A Rabbi, the Sabbath, & a Hostage-Taking

                                                              Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker

 It's a strange world we live in when a hostage taking incident at a Jewish synagogue ends with a sense of relief because there were no deaths other than the person who invaded what is supposed to be a sanctuary. On January 15th a worship service was in progress at a synagogue in Texas but due to the pandemic there were only four people who were physically present, including the rabbi. The congregation watched the live-streaming of this act of terror although the feed was cut off before the SWAT team moved in and killed the perpetrator eleven hours after the standoff began. While there was a history of mental illness with this individual there was no doubt that he blamed Jews for what he perceived as the failures and wrongdoings of society.  

Can you imagine what this would be like for any of our Christian congregations and the trauma to those who were directly involved? Can we grasp the reality of never feeling entriely safe when coming together to worship God? I heard that the perpetrator was allowed in because he appeared to need help, an act of compassion which was met with aggression. 

Many Jewish congregations have metal detectors through which members pass, a perverse version of the Red Sea. After the hostage-taking a Jewish mother wrote in the New York Times of how her children know the security guards at their synagogue by name. When her daughter celebrated her Bat Mitzvah she asked if she would be safe, and her mother struggled for an answer because of the history of anti-Jewish sentiment and acts of aggression in the United States and around the world. 

The rabbi of the Texas synagogue spoke at a White House briefing a few days after the incident and I'll share some of what he said as reported by Religion News Service: 

“I am so grateful and I’m also a little sad that it takes something like this to bring people together,” said Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was taken hostage at gunpoint for 11 hours along with three other congregants at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan.15. The rabbi engineered his escape, along with that of the other hostages, and they emerged unhurt. 

“If we can do a better job to remember that we’re all created in God’s image, ‘b’tzelem elohim,’” he continued, using the Hebrew phrase for “in the image of God.” “If we could all do more to tone down the rhetoric in politics and on talk shows and remember that we can debate ideas. We don’t have to agree. We also don’t have to attack one another personally to get our point across.”

On Friday’s call, he again thanked the government for all it’s doing to buttress security at houses of worship and then reflected a bit on Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, and on the faith’s obligation to set aside the day and make it holy. 

“Shabbat in Hebrew means to cease,” he said. “God-willing, we’re all willing to just stop for a moment, with everything we’ve been through collectively — not just me and the other hostages, not just my congregation — but collectively. If we can just stop and focus on that that’s most important in our lives.”

Amen. 

Thich Nhat Hanh and spiritual ecology in today's Groundling blog 

https://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2022/01/thich-nhat-hanh-spiritual-ecology.html