| Dear OZ family,
The events of the day are the kind that accentuate our daily recital of Tehillim chapter 20. In that chapter, which we recite towards the end of the weekday Shacharit service, we ask for God to answer us in our time of trouble and to keep us safe. Trouble and strife are part of the human condition, but we are also conditioned to learn how to respond to and alleviate our struggles. “Let it be” may be words of wisdom if we can learn to overlook and live with life’s troubles, but some of the pathologies our country is experiencing now, are well beyond that level.
Perhaps what is different now is that these pathologies are exacerbated by a social media that creates literal comrades in arms of the most dangerous people. And an increasingly polarized country that is simply incapable of producing a political situation whereby those with opposing viewpoints can sit together and craft a worthy, common-sense response to what everyone agrees is an intolerable situation, simply adds to the pathologies. Common sense has to have some common ground, and there is very little of that in our country today.
When the kingdom of early Israel moved from the tribe of Binyamin to the tribe of Yehuda, and the two tribes ruled side by side for two years, a war game broke out between the two sides, to see which tribe was better equipped to defend the nation against the mortal threat of the Philistines. This story reflects the idea that the very first role of a governing body, regardless of its type, is to keep its people safe. That is on everyone’s mind in the country, in our city, and as our renovation is drawing to its completion, we are setting up the equipment and personnel to assure that the experience in attending OZ for services, meals or programs, is a safe one.
I opened these words with a verse from Tehillim and I close with the same. Chapter 127 begins:
“Unless the Lord helps to build the house, the builders labor in vain on it. Unless the Lord watches over the city, The watchman keeps vigil in vain.”
May the families in Uvalde,Texas who suffered such unspeakable losses be comforted, and may the wounded be healed.
Be safe. Be healthy. Be excellent.
Rabbi Allen Schwartz
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Rabbi Allen Schwartz
Congregation Ohab Zedek
118 West 95th Street
New York, NY 10025-6604
Phone 212.749-5150, ext 200
E-mail: ras@ozny.org
Website: www.ozny.org
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