Martin Luther King Jr once said “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” To go back a few more years, Moses said in this week’s Parshah, Shoftim, “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” as he continues his review of our journey as...

The title of this week’s Parshah is Eikev which translates to mean because, and the Parshah starts with “Because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.” Moses is reminding us that our ancestors made a deal with God. The deal was, and still is, that we will take actions to promote righteousness on this earth and he will be with us. Those actions require more than just to keep our physical bodies fed, sheltered and clothed. Those actions require us to be kind, help strangers, study, give, and be mindful of our connection and covenant with God.

We are a people of words. We focus on Torah which is a book of divinely inspired words. We relate stories and accounts of our ancestors and pass those stories down from generation to generation in words.

It feels like every day we turn on the news and have to ask ourselves why. Why is there so much violence, hatred, division, intolerance and tragedy in this country and around the world? We barely had time to recover from Orlando, and then there was Louisiana and Minnesota and Dallas and now Nice.

In the words of American poet Julia Fletcher Carney, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land. So the little minutes, humble though they be, make the mighty ages, of eternity.” Our challenge is to honor those we have lost by treasuring each minute with love and with joy.