The pain and sorrow — nevermind the virulent hate and runaway evil that spurred a mass shooting Saturday at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh — takes our breath away.

It was indeed, as Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto put it, the “darkest day” we can remember — for the city, for Jewish communities both here and across the nation, and for Western Pennsylvania as a whole.

We can no longer be surprised that such horror should make its way to our doorstep. But we are not numb.

We are outraged. We are torn asunder. We are stricken to our cores.

And — though it may make us, at times, feel helpless and small — we reach out in response to this evil act not with rage or in search of revenge, but with love.

We don't stand in silence. We stand in solidarity; in courage and grim remembrance and searching for the way to step forward and carry on the legacies of those whose lives were taken on Saturday.

They are: Joyce Fienberg, 75, Richard Gottfried, 65, Rose Mallinger, 97, Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, Cecil Rosenthal, 59, David Rosenthal, 54, Bernice Simon, 84, Sylvan Simon, 86, Daniel Stein, 71, Melvin Wax, 88, and Irving Younger, 69.

The pain and sorrow caused by their deaths at the hands of a bigoted and evil man belongs to every single one of us, even those who had never heard their names until today. Our core values as Americans — tolerance, respect, compassion, and solidarity — make this impossible to deny or reject.

That violence has stubbornly continued, year by year, to creep into American life is no excuse for allowing it to become normal.

This has always been our crisis, and these have always been our people.

We owe it to them to find the conviction and strength to show others the truths that the people of this region — in all their diversity and creativity — stand as proof to:

Toughness is no barrier to compassion, divisions are no barrier to community, adversity is no excuse for resentment, and hate is no match for love.