It has been two days since the horrific attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. At this point, you have undoubtedly read and heard, and perhaps shared on social media, various commentaries on the shooting, the perpetrator and his victims. Depraved religious leanings, mental instability, antipathy toward the LGBTQ and Latino communities, and an assault weapon were a lethal combination that led to the worse mass shooting in U.S. history. To say we are saddened, horrified, and angry is an understatement. And there is surely a place for simply feeling and expressing these emotions. Not to express them would be inhuman.

But only to express them is to acquiesce. To throw our hands up and say “What a world!” We must mourn the loss of life and pray for the injured and those who lost loved ones. And then we must act.

When Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he said he was praying with his feet. And we should do likewise. And given the chance to pray with our voices, by demanding change in Washington, and in Springfield and in Tallahassee, we should do that as well. We must stand up in support of the communities that were targeted and expose the hatred and bigotry that are given cover by strands of politics and the media in our country whose stock and trade is a thinly veiled prejudice. We need to amplify and support the voices of upstanding Muslims, and we need to call for a commonsense approach to the Second Amendment.

As many have pointed out over the last few days, we face more restrictions in airport security lines because of 9/11 than in purchasing assault weapons despite the unrelenting crisis of mass shootings in our country.

Others have pointed out the hypocrisy of making a woman wait 48 hours (and, in most cases, to travel a great distance) to have an abortion, when no similar restrictions are placed on those who want to purchase a gun.

In an excellent piece in The Forward , Jay Michaelson quotes Genesis 4:10 when God chastises Cain for killing his brother Abel: “What have you done? Listen! The voice of our brother’s blood cries out from the ground.” The voice of our brothers and sisters today calls out to us from Orlando, and from Newtown, and San Bernardino, and Charleston and from Baltimore and from Englewood and from North Lawndale and, yes, from Evanston.

At 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, our community will come together at Second Baptist Church for an evening of prayer, lament, support for the LGBTQ and Latino communities, and a call to action to curb gun violence. Please be there to pray and to contemplate what we can do to make this the last mass shooting vigil. Come together to channel our righteous indignation.

With prayers for peace and healing,

Rabbi Andrea London

P.S. I am often asked by Beth Emet members where the voices of the Muslim community are when attacks are committed by those who profess to follow Islam (I say “profess” because, from all accounts, the shooter was a lapsed Muslim whose behaviors toward himself and others did not comport with even the most basic tenets of the faith.) I am including links to several statements the Muslim community in the wake of the Orlando attack. 

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago 

CAIR Chicago