Do Better

Dear Brandeis community,

I had thought to write this week about the recent publication of A Portrait of Bay Area Jewish Life and Communities, a study of Bay Area Judaism. I had thought to tie that portrait to a hilarious moment I had the good fortune to witness in a 7th grade language arts class, where students guessed that the origin of the line “A plague on both your houses” (from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which they are reading) was either Harry Potter or the Torah. I had thought to write about the idea of a community writing and rewriting itself, and how our Brandeis students are shaping that community and its future in real time.

But to be honest, I am drained this morning by the news out of Florida. I am drained by having written my third or fourth or fifth email about mass shootings in just three years at Brandeis. I am drained by having lost count already.

The email I sent this morning to the community about the Florida shooting began with the story of my counterpart at Campbell Hall, Reverend Julian Bull, exhorting his colleagues that they need to do better, in the wake of the tragic death of an alumnus by opioid overdose. On my way back from that accreditation visit, I sent him a note appreciating his leadership and the message he gave all of us, including the following poem that I wrote on the plane ride home. It seems as relevant today as it did last week.

We need to do better. Philosophers and poets

shake fists filled with loss toward corners,

shake sheaves and branches west and north,

east and south, shake crumbs out of bags

before packing lunches, shake hands with our

own emptiness, shake shells to invite the sea,

shake beads and in shaking count them, shake

in fevered beds dreaming of the dead arrayed

across the dark like stars, shake the water

from lips and limbs climbing from slaking

showers, shake the lulav and invite our ancestors,

shake personal constitutions and rage, shaking,