The one word that Tree of Life’s rabbi refuses to say
And it’s a word that fuels bigotry today, Myers said, from racism to anti-Semitism. He calls it “the h word.”
Myers says he hasn’t said the word “hate” since November 2018, when he was asked to speak at an event in Pittsburgh shortly after the shooting.
“I was mulling over what I could say that has not yet been said,” Myers recalls. “And that’s when the divine inspiration came to me: This is all about language.”
Hatred, the rabbi says, is an obscenity. So he took a pledge to never say the word “hate” again and has invited others to do the same.
“We can’t legislate it away,” Myers says. “We have to be consciously willing to say: I am willing to change how I talk.”
What are you doing these days?
Like everybody else, it’s Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting. I call myself a Zoombie. My religious services are all livestreamed, adult education classes over Zoom, meeting with congregants, sermons to write, speeches to record.
I’ve heard many people say they’re busier now than they were prior to the pandemic, even though they’re home all the time. There’s no watercooler time. You’re stuck in front of your computer for most of the day.
How often do you think about October 27, 2018?
I don’t sit and specifically think about that day, but the reminders are all around. Any sensory input, it could be sights, sounds, smell, a touch of something — any of those can trigger memories.
How are you dealing with those memories?
You learn how to integrate it into your life and deal with it so you don’t become a victim as well. My faith is strong and I truly believe that somehow God wanted me to come to Pittsburgh for some peculiar reasons that God never explained to me. But I know that God wanted me to be here to help heal the community.
So your faith has gotten stronger since the shooting?
Yes, because God opened my eyes to a mission or set of missions that God wants me to do. But I’m also just continuing to muddle on as an ordinary human being. I just hope that when my time winds down God will be able to say thank you, in whatever way God says thank you.
Do you wrestle with the theodicy question: Why would a good and just God allow the shooting to happen?
I don’t believe it’s God who allows or disallows it to happen. God is the one we turn to in times of trouble to give us hope and to strengthen us. We all have choices and that’s the choice (the shooter) made. I don’t think God is in some divine control room pushing buttons.
So where do you turn for spiritual comfort these days?
The Psalms. I find them particularly inspiring when you look at the life of King David, to whom they are all ascribed. It’s a full expression of the human condition that hasn’t really changed in three thousand years.
I added Psalm 121 to my morning prayers when I was looking for the right words to say and was unable to relocate my voice to pray again.
There was a time you were unable to pray?
After the shooting. When I tried I just couldn’t get the words out. It felt like they were stuck. By the following Sabbath I was able to again. Before that I was mostly on autopilot.
To begin that process of healing, I first had to take care of seven funerals and a grieving congregation and, no disrespect, but the hordes of media. Once that first week concluded, then I was able to begin to focus more inwardly. That was the first time that ever happened to me. But then I was able to resume my dialogue.
What does God say in that dialogue?
I don’t think you can necessarily say that you get the answers you’re looking for. But sometimes when I am writing a speech or a sermon and I’m sitting here just looking and hoping for divine inspiration and next thing you know I have a three or four page sermon. That’s part of the dialogue.
What are your thoughts about the shooter, Robert Bowers?
I haven’t really thought about him at all. I didn’t even recall his name until you mentioned it. There are far more important things at this point to help my community heal, to help cope with the pandemic, to work with the Black community who have reached out to me to work together to eliminate racism.
I have confidence in the justice system. And ultimately someone like that has to appear before God and when he does God is going to ask him one question: Why? And he better think long and hard, because the eternity of his soul is based upon the answer. And to me that’s terrifying.
So you wouldn’t want to talk to the shooter if given the chance?
No. There’s nothing he could answer that I don’t already know. And I see we’re tiptoeing around the question of forgiveness. In the Jewish faith people who have been wronged have to be asked to forgive. We have 11 dead people who can’t be asked. They are unable to provide him with forgiveness. Forgiveness is not for me to offer.
It doesn’t seem as if you’ve been very political. For instance, I haven’t seen you lobby for gun control.
I have chosen not to do that. What happened to us is about the hatred of Jews and that transcended politics. I have chosen to focus on the root causes. Guns are one manifestation of this hatred. Beating up someone because of their sexual orientation. Putting a noose in an African American’s locker. Cyberbullying. The root cause is the “h” word.
How do you eradicate something like hate, though? Isn’t it part of human nature, going back to Cain and Abel?
After the Flood, Noah sends a sacrifice to God in gratitude. And God remembers the sweet smell of sacrifice, but he says that man’s tendencies from his birth are for evil. That’s a horrific admission God is making.
But we all have choices. We all have devils and angels on our shoulders. The shooter of Tree of Life chose to pay attention to the bad tendency. We all make choices in our actions and our words. I’m not suggesting that it’s easy. It’s not.
