New Perspective From Charleston

“Are the people walking on the bridge all Jewish?” they asked. In their minds that could be the only other rational reason why we’d be walking.

“No,” she replied again. “The ones who were killed were people. And we are people too. That’s why we’re walking.”

My children are growing up in a Jewish enclave, which is beautiful and the way it should be. They are the children of a rabbi, and their lives revolve around Yiddishkeit. But over this past week they learned something very important, as did we all – that although we live separate lives, we are ultimately all united by a sense of goodness, justice, and even prayer.

The prophet declares in Yeshayahu (56:7): “Ki beisi beis tefillah yikareh lechol ha’amim – and My house will be called a house of worship for all peoples.”

May all the people of this world pray to our one Avinu She’bashamayim, and may that serve as an inspiration to promote the values that Charleston has so admirably demonstrated during an extremely trying time.