My Chicago Synagogue Was Firebombed—But We’re Not Leaving

“There are four primary causes of injury: the ox and the pit and the crop-destroying beast and fire.” Those are the opening words of Bava Kamma, the tractate of the Mishnah—the first authoritative compendium of rabbinic Jewish law—that deals with the laws of damages. In the early hours of Sunday, a man threw three Molotov cocktails at the synagogue in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago’s North Side where I serve as director of religious engagement, a member of the clergy.