By Rabbi Rick Sherwin
I sat in the sanctuary this morning
Moved by the teens punctuating the service
With personal statements and prayers
And with their call for action
To end insanity
To end the fear of sending a child to school
To end the fear of being a child in school.
Then action:
Boarding busses, gathering as one
Voicing the call for sanity and safety.
Baby boomers who marched
To render America color blind
To protest the insanity of sending teens to war
in a distant corner of the world
Understand Generation Z
With pride, respect
With our active promise of support.
Yesterday's universal march was vital, critical
Because it affects all of us, each of us
Here at home, in schools,
in churches, in synagogues
In nightclubs, at concerts, everywhere.
It is not a teen issue
It is an American concern
It is a human priority.
I sat in the Sanctuary this morning
Proud of my Heritage calling for reason
Proud of our teens and their families
Who will not accept the status quo
Who listen to the Voice within them,
The call for conscience, the call for morality
The call for responsibility
The call for sanity,
The call for safety
The call for unity
The call for life itself.
The tenth plague was not the slaying of the first born,
It was the alienation of the next generation!
Moses said, “Let my People go”
Pharaoh said no
And the next generation marched with Moses
Causing Egypt to collapse.
Today’s teens, parents, teachers, everyone
Demand, “Release our bondage to violence!”
And if the Pharaohs of today say no
Our own firstborn will find a way
In word and deed
To change America by voting their conscience
To encourage us to vote our conscience
To replace chaos with order, death with life,
To save the American soul
And to save lives.
May the day come when the Oneness of God
Will be reflected in the Oneness of Humanity.
Amen.
Rabbi Rick Sherwin, a graduate of UCLA, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Rabbi Rick’s passion is filling spiritual services and interfaith educational programs with creativity, relevance, dialogue, and humor.
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