January 28, 2026
As we awaited the arrival of a historic snowstorm on Saturday evening, news was spreading of the death of Alex Pretti, who was killed filming federal immigration officials. In the moments before he was killed, Pretti ran to protect a woman who was also protesting. Alex Pretti was a nurse who cared for veterans at the VA hospital.
While watching the video of the shooting with horror, I could not help but think of the moment in the Torah when we read about Cain killing Abel. In Genesis 4:10, we read that God speaks to Cain and says, “What have you done? Hark, your brothers blood cries out to Me from the ground!”
“What have you done?” Torah commentator Malbim explains that this question indicates that God informed Cain that he had free will and that his deeds were attributable to him. It feels as if the Torah is asking this question of all of us now.
What have we done… that we have come to these moments in which Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed because they tried to protect fellow human beings.
What have we done…that such profound darkness has settled over us so that we can no longer behold the dignity of other human beings.
What have we done…that people are no longer questioning the morality of their orders.
What have we done?
All I could think about in these last few days is that Alex Pretti’s blood is calling out to us. The word for blood in the Torah appears in the plural. The rabbis note that this is not typical and wonder about its meaning. Nearly every commentator explains that the words appearing in the plural indicates that all the generations that came after Abel were also crying out. Another commentary indicates that there were so many blows given to Abel, that it was unclear when his soul departed. In this moment, not only do we have Alex Pretti’s lost descendants crying out, but we have countless people across our country and our world crying out that things are completely askew here. The videos of Alex’s death show at least ten shots fired; do we know when his soul departed?
Thousands march in the frigid temperatures in Minneapolis because they are concerned for their neighbors. These raids are not just about people in the U.S. who are undocumented. U.S. citizens are being held as well. We cannot continue down the road we are on.
Tonight, we have planned an interfaith gathering as part of Faith250, a series of interfaith discussion opportunities designed to explore important texts in our nation’s history. Our first session will focus on Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” which will lead us to conversations about immigrants and the treatment of immigrants in our country. If you have not already planned to join us, I hope you will consider doing so.
We continue to grieve as a nation over the loss of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. May their memories always be for a blessing.
L’shalom,
Rabbi Rick Kellner