I Held a Gun
© Rabbi Menachem Creditor
I held a gun, and it wasn't just any gun, and I don't want to hold any gun, and it was this gun that killed Yitzhak Rabin z"l, and I held it in my trembling hands, and I couldn't hold it and I couldn't put it down and I couldn't see it and I couldn't close my eyes.
I was suddenly back at Bar Ilan in class with Yigal Amir and I was back davening mincha in Washington DC being told that the Prime Minister had been shot and I was back on the streets of Oakland on the bloodied pavement where boys get shot and I was back being held in my mother's arms and I was back in the White House screaming to power from the psychic pain and then I was back in that room, holding that gun, that awful, wretched thing that tore a hole in the world that we haven't yet been able to fill, that even God can't fill.
That damned gun that destroyed the world was in my helpless, trembling hands. I couldn't remember how to move my hands to put it down.
I was, and am, and now always will be holding it's cold dead history, its pain.
That damned gun is now in my hands.
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