Rabbi Avi Weiss, president of Amcha-CJC, speaking today at the Isaiah Peace Wall opposite the United Nations, at the annual Tisha B’Av prayer service for Jewish communities in danger worldwide:
Just a little over a week ago, I was in Buenos Aires for a massive rally for the souls of the AMIA Jewish communal building victims who were killed ten years ago in the greatest attack on a Diaspora Jewish community since the Holocaust.
In the front, two young people stood calling out the names of the fallen, the audience responding after each, “presente” — “present.” A name such as Cyntia Veronica Goldenberg, physically no longer here, but “presente.” Yanina Averbuch — “presente.”
Sebastian Barreiro, the youngest victim, a 5 year-old non-Jewish boy walking outside the building with his mother, murdered on the spot – “presente.”
God should grant us years to walk in and sanctify this world. But for those who left this world victims of terrorism — there and in Israel — we have to respond resoundingly, “presente:” You are here in our hearts, souls and minds. You are present.
Dr. David Applebaum, murdered in the Café Hillel suicide bombing in Jerusalem — “presente.” His daughter Nava, also murdered — “presente.” The souls of all those who still inspire us — “presente.”
Tisha B’Av is not only a day of mourning. When we break the glass under the chupah, the wedding canopy, we remember not just the devastated Holy Temples, but we resolve we will fix the shattered temples, we will repair the brokenness of the world, of lives, of our people.
The challenge of Tisha B’Av is not only remembering the buildings destroyed, but more important, to rebuild and take steps forward in the redemption of the world. . . . We say to God: enough of the dying, the horrors, the injuries. Let us be a people of am yisrael chai in joy and song.
Amen.