September 13, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Ki Tavo
Ripples
September 13, 2025 – 20 Elul 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
The two lands we love, America and Israel, both have a problem. The problem is real, recurrent, and deadly. The problem showed up in both lands this week. The problem is violence and lack of regard for the sanctity of human life, lack of regard for the Bible’s most important teaching: that all human beings are created in God’s image and therefore deserve to live and to be treated with respect and dignity.
On Monday morning, at a busy bus stop in Jerusalem, two shooters fired upon ordinary people living an ordinary day, killing six innocent people, the victims of terrorism.
The shots were fired in Jerusalem. But the effects were felt in Newton. The effects were felt in our preschool, right here.
One of the victims was Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag. His daughter Tanya teaches at our preschool. On Monday Tanya flew to Israel to attend her father’s funeral. Like Rabbi Steintzag, every one of the victims was innocent; was loved; did good in the world; did not deserve to be murdered; loved their life and their families; and leaves behind families and communities that will never be the same. Each life taken is an infinite tragedy.
And then, on Wednesday, at Utah Valley University, political activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He leaves behind a wife, two young children, and family and friends who are bereft that a 31-year-old is no more, the victim of political violence. Charlie Kirk’s murder is an infinite tragedy.
Tonight is Selikhot, the beginning of our High Holiday season. How do we understand this violence, and what are we to do about it? Of course we decry it. We denounce it. We mourn it. We lament it. But is there anything we can do about it?
Perhaps the best lens for understanding violence is the classic poem written by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai entitled The Diameter of the Bomb. The poem begins: “The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters.” It then describes how the impact of the bomb, and therefore the diameter of the bomb, expand outward—to the wounded, to the hospitals, to the graveyards, to the mourners on a distant shore, and finally to the orphans whose cries reach out to the throne of God where there is no God. The diameter of the bomb is infinite. Evil ripples, infinitely. Violence ripples, infinitely.
We know this. We see this. The violence of October 7 has led to two years of war in which there has been so much suffering, death and loss. Violence ripples.
Violence also ripples here. The Times Op Ed on the day Charlie Kirk was murdered put his assassination in a broader context:
Since last year alone, a gunman killed a member of the Minnesota State Legislature
and her husband and shot another Minnesota politician and his wife; a man set fire to
the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania; and a would-be assassin shot Donald
Trump on the campaign trail. In 2022, an attacker broke into Representative Nancy
Pelosi’s home and fractured her husband’s skull. In 2021, a violent mob attacked
Congress, smashing windows and brutalizing police officers. In 2017, a gunman shot
four people at a Republican practice for the congressional baseball game, badly
wounding Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
This sad litany shows how violence ripples. One ripple is the coarsening of a culture, the normalization of murder inspired by political conviction. Another ripple is that this disease has infected our whole body politic. The left murders the right. The right murders the left. No side is innocent. No side is spared. Violence begets violence—it’s as old as the Bible and as new as any newspaper.
So, again, on the eve of Selikhot, other than to decry, denounce, mourn, and lament it, what can we do about it?
There is a very somber but true lens for this problem that comes from Shir Hashirim, the Song of Songs, which says that love is as strong as death As strong as. Death is real. There is no avoiding it. But love also is real. And that is not nothing.
All of us live out this verse in our own personal lives all the time. Somebody we love dies. That we cannot change. But, love is as strong as death. We say Kaddish. We observe their yahrtzeit. We say Yizkor. We remember them. We think about them. We talk about them. We try to become their living legacy. Death just is. But love is as strong as death.
What would this verse mean, and what action might it inspire, in the context of violence besieging Israel and America?
It means that while we cannot stop these tragedies from happening, we can unleash a positive energy into the world as a counter. Evil ripples. But love also ripples. Decency also ripples. Goodness also ripples. Moral virtue also ripples.
There is a Jewish tradition called the Lamed Vav Tzadikim, the 36 righteous people whose quiet decency sustains the world. All these 36 people are anonymous. We do not know who they are. They don’t win Nobel Prizes. They are not in the headlines. But day in and day out, their humble goodness sustains the world. Their very anonymity means that it could be, it should be, you and the person sitting next to you. It could be, and it should be, all of us who are part of the lamed vav tzadikim.
The world saw a stunning example of how an ordinary person can do deeds that ripple infinite goodness on July 4, in Texas.
Scott Ruskan was a 26-year old accountant at one of the Big Four accounting firms. It was a stable job, but he wanted more. Ruskan had spent six summers as a lifeguard at the Jersey Shore, which inspired him to want to become a rescue swimmer, one of the most demanding roles in the Coast Guard. His first mission was July 4 at Camp Mystic.
On that first mission, Ruskan saved 165 children and staff trapped at Camp Mystic. And while the world saw him as a hero, he channeled the humble and understated vibe of the lamed vavnik. He said: “I’m just a guy. ”
Scott Ruskan’s story shows how goodness ripples.
The ripples include the 165 people he saved who get to live. The Talmud teaches that if we save one life, we save a universe. Scott Ruskan saved 165 universes. The ripples include all the future generations that they will bring into the world.
The ripples include all the families who were spared from grief. How many families got to mark back to school instead of mourn that there is no more back to school. How many parents will now get to see their children grow up, get married, bring children into the world. Goodness ripples.
The ripples include that Scott Ruskan set an inspiring example of how one person can make a difference. Out of an enormous tragedy, where so many died, he forged a counter narrative where so many got to live.
Now we are not Scott Ruskan. We are not rescue swimmers. But we can all do something. If you get tired of seeing stories like those that unfolded in Jerusalem and Utah this week, if you get tired of lamenting and mourning and denouncing and decrying, if you want to do something to make it better, remember Song of Songs. Love is as strong as death. Remember the lamed vav tradition. The question for every one of us, as we approach these High Holidays, is what ripples of goodness, life, love, and hope, can I now bring into our world? Shabbat shalom.