One of the 20 children murdered in the Newtown elementary school massacre on Friday was Noah Pozner, a six-year-old Jewish boy.
His twin sister was also a pupil in the school, but she escaped with her life.
Rabbi Shaul Praver of Newtown’s Congregation Adath Israel and rabbi of Noah Posner’s parents, told MSNBC that six-year-old Noah "was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and his little body could not endure so many bullets like that."
Noah’s mother Veronique, a nurse, fell apart emotionally after hearing the bitter news.
Rabbi Praver spoke at Edath Israel synagogue at a deeply emotional Sabbath service following the tragedy.
He told worshippers, “Don’t think that life is somewhere over the rainbow. What you’ve got right now, with your family, your friends, your house: This might be as good as life is ever going to be."
"So hug your children, love your children… Life is not happening on the other side of the rainbow. We are on the other side of the rainbow.”
One friend of the Posner family told the Boston Herald that Noah’s mother “saw things she should never, ever have seen… Her son Noah should never have left the Earth.”
Rabbi Praver advised his congregation not to back away from facing reality. “We need to walk back into that school and as soon as the doors open up and go right back to school and continue on with our lives,” he said.
The Boston Herald said that after prayer services, the rabbi told reporters, “I don’t buy the notion that only violence sells. Violence sells because someone chose to sell that product,” meaning violent video games and movies. “We can sell the product of peace.”
The massacre took place Friday morning at the Connecticut Sandy Hook elementary school school, where a lone gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, murdered the 20 children and six adults before killing himself. He had earlier shot and killed his own mother.