A terrible tragedy and a drasha about it

I'm sure all of you have heard by now of the shooting last Saturday night (nearly a week ago now) at the gay youth center in Tel Aviv. Two young people were killed, and a number of others were injured, some seriously. The masked gunman escaped and has not been caught yet, as far as I know at this writing. So, we don't know anything yet about his precise motives, but there can still be little doubt that this was a hate crime.

Last night at synagogue, our Rabbi Yisrael's sermon was on this very topic. He condemned this terrible act in very strong terms, saying that the Western Wall (the holiest place in Judaism) was truly weeping blood. He called this שינת חינם (sinat khinam), baseless hatred. As he reminded us, this was the reason that the temple was destroyed, according to the talmudic rabbis. He said that Judaism is an open religion and that G-d has given all of us the right to live our lives as we see fit. At first this bothered me a little, until I realized that he was saying that even if the gay life is a choice (which I KNOW that it is NOT), we must honor everyone anyway. In a way, this is even stronger: we do not even have to make the argument that this is the way we are born (although there's plenty of evidence that it is); everyone is to be respected and honored. He also reminded us that all of us have a spark of the divine according to Jewish tradition.

Usually at our synagogue, sermons are given only in Hebrew, and printed English and Spanish translations are handed out just before. This week, though, there was a problem with the rabbi's computer, so he delivered his drasha in small segments (a sentence or 2), first in Hebrew. Then Sue, an American member who also knows Hebrew well, translated to English. Finally, the rabbi gave his own translation into Spanish (which, I think, is his native language, perhaps along with Yiddish). In this way, he made sure that everyone in the congregation would understand exactly what he was saying.