As the nation’s attention was riveted on reports of the shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school, Rabbi Hershy Bronstein read a report from the local sheriff’s office that a suspect had been arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant just across the street from the Chai Chabad Center in Coral Springs, Fla.

Bronstein said his heart “skipped a beat” because of how close the shooter had been to the educational facility he directs. He also thought it was likely that he had evidence that could help police.

It turned out that he did. He reviewed camera footage from the Chai Center Chabad and saw Nikolas Cruz, 19, walking down the street into the fast-food restaurant after allegedly killing 17 people at the public high school.

“I recognized that this has a lot of value to the investigation for [law enforcement] and I knew that I had a moral responsibility to help,” said Bronstein, who has worked in the Jewish community in south Florida since 2005.

The FBI and news organizations later stopped at the center and asked to see the footage. Cruz has since been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

The rabbi has been helping in other ways. His Chabad center is only a mile away from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and all the students who attended Hebrew school or had their bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah ceremonies at the Chabad center attended the high school, Bronstein said. The rabbi has arranged for a minyan for those sitting shiva for Alex Shacter, 14, who was killed in the attack.

The shooting has affected every family in the area, the rabbi said.

After learning of the shooting, Bronstein walked to a nearby Marriott hotel where students were reunited with family members.

“I was just hugging everybody and meeting all of the students as they were bussed in,” said the rabbi, who opened the Chai center in 2015.

Bronstein and other local Chabad rabbis launched a community-wide ceremony Thursday night at a local park amphitheater that drew more than 11,000 participants. Before taking the stage to offer words of comfort and recite prayers, Bronstein spoke with U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, who is Jewish, and asked him to wrap tefillin, a mitzvah that is a sign of connection to G‑d and protection from harm.

“I said Ted, ‘Let’s bring light into the world,’ and he was gracious enough to put on tefillin two minutes before he went on TV,” Bronstein said.

The rabbi has also talked with community members who were shaken by the shooting. He said he met with one Israeli mother who had moved her family to Florida because she wanted to get away from terrorist attacks in Israel. She had been attracted to that part of Florida because of its reputation as a safe place. Another student who had a bat mitzvah with Chabad had run from the school to the center because she knew her mother would soon pick up her younger brother from the center’s preschool.

“She came to a safe haven, which is our Chabad house, which she is so comfortable with because she knew her brother was here— but unbeknownst to her, the shooter was walking in the same direction,” Bronstein said.

In the wake of such “evil,” the rabbi said, the Torah acts as a guide.

“At times like this, there are really no words and we don’t have the capacity to explain G‑d’s intentions or reasons,” he said. “The only thing we can do is just be here for each other and hug each other and support each other and just try to keep each other strong, to help each other overcome this tremendously dark time for our community.”

(Source: Chabad.org)