautifully in your d var Torah. But more on that another time because today, we need to focus on one detail that came into my family s experience at Disney this week. Look closely: It s difficult to see in the picture; what s wrong? [OPEN FOR OBSERVATIONS] The flags over Main Street, USA in Disney s Magic Kingdom flew at half-mast this week, starting on Tuesday. Yes, it took us longer to get the news perhaps, than had we been home and plugged-in to our phones and news-feeds and Facebook online tributes and expressions of solidarity but even in that magical and self-contained bubble of Disney World, we got the horrific news of the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. And from that point on, we followed the details, even from Disney. Of course, the headlines this week were awful in ways that brought us back in our minds to other scary times: A Congressman and the President mailed the chemical warfare agent Ricin and even disasters that were not terrorism (like the

2 explosion in Texas) shaking us with a sense of insecurity, that first, knee-jerk reaction of who has done us harm this time. One news analysis I read while away reflected that the post-9/11 quiet is over. Yes: The national, communal trauma of living in world where we have enemies who seek to terrorize civilian populations it comes back quickly, once we have been so traumatized once, after 9/11. Because that s the way terrorism works: It steals from us the most basic right to assume that we live in a world that is, mostly, safe. I think I ve told some people here the anecdote that I was teaching high-school in Manhattan immediately after 9/11, and the students were, understandably, shaken so much that there were days that I walked into class and realized that any lessonplan was going to be lost on them, as they were distracted. And so we talked: About terror, about wanting to feel safe, about insecurity. And I asked them a difficult question: They were mostly commuters they took the subway or the busses (except for the girl who lived in an apartment in the same building where the school occupied the bottom two floors she commuted on the elevator, and was somehow always late for class). And so I asked them, When you commute on the subway, and you re standing there waiting for the train, on the platform, how many of you cling to a column on the platform, in the constant fear that someone might bump or push you onto the tracks? None of them did that; they thought I was crazy for even thinking of it. But I pressed on: Why not? I asked. Isn t it possible? Anything is possible, they

3 responded. But that s not how we live. Taking the train is just normal. We don t think about it being dangerous. And you SHOULDN T think about it that way. You can t live in such constant fear. But what terror takes from us is that sense that, most of the time, we can live our lives, without the constant fear that tragedy and hatred is right around the corner. We assume that the world is, mostly, safe. And we trust the authorities of government, or our parents when we re younger, or others to keep our world, mostly, safe. And then that self-contained bubble is popped, that illusion shattered, that ideal world shown to be a set-piece, a façade, totally make-believe. It s like the conversation I had with my friend who was with us on vacation: Yes, Ezra was a bit frightened by the characters but it would totally freak him out if Mickey or Donald took off his head to show that there was a human inside. We need the veneer of security, we need that illusion mostly maintained, even if, intellectually, we know that it is a façade. So how do we respond? Certainly, with solidarity and support for those most immediately affected by the tragedy. But the very beginning of our Torah portion today reveals a truth about how we respond a truth that I m not sure if it s a tremendous strength, or a tremendous vulnerability. Let s look at the text together: REVIEW BACK-STORY: Two weeks ago in the Torah portion: Two of the high-priest Aaron s sons offer some unauthorized sacrifice (it s unclear what they did wrong but clearly

4 something was wrong, because they are immediately and stunningly zapped with a divine fire from the altar. Even then, the story continues almost immediately, with sacrifices on the altar, and laws of keeping kosher, and the like. But look how quickly we become INURED to the whole tragedy: Today s portion mentions the stunning, God-sent punishment as an oh, and by the way REVIEW TEXT. I m just not sure if this is a good response to a terrifying, tragic moment, or not. On the one hand, it shows tremendous resilience: It s the Israeli model of responding to terrorism Back to business: The moment after an attack, people return to their still-warm lattes outside cafes. The day after a terrorist destruction, it is already rebuilt perhaps with an understated plaque commemorating those lost, but nothing more next day, even the next moment rebuilt, perhaps an understated plaque, nothing more just a statement that we keep going, keep living, keep building. So too, the first words of our Torah portion today stop me in my tracks: Can the story just use the deaths of Aaron s sons as a place-marker, a you are here in the story and then move on?! Is that healthy? Maybe. Provided that, as the text does warn, we keep vigilant about the lessons of that loss. The text reads, V al yavo bechol eit el ha-kodesh do not approach the Holy of Holies at any time, without great mindfulness, and at certain appointed moments. Tragic though the loss, we retain the lesson that survives the tragedy. The challenge with making that parallel to modern-day terrorism, though, is that I m not sure we have fully retained the lesson that survives the tragedy. Because UNLIKE in Israel, what we lack in our desire to get back to normal is a base-

5 line constant vigilance. Did 9/11 change everything for us? Did it change our communal psyche? Yes, we are more annoyed at airports but most strategists and pundits lament that, we do not see ourselves as Israelis see themselves, as eyes on the ground, as part of the general defense against a repeat. Now, don t get me wrong: I m not saying that any of that could have prevented this week s tragedy, and tragically Israel s enemies have had devastating attacks despite such a general public vigilance. Also, there is a big part of me that WANTS us, still, to walk around, mostly assured of our safety. But it is dangerous to let down our guard, from the reality that there are those who are constantly seeking to do us harm, to bring us back to that sense of insecurity. Will the 2013 Boston Marathon be simply another milestone, that we mention in passing as a reference point for us in our constant defense against extremism and terror? In the immediate wake of the loss, we think, Never! But think of Lockerbie Oklahoma City the 1993 World Trade Center attack the USS Cole. Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta Embassy and Consulate attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Turkey, stretching over the past fifteen years and even for some, 9/11 is already being relegated to that status, a mention-in-passing that, beyond those personally affected, does not change us all. I hope that does not happen not only because it adds additional grief and loneliness to those most immediately affected, not only because it allows us to lower our guard but mostly because it makes us a less caring, less united community and nation. On the day of the Boston attacks, in a jarring disconnect

6 for American Jews, Israel was united by the celebration of Yom Ha Atzma ut (Israel s Independence Day) but Israel is more deeply united on Yom Ha- Atzma ut because Israel is even more strongly united the day before, on Yom HaZikaron when every Israeli feels personal loss from the sacrifice of soldiers fighting in defense of the Jewish State, when the nation consoles itself and promises that those losses will not be in vain, as Israelis seek a peaceful and secure nation. That can be a model for us here in America, relatively new to a life clouded by the threat of such loss in how we manage to respond to terror with resolve, with remembrance, and with resilience never using this moment merely as a passing reference-point to all else that goes on in our mostly-good, mostlysafe lives. And that is why, as I stood in the almost all-good, all-safe, protective, magical, self-contained, idealized, animated bubble of Disney World, I was reassured that the flag stood at half-mast: Because even there, on Main Street USA, in the Magic Kingdom, we needed to be affected by our nation s communal loss. I pray that we can keep in our hearts and prayers those most personally grieving, to share the burden of their sorrow with them and together, united, to mourn our loss of innocence that was, again, so viciously taken from us all by an act of terror. It is in this way that we will support one another both in grief for our loss, and in resolve for a better future. Keyn yehi ratzon So may it be God s will. And let us say: AMEN.