A Torah teaching about gun violence

A preamble. There is, of course, no mention of guns in the Torah. The biblical stories we tell year after year, as per Jewish tradition, exist in a world without guns. But that doesn’t mean those stories aren’t teaching us about gun violence, something I did not fully appreciate until my rabbi asked me to give the d’var (sermon) at Shabbat services this weekend. My preparation for this d’var got me thinking about two pivotal stories of family violence and some dots connected for me. A bit of a lightbulb moment. So I share these connected dots with you now.

In synagogues across the world this past Shabbat, Jews read from the Torah portion Bereshit. Literally meaning “in the beginning”, Bereshit tells the story of the creation of the world and of humankind. Nature bursts forth, original humans Adam and Eve get into all sorts of trouble, and newness abounds.

But there is also destruction and death. The first murder of the Torah takes place when Cain kills his brother in a fit of rage. An act that in modern terms we would call domestic violence, as someone is killed by a member of their own family. Moments after the murder God asks Cain about his brother, and as so often happens in cases of domestic violence the one who causes harm takes no responsibility for their violence. Cain says, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" A deeply dissatisfying answer, but that is not the part I am most troubled by. What concerns me is that the violence seemed inevitable. That seemingly nothing could have been done to stop the killing.

But that is certainly not the case in every biblical story of family violence. In a few weeks time, we will read a different Torah portion, Vayera, which tells the story of another family at the precipice of violence. But the ending of this story is profoundly different. That story is the Akedah, or the binding of Isaac, when Abraham follows God’s command to take his son to a mountain in Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice. You likely know the basics of it — and if you are like me you have struggled to understand how a father could be persuaded to kill his own son. Abraham takes Isaac to the mountain, and there is a pivotal moment of exquisite tension as he is about to go forth with the sacrifice. There is a raised weapon, and a child about to die.

But at that very moment, there is also an intervention. As Abraham picks up his weapon a messenger calls out to him. A voice calls his name. I have always imagined that at that very moment everything stops. The world stills, as it should as a child’s life is in danger. In that moment of stillness, Abraham says Hineni, or “here I am”.

He puts down his weapon and a child’s life is saved.

I have spoken about the Akedah as it relates to my work many times before. The Akedah is an incredibly powerful and profoundly challenging story about the potential of violence, an intervention, the laying down of a weapon, and the saving of a child.

But until this weekend I hadn’t considered it in relation to the story of Cain and Abel. The Torah shares very few details about Abel’s killing, saying simply: “Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.” But as I considered this in relation to the Akedah, I was so bothered by what was missing. There was no intervention, no voice calling out his name. Nothing that exhorts Cain to make a different choice. And unlike the Akedah, the moment ends with a life lost and family forever changed.

What also occurred to me is that we read the Akedah not only a few weeks after Bereshit, but also a few weeks before it. The Akedah is woven into our celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, by appearing in the Torah reading on the second day. We cannot start the new year without reading this story and bearing witness to an intervention that saves the life of a child. I am struck by how the Akedah bookends the story of Cain and Abel. The lack of intervention and the resulting death of Abel stand in stark contrast to a tale told just weeks before AND after.

I think there is a lesson in that too.

Now I want to tell a different story, about one of the reasons I came to the work of gun violence prevention. It is also about a raised weapon, a death at the hands of someone who should have shown love, not violence. I worked with many children in the immediate aftermath of domestic violence homicides. In one of those tragic situations, I sat with siblings whose mother had just been shot and killed by her boyfriend. The children were 6 and 8, and the grandparents were struggling with how to explain to the children that they would never see their mother again. They asked me to help break the news. So I did — they needed to be told. That conversation is seared into both my memory and my heart.

I remember looking at these kids and thinking so many things, including:

We have to change the narrative of guns in our communities and in our homes.

We have to write another story. I want to help write another story.

I can respond to trauma until the end of time. And that work is so important. But I also want to be the intervention that stops the trauma from happening in the first place. Be the voice that calls for that change.

And that brings me back to the reading of the Akedah as it bookends the story of Cain and Abel. Those bookends show us once and then again how the ending of the story changes when someone intervenes. Our work to end gun violence is about what story we want to write for our communities and our children. It’s about all of us coming together to be the voice — that intervention at a moment of extreme danger — that calls for the laying down of weapons. The voice that will not stay silent in the face of violence. And when we build coalition, when we pass stronger gun violence prevention policies, when we invest in community based solutions, we make that voice louder, clearer, and more powerful.

Here we are, at the beginning of a new year. In the very first Torah portion of this new year, we see a violent death and a family that will never be the same. But we know there is another way. We saw another path a few weeks ago and that same path beckons us as we approach it in just a few short weeks.

It’s up to us to be the intervention. To use our voices to call for the laying down of weapons. And then to be like Abraham and say, “Hineni”.

Hineni. Here I am.