How Long Can a Season Last?

A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven.

I just got home from having dinner with friends in their sukkah. A night I look forward to every year, we are able to block out the noise of the busy world around us for just a few moments and enjoy each other's company while surrounded by nature. During the fall holiday of Sukkot, we give thanks for the fall harvest and it is both a commandment and a mitzvah to dwell [in the sukkah]. By definition, dwelling is to live or continue in a given condition or state.

Today, ten more people lost their lives to senseless gun violence. Seven additional people were injured. Those people have names and stories. Their journeys now cut short, and their communities left grieving and broken. At what admittedly had become far too routine of a post-tragedy press briefing, President Obama's words lingered. "Thoughts and prayers are not enough. It's not enough...it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America." We have dwelled in this season long enough. When will it be the time for change?
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"A time for being born and a time for dying. A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted; a time for slaying and a time for healing. A time for tearing down and a time for building up; a time for weeping and a time for dancing; a time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones; a time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces; a time for seeking and a time for losing; a time for keeping and a time for discarding; a time for ripping and a time for sewing; a time for silence and a time for speaking; a time for loving and a time for hating; a time for war and a time for peace." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

​Sukkot is also known as Z’man Simchateinu (Season of Our Rejoicing), and is the only festival associated with an explicit commandment to rejoice. It also is a time to recognize the change from one season to another - with a favorite reading and song coming from the Book of Ecclesiastes. The s'chach (roof) is to be temporary, covered with loose branches from trees or anything that grows out of the ground, should give shade and yet allow those in the sukkah to see the stars through the roof at night. When will more people look through the metaphorical s'chach and see the baseless hatred and violence in the world around us?

This season of senseless violence has overstayed its welcome. There has been too much time spent weeping without dancing. There has been too much time where stones have been thrown without being gathered. There has been far too much ripping, with those rips not being able to be sewn back up. Too many of us have spent time silent, not speaking up. When will this season turn? When will more of us not stand idly by and seek the change we need in our country in the form of revised gun control legislation? Time marches on, seasons change and those numbers continue to climb.

I'm proud to be a Reform Jewish youth professional and educator. Many of my friends, teachers and colleagues strive to create this much needed change in our world, and are on the front lines lobbying and raising their voices. Along with my teens at Temple Beth Elohim, I went to Washington last spring to lobby our officials as part of our participation in the Religious Action Center's L'taken Social Justice Seminar. Our own TBE community has been affected and we have begun to take important steps to create change through community organizing and awareness. NFTY, our Reform Jewish youth movement, has created a campaign for awareness and change, charging us to say #NotOneMore. On June 2, we were #WearingOrange in solidarity on National Gun Violence Awareness Day. We're trying to move to a new season.

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It just so happens that one of my teachers, Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism and Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is joining us for Shabbat at Temple Beth Elohim tomorrow night and will be speaking about the holy work that our community and movement is engaged in. If you're in the area (or online), I hope you'll join me in welcoming Shabbat at TBE and listening to Rabbi Pesner's charge.

One of the texts that I try to live by is from Pirke Avot 2:16, which says, "It is not up to you to finish the work, yet you are not free to avoid it." I translate that as even though we might not be able to complete it, we have to get up and contribute to the effort. As we prepare for Shabbat, take some time to ask yourself: what can you do to help us get to a new season? One with more celebration and without gun violence. A season with less mourning and more dancing. Kehn yehi ratzon - may it be God's will. Shabbat shalom.

"May God bless the memories of those who were killed today .... may He give us the strength to come together and find the courage to change."     - President Obama