Overcoming Tragedy

How do you overcome great tragedy?

Suppose that you have been personally affected by a horrible crime, or an event in history leaves you horribly disillusioned.  What do you do?

We live in a tough world with events that occur beyond our control.

In the past day, eleven people were murdered in a synagogue.

You watch these events and feel helpless.

Again, what do you do?

After the assassination of JFK in ‘63, Leonard Bernstein, the conductor, was confronted with the same question.

Like many others he felt tremendous sorrow, disillusionment and bewilderment.  He asked himself the same question.  What can a person do?

His response is probably the best I’ve read.

He said: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly, than ever before.”