If you love the Bible, then love the living

Enough. Enough. Enough. I have had it.

You have had it, as well. But, this is not the first time that I, and we, have said “enough.”

Since Sandy Hook, this nation has experienced more than 3,500 mass shootings.

A Black church in Charleston (2015). A governmentfunded nonprofit center in San Bernardino (2015). A gay nightclub in Orlando (2016). A country music festival in Las Vegas (2017). A high school in Parkland (2018). A synagogue in Pittsburgh (2018). A Walmart in majority-Hispanic El Paso, followed just hours later by a shooting in a popular nightlife corridor in Dayton, Ohio (2019). Asian American massage businesses in Atlanta (2021). Last week in Buffalo and in California and …

And so, we say “enough.” We say to ourselves: This will be the last time we utter that word, “enough.”

Until the next time.

We can say with utter certainty — with emunah shleimah, with complete faith — there will be a next time.

It is like a grim version of one of my favorite movies, “Groundhog Day.” Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) keeps waking up on the same day — Groundhog Day — in the location of the official Groundhog Day festivities in western Pennsylvania. He is trapped in an endless time loop, a version of the mythic eternal return. But, eventually, he realizes he can use his constant reawakenings as opportunities to learn.

That is us. This is a moral “Groundhog Day.” We reawaken from this regular nightmare of guns and shootings and mass death, and as yet, we have not learned anything.

I love this story that comes from the soul of Reb Nachman of Bratslav, one of Hasidism’s finest teachers.

There is a king, whose wise men tell him they have learned the coming harvest is tainted. Whoever eats of the harvest will go insane.

“What should we do?” they ask him.

The king tells them this: “We will eat of the harvest, because to not eat of the harvest will condemn us to starvation. But, at the very least, this is what we must do. We will put marks on our foreheads, so that when we look at each other, we will know, at least, that we are insane.”

We are living in a nation that has gone insane. We will put marks on our foreheads. When we look at each other, we will see the marks on our

foreheads — and in that way, we will know we are insane.

There are far too many politicians who have

been reticent and reluctant and who have refused — categorically refused! — to apply a tourniquet to the bleeding of this nation.

I have two questions for those politicians:

1. What does it mean to be pro-life?

I have a hunch most politicians who are prolife, or against women’s health choices, are progun. Or, at the very least, opposed to any kind of sensible, rational gun control.

Those politicians care about fetal tissue. They care about a microscopic collection of cells.

We would ask you to care about the tissue of a human being outside the womb — at 4 years, or at 14 years old, or at 40

years.

2. What does it mean to be pro-Bible?

Many who are progun pride themselves on their connection to the Bible.

I invite them to study the Bible with me.

Come study the story of Cain and Abel. Abel’s bloods — yes, bloods, in the plural — cry to God from the ground. Bloods plural because when

Cain killed Abel, he not only killed Abel, but all his descendants. (None of the children killed in school shootings over the years will have children, much less descendants. Get your mind around that, pro-lifers.)

Come study the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Learn the story of a society that surrendered its soul to bloodshed and cruelty — and suffered horrific circumstances.

Come study the Sixth Commandment — lo tirtzach — you shall not murder.

Come study Leviticus 19 — you shall not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.

Come study the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Every head is ailing, and every heart is sick.

From head to foot, no spot is sound.

All bruises and welts, and festering sores …

When you lift up your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you;

Though you pray at length, I will not listen.

Your hands are stained with crime.