That’s how I found myself chanting and marching, yelling to children that they were not forgotten, that they were loved – while holding the hand of my youngest son, whom I love so much it hurts. Having a child is like letting your heart walk around outside of your body.

Thinking of Lag BaOmer as the end of shloshim also reminds us that we have to move from grief into action. We have to make ourselves and our world ready to receive revelation. There is too much trouble — not the good kind — happening among our brothers and sisters attempting to live their lives at peace. We must find ways to join hands with them.

This week’s Torah reading of Parshat Kedoshim questions us about our human relationships, how we treat our siblings, and how we relate to our neighbors to make this world a better place to live. So here I go back to the beginning. When I read in Kedoshim, “Do not stand before the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16), I feel the moral obligation to shout that it is not nationality that makes a life something sacred and that we have the responsibility to watch over our neighbors.

The experiences of those returning from incarceration recall the Torah’s description of someone with tzara’at, an infectious and highly stigmatized skin disease.