Jewish Resilience: Rabbinic Reflections After Colleyville

Jewish Resilience: Rabbinic Reflections After Colleyville

On Saturday, January 15, 2022, a gunman held 4 members of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas hostage. Thanks to emergency training and brave action taken by their rabbi, they escaped with their lives. In the days following the attack, the wisdom and words of America's rabbis offered not answers but presence, not resolution but resilience. Yes, the Talmudic sages were correct: more recent troubles cause the earlier troubles to be forgotten. The horrific attack on Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas made other woes somehow feel smaller. Not forgotten, but smaller. The entire Jewish world united in prayer in multi-thousand zoom-vigils that very long Saturday night.

"Jewish Resistance" is both a multivocal commentary on Parashat Yitro (the Torah portion that followed the attack) and also an exquisite collection of modern sages making meaning of the imponderable.