Soul

Soul

In his book, The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels (New York: Random House, 2018), Jon Meacham discusses some of the darkest times in American history and provides an important historical narrative about the incidents themselves and the American response.   Meacham will have the opportunity to add yet another chapter very soon.  This past weekend, on Saturday-the weekly Sabbath for Jews-a well-armed attacker brutally slayed 11 people and injured several more at their synagogue in Pittsburgh.   There is no debate about the motives of the attacker.   This was hate and Antisemitism brought to its most visible terror-filled violent conclusion.  Again, the combination of guns and hatred resulted in lives lost and a beautiful community damaged.  Again, our public leaders either use it for political discussion or ignore obvious solutions.  Again, the average citizen asks “how can this happen again and again?” in the land of the free.  How can this happen in the United States where the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion?

The reality is it can and does happen, right in front of us.  According to the Anti-defamation League (ADL), there was a 57% increase in reports of anti-Semitic incidents between 2016 and 2017.  This trend line continues.  This terrible slaughter in Pittsburgh is now an amplification of this statistic.  This is the largest murder of Jews in American history.  

These data, alarming on their own, complement the violent racist, misogynistic, sexist events that we have observed in recent times.  Think about Charleston, Charlottesville, Orlando, and now Pittsburgh and more.  There are many commonalities.  Their uniqueness comes in the stories of the people killed and injured.  They are young and old, parents and grandparents.  Lives lost. Targeted ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.   Groups that many of us embrace for the beautiful diversity that they add to our otherwise bland culture have to experience this awfulness on a regular basis. 

I hope that you are offering thoughts and if appropriate to your tradition, prayers, for those lost in Pittsburgh this past weekend.   Their families and their community need us.  At this same time, do the same for those who have been victims of events of the past few years.  Dozens of victims and their families have been innocent victims of violence and hate.  For survivors and families, the hurt from these isolated events is persistent and should also be remembered.

The reality of all of this is that any targeted violence against any group of individuals is just wrong.  There is no reason to think otherwise, and there is an opportunity to speak out and bring change to this narrative.    What is to be our collective response to this?  As a first step, using the themes Meacham raised in his book, we can ask “where is our soul?  Where are our better angels?” We need to find them now.  Thanks for the inspiration, Jon Meacham.