Ahavah Rabbah: Unending Love for Pittsburgh

group of people outside at candlelit vigil - two people shown leaning down lighting candles

Clinging to this mantra this week: “We are beautiful. We are beloved. We are worthy of life.” Ahavah Rabbah Ahavtanu אהבה רבה אהבתנו. Chanting for our children, our ancestors, our living and our dead. Singing for all those who have ever been told by the cruel voices of anti-Semitism, racism, white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ageism or ableism that we are not worthy of love and life, that we are not beautiful. The truth is that we are loved by an unending love and we are filled with beauty beyond measure. May the souls of Vickie Jones, Maurice Stallard, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Irving Younger, Melvin Wax, Daniel Stein and Rose Mallinger be embraced in love and life. May their loved ones be comforted. May we bring blessing to their memories.


My people –

We are beautiful.

We are beloved.

We are worthy of life.

May the souls of our eleven

brothers and sisters from Pittsburgh

be held in life and love

in this world and the next.

May those who are injured be healed.

May we love ourselves

and one another fiercely –

as we mourn,

as we remember,

as we choose life.

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