The Jewish community mourns the senseless loss of life this week, the joyous cadence interrupted. We are heartbroken that guns have shattered the peace and happiness in Orlando and all around the country. We stand with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, next door neighbors, and we reject the fear and rage that stigmatizes them the same way we would oppose religious bigotry and racism.

As a nation, when we ignore the appetites of human beings on the fringes of society, we do so at our own peril: they live a life divided, one that devolves to domestic violence, homophobia and predatory crime. It saddens us that so many of those tragically slain on the dance floor were the innocent children of immigrants, mostly Latinos, who came to America in the hopes of making better lives for themselves the way our own grandparents once did. In the hour of grief, we oppose the kind of rhetoric that scapegoats our Muslim friends with whom we stand in solidarity.

We would all do well to scrutinize our doctrinal tropes that justify shaming others on the basis of whom they love. And we should enact common-sense gun laws that would go a long way to keep those who are a danger to others from wreaking devastation.  We know from our own historical experience as Jews that the only way to resist hatred is to encounter the human faces that only yesterday we scorned.

As the Proverb says, “May kindness and truth not abandon you. Bind them on your throat and inscribe them on the tablet of your heart.” (Proverbs 3:3) In this hour of sadness, may the loving, jubilant stories of those who lost their lives too soon inspire us so that we learn to live in peace.

- Rabbi Joey