Response to Uvalde

I was interviewed by the Jewish News Service - they were getting rabbi's responses to the horrific Uvalde school shooting. 

This is what they included from what I shared:

Offering a listening ear in the aftermath of a school shooting is something that Rabbi Yitzchok Schmukler of League City, Texas, knows a little about. In May 2018, 10 people were killed in a school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas—just a 15-minute drive from his home. As a rabbi and chaplain, Schmukler was on hand the next day to help offer counseling and spiritual support.

“Interestingly enough, some of the people who needed support were the counselors themselves, some of whom came from other parts of the country to help. A school shooting is hard on everyone, including those who are there to give answers,” he said.

The rabbi, who is a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to League City near Houston, believes strongly that the time has come to focus on morals and ethics in all schools, including public schools.

“There is something very deeply wrong when this is happening, not only in society, but to children,” he said, “and if any goodness comes out, it is to take heed and see how to increase the moral and ethical education that our children are receiving; the accountability to a higher power; and a sense of right vs. wrong, no matter how aggrieved one feels.”

He also suggested that adults empower children to find ways to answer the “darkness” with goodness.

“Find ways for children to volunteer,” he said, “to do an act of kindness, visit a senior, get involved in a way to channel their fear and concern.”

See here for original newstory as published in various Jewish newspapers.