Yahrzeit – One Year Since the Danforth Shooting

We are approaching the one year anniversary of last July’sshooting on the Danforth.  There areseveral events that will bring community together to mourn and remember, totouch back into shared support of the families whose loved ones were killed andto support everyone who has been shaken by this terrible tragedy.  This has been a year in which violence hashit close to home for us over and over – for us on the Danforth and for us as aJewish community.  It has been a year ofviolence pointed toward people in religious communities, gathered together inprayer, particularly targeting Jews and Muslims.  I remember so vividly sitting in the upperbalcony in the Madina Masjid following the Ring of Peace we and othercommunities formed around the mosque in protection and allyship.  I remember being invited into the mosque,sitting in the balcony and looking down at the men in prayer – kneeling,sitting with their hands over their hearts, bowing in humility and surrender. Iwas struck by the devotion and peacefulness of these gestures and so pained bythe desire of those who seek to cause harm and destruction precisely whenpeople are practicing vulnerability and disarmed openness. With my eyes closed,my hands on my heart, I offered my own prayer alongside theirs.

On a Yahrzeit, the anniversary of a death, Judaism gives uspractices to both connect with loss and to be resilient in response togrief.  We light a 24 hour candle atnight, the start of a Jewish day, once it is dark outside.  The yahrzeit candle is not bright.  It is less an illumination than a way ofbeing with the night.  It’s flamerepresents the soul.  The light accompaniesus from the nighttime into daylight and through the journey of remembering,marking the passage of time and touching the wound of loss.

Kaddish Yatom, mourner’s kaddish, is a prayer that makes nomention of death.  Instead it puts praiseand glory in our mouths, rooted in God’s Eternal flow of Life and peace.  In the face of what is finite and fragile, itsets us in a wide embrace of Time and Being that hold us and stretch out beyondus.  Particularly when the death we aremourning is tragic and senseless, I find this grounding keeps us tied to thestrength of aliveness and resilient being that no amount of violence canextinguish.

It is also a practice to engage in Jewish learning,dedicated to the memory of the person who died, and to givetzedakah/justice-oriented giving in their honour.  These are two commitments in the realm oflife that deepen our wisdom and extend our capacity to build a world ofgenerosity and care.  They are specificopportunities to practice building peace and kindness in our own hearts andminds, treasuring life and actively making the lives of others better.

Please consider ways you might want to engage with any ofthese practices.  As a community, we willcontinue to deepen our commitments and our activism building partnerships andallyships, standing up against hate and growing practices of chesed/lovingkindess.

Oseh shalom bimromav – May the One who creates peaceand wholeness above, extend peace on us, on the whole Jewish people and on allwho dwell on earth.  Amen