{"id":49,"date":"2018-02-17T13:46:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T13:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/?p=49"},"modified":"2018-02-17T13:46:59","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T13:46:59","slug":"sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html","title":{"rendered":"A Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness."},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Houston.<\/span><\/p>\n

I just landed with 20 teenagers from New York for three days of Rebuild Houston. I\u2019m so proud of the young women and men that here to make a positive difference in this local community, still facing significant issues 6 months into the hurricane recovery effort.<\/p>\n

\"FullSizeRender<\/p>\n

Over the next 72 hours, we\u2019re going to rebuild houses, work at the Houston Food Bank, sort clothing for homeless families living in shelters, and connect with the local faith scene. Tonight we\u2019ll be celebrating Shabbat at a\u00a0Brit Shalom synagogue and after a long day of work tomorrow, we\u2019ll end the day at Lakewood Church with a visit to Joel Osteen.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be posting pictures over the weekend on our Facebook and Instagram pages. If you\u2019re not already following us online, connect now so we can share in the experience together. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now a word about the sadness, frustration, and broken hearts we have for the children and families in Parkland, FL. There are so many important voices calling for gun control and the enhanced restrictions on gun sales. We should join the chorus. <\/span><\/p>\n

The wise sages in the Talmud said, \u201cin a place where nobody is acting human, strive even harder to be a human being.\u201d It\u2019s not true that “nobody is acting human,” despite how it may feel when a tragedy like this occurs. My read is that more and more people are learning to be human and to lead with love and kindness and action – one example being the teenagers powerful call for action. Read this story for some inspiration – <\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s join these teen-agers in Parkland, and by example the teens that are here with me in Houston, who are all making a positive difference. They could have chosen to retreat in fear and to silently get on with their lives in the classic self-focused teen-ager way, but they are not. Parkland is rallying. And we\u2019ve got 20 teen-agers who chose to spend their President\u2019s Day Vacation helping others in need. That\u2019s inspiring to me. It gives me real hope that we\u2019re growing as human beings who care about humanity. It\u2019s a hint of a silver lining of light that can come from this dark tragedy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Action is more than words and tikkun olam, the Jewish mandate to repair the world, is real. You may not have woken up this morning thinking that today was going to be your day to do something positive to make our world a better place, but it could be! Make a plan for yourself and those close to you to be kinder, more caring, and more loving to humanity. It\u2019s not going to bring those innocent school children back to life, but it will be one more action to help our world get to positive. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for doing your part.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Darren Levine<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Houston. I just landed with 20 teenagers from New York for three days of Rebuild Houston. I\u2019m so proud of the young women and men that here to make a positive difference in this local community, still facing significant issues 6 months into the hurricane recovery effort. Over the next 72 hours, we\u2019re…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":618,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jewish-parkland-rabbi-darren-houston-positive-judaism-tikkun"],"yoast_head":"\nA Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness. - Positive Judaism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness. - Positive Judaism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Greetings from Houston. I just landed with 20 teenagers from New York for three days of Rebuild Houston. I\u2019m so proud of the young women and men that here to make a positive difference in this local community, still facing significant issues 6 months into the hurricane recovery effort. Over the next 72 hours, we\u2019re…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Positive Judaism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-17T13:46:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/files\/2018\/02\/FullSizeRender-1-300x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darren Levine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness. - Positive Judaism","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness. - Positive Judaism","og_description":"Greetings from Houston. I just landed with 20 teenagers from New York for three days of Rebuild Houston. I\u2019m so proud of the young women and men that here to make a positive difference in this local community, still facing significant issues 6 months into the hurricane recovery effort. Over the next 72 hours, we\u2019re…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html","og_site_name":"Positive Judaism","article_published_time":"2018-02-17T13:46:59+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/files\/2018\/02\/FullSizeRender-1-300x150.jpg"}],"author":"Darren Levine","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html","name":"A Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness. - Positive Judaism","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/files\/2018\/02\/FullSizeRender-1-300x150.jpg","datePublished":"2018-02-17T13:46:59+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-17T13:46:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/#\/schema\/person\/9a7d2e7a6f21c85554e5a10b7c27031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/files\/2018\/02\/FullSizeRender-1-300x150.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/files\/2018\/02\/FullSizeRender-1-300x150.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/2018\/02\/sliver-light-amongst-parkland-school-shooting-darkness.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Sliver of Light amongst the Parkland School Shooting Darkness."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/","name":"Positive Judaism","description":"A Rabbi\u2019s guide to well-being and happiness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/#\/schema\/person\/9a7d2e7a6f21c85554e5a10b7c27031a","name":"Darren Levine","description":"Darren Levine is the Founder of Tamid: The Downtown Synagogue in New York City and the Creator of Positive Judaism. He is a parent, a rabbi, a doctor of ministry, and a writer and believes that happiness is a person's divine birthright. He teaches that a positive mindset combined with certain spiritual practices increases happiness and wellbeing in the lives of individuals and communities of all faiths. To learn more about Positive Judaism, join the e-mail list at Positive-Judaism.org and get a free chapter of his upcoming book, \"Positive Judaism: A Rabbi's Guide to Happiness and Wellbeing.\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/author\/dlevine"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/positivejudaism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}