Heroic Pittsburgh rabbi racked with guilt: ‘I’m the pastor and I couldn’t save my flock’

He led people to safety. He was the first to reach 911. He stayed on the line until help arrived, guiding SWAT teams. But he can’t forgive himself for those who died.

He escaped the bullets. He walked away from the synagogue with his life — something that seemed so impossible to him in the moment, something that 11 others around him could not do. 

Yet Rabbi Jeffrey Myers fears that was the easy part — escaping. The hard part is learning to breathe again. 

“I’m the pastor and I couldn’t save my flock.”

As the days go by, separating reality from his nightmares has become more difficult. There’s no clear difference between the two anymore.

“Not when something like this happens.”

He closes his eyes at night hoping to fall asleep, but sleep is now a foreign concept. In the last five days, he said, he’s lucky if he’s had even five hours of it.

“My head may be on my pillow, and my eyes may be closed,” Myers said Wednesday night, his voice heavy and tired. “But all I see is the blood stained on the floor, and all I hear is that semi-automatic weapon — that’s never going to leave my brain. I just keep hearing it over and over again.”

Rather than sleeping at night, Myers replays Saturday’s shooting in his mind, dissecting each minute as if searching for something he had missed before — some answer, maybe a sign. 

And as he lies there tossing and turning, he comes up short every time. He has no answers — “there’s no making sense of this.” So he gives up and instead plans the eulogies for those who lost their lives.

‘I ran for my life’

The rabbi stood before his congregation, and as he’s done every Saturday for the year or so that he’s been at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, he began his service promptly at 9:45 a.m. He looked out on the crowd and he recognized the usual characters. The people who were there that early on a Saturday were the devoted congregation members who came to the synagogue this time every week. 

In the middle of addressing his congregation, he heard what he thought was the metal coat rack falling over in the adjacent room. He pictured 200 steel hangers hitting the floor. He imagined it would be a mess, but he wasn’t about to disrupt the Shabbat to check on the sound…”surely it could wait.” 

But the sound continued — getting louder and closer — and Myers knew what it was.

“I never heard live semi-automatic weapons before,” Myers said. “I can’t even describe the sound now, but I just knew what it was. I somehow innately knew.”

His instincts overpowered his fear and he told everyone to drop to the ground. He warned them to stay still and silent.

“I grabbed the people in the front of the congregation and quickly herded them through the back of the sanctuary,” Myers said.

He ushered those three people out safely, but as he turned back and saw the other eight scared on the ground — obeying his instruction — the gunfire got louder. 

The sanctuary is maybe 150 feet long, and time was running out. 

“I realized I couldn’t do anything for them. So I ran.”

“I ran for my life.”

His congregation was being attacked and Myers hid behind a heavy velvet curtain in the choir loft. Stricken with fear, he sat there numb. If he moved the curtain he would surely be killed. So instead, he listened to his congregation be slaughtered. He heard their screams, and he shared their terror.

As the sound of the gunfire traveled further away, getting softer in fact, Myers rushed to the bathroom in the choir loft. Inside, he closed the door, gripped the handle with one hand and leaned back on his heels, pulling it shut with all his might, fearing the killer would barge through.

With his other hand he dialed 911 on his cell phone. It was 9:52 a.m. and this was the first call to be answered by dispatchers. 

As he talked, Myers noticed messages from his wife begin to flood his inbox. He considered disconnecting the call and sending her a video — he thought maybe he should say goodbye.

But instead he remained on the line, trying to keep count of the number of shots he heard, and letting dispatchers know when sounds got closer or further away. He desperately waited for someone to come save him.

It seemed like an eternity, Myers said, but eventually SWAT members found him holed up in the bathroom. Since the shooter was not yet captured, they encircled him as they led him out of the synagogue in something of a procession.

They remained huddled in this force field as they walked away from the synagogue. 

“And once they gave me the word, I ran like the dickens across the street with my prayer shawl and yarmulke in hand.”

He stopped at a police car and  tried to dial his wife’s number, but his hands refused to cease shaking. 

Somehow, and he’s not exactly sure how, he managed to send her a message reading, “I’m safe.”

In that same moment — the moment he realized he was safe — Myers couldn’t help but think of the people he left behind.

When police captured the shooter, Myers’ fears were confirmed. All eight of those people — the ones who remained in the synagogue when he ran free — were shot, seven of them fatally.

“I carry that guilt with me and will for the rest of my life,” Myers said, his voice almost defeated. “I still can’t help but feel like I could have done more.”

Seeking purpose in tragedy                     

Myers isn’t sure why he made it out alive. But he has to believe it was fate — it had to be part of some plan.

So for now, that plan is to continue serving his congregation — offering a shoulder to those who come to lean on him, and to those who don’t even ask.

“I thought about myself then — in that moment — I don’t have the right to think about myself now.”

Each day there’s been another funeral for him to attend. Another family to sit with, another hand to hold. And when he’s not attending a service, he’s sitting with the families, sharing their grief. 

“I need to be with my congregation right now.”

The walls of Tree of Life are riddled with bullets, its floors stained with blood. As it remains the center of a federal investigation, Myers has been one of the few allowed to step inside.  

“It’s no longer a sacred place. It’s no longer a sanctuary,” Myers said. “But we are not going to let this end us. We are going to rebuild and come back to our home stronger than ever.”

This story comes to us through a partnership between WITF and The York Daily Record.