Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

It is the first day of our shivah. It takes seven days to mourn. For it took seven days for the world to be created. Do you not know that a person is a world and to lose such a person is to lose a world?

For whom do we mourn? For whom do we recite the kaddish? The kaddish is for God.

• pity Him
• comfort Him
• console Him
• have pity on Him

For if the death of a child grieves the parent, the death of God's creation, fashioned out of His very self, diminishes the Creator. God is shamed when the blood of His children is shed in violence by His other children. God is brought low. Therefore we sing:

Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei rabba
B'olma di v'ra chir'utei v'yamlich malchutei
B'chayechon uv'yomechon
Uv'chaye d'chol bet Yisrael
B's-agala uviz'man kariv, v'imru Amen.

• Magnify His name
• Sanctify His name
• Exalt Him
• Raise Him on your shoulders
• Lift Him up from the dust of His mourning

In the death of a person, a hole is created in God's Being and we are called upon to fill the emptiness with love, to fill the vacuum with mercy, to bind the wounds of His despair and His disappointment.

Seven days of shivah against the seven days of creation. Seven days after the death to resurrect the dying hopes, to raise up the fallen.

Seven days to breathe life into His nostrils, seven days to find the rhythm of our own hearts, so that we can hope again, build again, love again, seek out peace again.

But not too soon and not too fast. The sages caution "Do not comfort the bereaved while the dead are still before him." -- not too quickly mend the kriah, the rent in the fabric of our collective conscience. To mend requires an understanding of the nature of the tear in the seam.

Mourning is not for yesterday but for tomorrow. Death has a wisdom, death has much to teach life. Mourning will not heal without honesty.

Yitzhak did not die because of the solitary lunacy of a lone madman.
We dare not absolve ourselves too easily. The assassin lived in a context. The assassin breathed a polluted air. He lived in a poisonous miasma. The rabbis knew it and described this deceitful libel as avak lashon hara -- the dust of evil speech.

Yitzhak died because when people burned his effigy, when people dressed his image in a Nazi uniform, when people in high places cursed his name, called him traitor and murderer, when others in high places judged those who pursue peace as complicit with murder, when some dared to justify in the name of Halachic tradition, urging us to stifle the voice of reason, silencing those who tried for peace, too few raised their voice with moral outrage, too few cried out "ENOUGH! Enough of this blood-shed...our voice was muted. This cannot go on, this denigration, this desecration of God's name, this chilul hasem will not be allowed.

We cannot lie to ourselves, the assassin is not alone. In the healing honesty of mourning we must not hide ourselves from ourselves. We Jews know there is a sin of silence. There is a transgression in the omission of protest. There is a sin of language.

Mourning is not over the past. Mourning pledges a loyalty for tomorrow.

• Never again
• Never again shall we let the haters go unchallenged
• Never again will we be mute before the killers of the dream
• Never again shall we let the assassin triumph
• Never again will we stand idly by, arms folded, eyes, ears, and mouth closed

before the assassination of character

During this period of mourning let us grow up from our childish rhymes: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me." Names harm.

• names provoke, agitate, exploit emotion
• there are words that can kill
• there are words that can pierce the armor
• words can be fatal

Our Torah reminds us that words of desecration are leprous words. They spread their contamination on our clothes, on the walls of our homes, they set a plague in our hearts. Words can wound, maim, cripple, and kill. It is our teaching. In our mourning we must learn. This lesson is not just for Israel but for all societies including this blessed land of ours, the United States. Place these words of peace and civility on the doorposts of your homes. Teach them diligently to your children when you rise up and when you lie down. Let it come from each home, each haven of the heart. We must be ever alert to the rhetoric of incivility. Speak with kindness. Words are lethal and we are fragile human beings. Take it to heart. In our daily meditation: we conclude "Lord guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile. Wise men -- pay attention to your speech. For words are like arrows. When the arrow has left the bowstring, it no longer belongs to the archer. When words have left the lips, they are no longer controlled by the speaker.

Words are clouds of anger. They are blind and no longer can distinguish between the good and the bad, the friend and the enemy.

We have been taught by our sages. The Temple was not destroyed because our people were not observant. The Temple was not destroyed because our people did not study. The Temple was destroyed because of SINAT CHINAM -- causeless hatred.

And what can you do to destroy causeless hatred? The late Rabbi Kook said "You can counter causeless hatred only with causeless love: ahavat chinam."

It is a mitzvah that lies deep in the marrow of our bones. Do not take it lightly. V'ahavata -- and you shall love. It is the mandate upon which all else depends. The last words Yitzhak sang "Do not say a day will come. Bring the day! Because it is not a dream. Shout out in joy for peace."

I was moved this afternoon from a call I received from Mr. Mounir Deeb, the President of the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee. He called to express his and his organization's profound sadness at this tragic event and to express their resolution to continue their efforts to seek shalom, of which the Zohar book of Jewish mysticism speaks and to which all our traditions agree. "God is peace, His name is peace and we are all bound together in peace." Mr. Mounir Deeb, Asalumu aleikem.

Yitzhak was more than a politician. He was a visionary statesman. A philosopher called tradition "the democracy of the dead. All democrats object to people being disqualified by the accident of birth. Tradition objects to people being disqualified by the accident of death. Yitzhak has cast a vote in our election of a new Middle East, a new society, an old-new Israel. Yitzhak Rabin came to Israel in 1992 as Prime Minister. He said to Israelis " Set aside the notion that Israel stands alone. Abandon the notion that the whole world is against us. Today representatives of seventy-two nations are here, among them King Hussein of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt, who in being present took their lives in their own hands. What acts of courage. We are not alone."

How do we bid farewell to a person we love? When a person dies we say "tzaytcha b'shalom" -- to in peace. But when a living person departs on a journey we say "tzaytcha l'shalom". To Yitzhak we must now say "tzaytcha b'shalom". But we, his living heirs, say to each other "tzaytcha l'shalom". Let us go forth in peace.

He told his closest friend at the rally "This is the greatest day of my life." He was named Yitzhak which means "laughter". May his struggle for peace bring us laughter and song and joy.

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