When a mass shooter killed 11 people and wounded six at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh Oct. 27, 2018, Eric Manning got on a plane in Charleston, S.C., and flew immediately to the scene. He knew Hazzan Jeffrey Myers would need him.
They never had met but soon would become fast friends. One is a Black Protestant pastor, the other a Jewish rabbi and cantor.
Eric Manning
Manning serves as pastor at Mother Emmanuel AME Church where his predecessor, Clementa C. Pinckney, was among nine people killed June 17, 2015, by another mass shooter. Manning was assigned to the historic church the year after the massacre and has led the congregation in its journey of healing.
The clergy from different traditions sat next to each other Oct. 22 at a symposium sponsored by Religion News Service at Trinity Commons, the conference center of Trinity Wall Street, one of the oldest Episcopal churches in the nation. Their conversation was guided by Jacqui Lewis, senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York.
Unlike Manning, Rabbi Myers was present at the synagogue tragedy and, by his own description, should have been the 12th victim.
“I love this guy,” Myers said of Manning. “He’s my pastor. So when I have problems, I don’t call another rabbi. I call my pastor.”
In response, Manning quoted Martin Luther King Jr. who said, “We may have all arrived in different boats, but we are all in the same boat now.”
Hazzan Jeffrey Myers
When Myers was called to testify at the trial for the synagogue shooter, Manning was there with him and his wife. Myers was the first witness called in the trial, and he testified for three hours.
What the rabbi had to recall that day was a memory he wishes he could forget: The 56-minute 911 call he made to law enforcement. That memory plays like a videotape in his head, he said.
“I was there that day. I saw it happen. And I’m a survivor. I should probably be dead. … I can’t stop it. I can’t make it go away.”
His memory begins before the call, with the realization that something was not right. “It starts first with that moment when I recognize that it is not just some peculiar sound, but it’s gunfire, which sounds nothing like TV drama. Once you hear an AR-15 live, that sound never goes away in your head.
“And the fact that I was the last person to see these people alive and that there was nothing I could do to save them because they were in the rear of the sanctuary,” he said.
Myers did not rehearse his testimony with his wife before the trial, he said, because she could bear to hear it only once.
“She had no idea what she was in for. So this man called me and said, ‘When do you testify? And I told him it’s the first day. ‘I’m flying in,’ he said. He sat and held my wife, we relied on each other, he held my wife during the testimony. I couldn’t look at her. It was hard enough to give the testimony when you’re telling a jury that you’ve done the final confessional and that you expect to die that day. So I didn’t look at my wife; he held her. So I’ll be eternally grateful to this beautiful human being.”
And Myers has returned the favor in other ways. This summer, Mother Emmanuel marked the 10th anniversary of the most horrific day in the church’s history. The guest speaker was Rabbi Myers.
“I wanted Mother Emmanuel to remember and the community to remember that what happened on June 17, 2015 — while horrific for our congregation, our community — we are always looking for ways to continue to hope and to build bridges,” said Manning. … “When people see the rabbi and I together, they feel a sense of hope.
“When faith leaders model what we want to become the norm, we’re giving them permission to be able to do the same thing,”
“Tragedy brought us together, but love keeps us together. And I think when we understand that, then hopefully in those key moments people will have enough sense to just be silent for a moment and see if they are able to do it and ask the question, ‘Why can’t we?’”
People of faith, the pastor said, must be “intentional about our healing, intentional about making our communities better and resilient and understand that it’s not our differences that makes or creates these superficial spaces. If we can learn how to embrace our differences and meet on the collective basis of our humanity, then perhaps we can begin to tear down these superficial walls.”
This is the heart of the Christian gospel, Lewis interjected. “Our text says that Rabbi Jesus is our peace. He breaks down the walls that divide humanity. I’m wondering about in this current context with all that’s happening in Israel, and we’re not supposed to talk about those kinds of things in some places, but here we are, religious and news people and does your friend, does your relationship shape your politics? If I wonder, does your relationship, does the individual nature of knowing each other affect the lens through which you look at the politics and the geopolitical politics?”
“No,” Manning replied succinctly.
“Nope. Just no. Nope,” Myers concurred. He later added he often faces this question. “A number of people look at it and say, ‘Well, how are you and rabbi handling this?’ The same way we handled everything before. We are just friends. We love each other. … That’s not going to change our relationship. When we begin to understand that, then we can be part of the collective body that builds bridges.”
Both men said they hope to model brotherly love. “When faith leaders model what we want to become the norm, we’re giving them permission to be able to do the same thing,” Myers said.
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