When we started to plan this mission, we had the crazy goal of getting at least 250 people to participate.  Well, this past week, we registered the 253rd person.  All of our volunteer leadership feels terrific and hope that even more will sign up for what will be a tremendous community building experience.  If you want to fulfill the hope of "Next Year in Jerusalem", you can still sign up by clicking here (you can even see who has already registered).
 
Last week, I was actually in Jerusalem.  While there on Federation work, I was asked by the Jewish Federations of North America Israel Office to attend the funeral of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his two sons who were brutally murdered in Toulouse, France.  I attend countless funerals here in Pittsburgh but I have never had to be part of one for people who were murdered for just being Jewish.  Thousands gathered on a hillside cemetery in Jerusalem.  French and Hebrew were being spoken throughout the throngs of mourners.  As the dignitaries spoke and I listened attentively to try to understand the speeches being delivered in Hebrew, I could hear the shrieking of the mother and wife burying her dead.  I could not see her, as I was too far back from her, but I continue to hear her even today. 
 
When I was interviewed on Pittsburgh radio regarding the funeral, I was asked how the Pittsburgh Jewish community was responding.  My answer was that they felt for this family and they were disgusted by this cowardly act of anti-Semitic hatred.  I stated that the Jewish people is like a human body.  When a limb is ripped from that body, the remaining parts ache. 

Being Jewish is not just being part of a religion, it is being part of a “people”.  When we gather for our Seder next Friday night, we will commemorate the first real moment in our collective history, during the Exodus, when we become a people.  On our mission this summer we will be able to celebrate that sense of “peoplehood”.

May the memories of those murdered in Toulouse be forever as a blessing.  L’shana Haba’a B’Yerushalayim.

Shabbat Shalom.