Eitz Chaim by Melissa McCafferty

This week marks three years since a deadly shooting took place at my childhood synagogue — Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — taking the lives of 11 innocent people.

Tree of Life was not only a place I went to for the high holy days but a space I roamed around freely and often during my youth. I remember wandering the empty halls aimlessly after school, waiting for my stepfather to finish up work. He served as the executive director of Tree of Life for over a decade, retiring just months before the fatal shooting.

Rosh Hashanah at Eden school with Crouch End Chavurah was the first in-person service I attended since the attack. My husband and I chose to sit in the very back of the tent, so we could make a swift and easy exit if our three month old son began to cry. When the service began, I couldn’t help but draw a connection between our choice of seating being fatal to those that made the same choice on that October day in Pittsburgh. As I looked at my newborn son in my arms, I was overcome with shame for these feelings. I felt guilt for bringing such sorrow into my son’s first Rosh Hashanah, a small milestone in his Jewish experience. At the same time, how do I honour the victims of that day if I allow myself to forget completely?

I’ve thought about that moment a lot since Rosh Hashanah. How do we take tragic history and turn it into hope? How I can turn the Tree of Life shooting into something that empowers my son, rather than fills him with fear? The dilemma perhaps isn’t unique; I’m sure these are the same questions that many Holocaust survivors, including my own grandparents, also asked themselves.

Nor are these questions exclusive to the Jewish experience or solely applicable to matters of identity. Kaya drew similar thoughts in her reflection last week on race and the Black experience. And with the upcoming COP26 climate change conference, I found myself wondering much of the same. Creating a framework for change isn’t just about creating a new plan. It’s about learning from our past, our tragedies, and sometimes even our own mistakes. I’m reminded of a quote by Elie Wiesel: “God gave Adam a secret. And that secret was not how to begin but how to begin again”. I still don’t have any of the answers…but I think this frame of mind is a good place to start.