I went to the Nova Music Festival Exhibition (at the former FW Webb Building, 307 Dorchester Ave. through Oct. 21). I recommend you see it -- especially if you are not Jewish. Currently, only about 20% of attendees are non-Jewish. That needs to change. The Nova Music Festival Exhibition is not just about memory -- it is a mirror. It asks: will we only mourn, or will we learn? Will we allow compassion to narrow into tribalism, or will we enlarge our capacity to care, across boundaries of nation, religion, and politics?

The exhibition succeeds in not being political, focusing instead on commemorating family and friends who were lost, and providing aid and support to those affected by the Oct. 7 massacre at the Music Festival.

I appreciated that choice, because I came with mixed emotions and plenty of "political" questions: If Israel is going to wipe out every Hamas terrorist in Gaza, consequences be damned, why not drop an atomic bomb like the US did in Hiroshima and be done with it? How did Israel not notice 3,000 terrorists preparing to attack? Why did it take so long for the IDF to reach the front line? That seems like a massive intelligence failure. I heard claims that troops were guarding settlers, or that Palestinians with work permits provided intelligence to Hamas. I feel like the reporter Jonah Goldberg, who said, "I don't trust anyone," when it comes to what we hear from the region, making it hard to know what or who to believe.

The Nova Foundation itself is doing important work, supporting the 3,500 survivors and 411 families who suffered unimaginable losses that day. That is made increasingly difficult in the age of "America First" and the cutting of the budget for USAID.

As I walked through the exhibit, I found myself asking: do we still have the capacity to care, or are we suffering from compassion burnout? Why focus on Nova? After all, there are women and girls crushed under Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Uyghurs persecuted in China. Civilians dying in Myanmar, Sudan, and Yemen. Or why would we care about what happened two years ago when the suffering in Gaza is happening now? I couldn't help but wonder what a Gaza exhibit might look like.

What I do know is this: when the attack happened on Oct. 7, I was stunned by how many world leaders, political, religious and others said nothing. Some explained, "We want to see what Israel does before responding." But that logic makes no sense to me. You condemn Hamas on Day One. And if Israel retaliates unjustly, you condemn them on Day Two. On Oct. 7, what I could hear all day in my head was the Mourner's Kaddish. Not for any one victim, but for peace itself. I felt Hamas killed any chance for peace.

I saw the hostages as pawns, and how cruel it was to rip down posters asking for the return of loved ones.

I struggled to muster a response to the exhibit. I was trying to draw upon the best of our faith leaders. What would Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or the Dalai Lama say about the massacre at the Nova Music Festival? Gandhi once said, "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." Mother Teresa taught, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." Other faith traditions echo this moral urgency. The Qur'an declares: "Whoever kills a soul...it is as if he had slain all of humankind; and whoever saves a life, it is as if he saved all of humankind" (Qur'an 5:32).

I couldn't believe how dark the souls were of the terrorists as demonstrated by their brutality that day. Who has such hatred for innocent strangers? John Calvin spoke of total depravity. The prophet Jeremiah 17:9, says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" The Dalai Lama has reminded us: "Hatred will not cease by hatred, but only by love." And Martin Luther King said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

This brought me to Yom Kippur. We had to offer intercessory prayers for the dark souls in the world, no matter how reprehensible, because if we don't, they are free to commit another mass killing. We must confess our sins and the sins of others, collectively confess what we did and what we failed to do. Now more than ever we need to be light in a world that is becoming increasingly polarized and violent.

We may have compassion fatigue caring for those in Israel, Gaza, China, Afghanistan, but fortunately we have a God who has an endless supply of love and strength that we can draw from. We can lament the destruction like the prophets of old, and be thankful for a God who assures us that, "We will Dance Again."