As a proxy for earthquakes and floods we have missiles, but instead of seeing them through the eyes of the Gemara so as to utilize them as a means of bringing us to Teshuva, all we see, to the extent that we trouble ourselves to look, is missiles and the wickedness of the Arabs that rain them down on our heads.
True enough, but Rabbi Yehuda Litwen makes the point even more explicit, as he gives it to us black on white in the name of R’ Elchonon Wasserman:
If Hashem is speaking to us amidst the missiles falling on Ashdod and sundry venues, He’s no doubt screaming at us out of the carnage in Toulouse, but the screaming, as such, is not substantively a function of decibels. It’s procedural, and it comes to us in the manner of its delivery.
We learn from the Ariza’l that a wife is a mirror of the husband. Whatever deficiency he has he sees in her. Moreover, and this is the point that concerns us, Rabbi Shalom Arush tells us something that distinguishes the horror of Toulouse from the other body counts that have (hopefully) humbled us in the not so distant past. He lets us hear that Hashem also speaks to the husband through the wife.
Eva Sandler, r”l, no longer has a husband to speak to.
While still sitting shiva for her husband, Yonatan and her two sons h”yd, she wrote a letter that was posted on Chabad.org and published in Hamodia, in which, amongst other things, she said the following:
Along with our tearful remembrance of our trials in Egypt so many years ago, we still tell over how “in each and every generation, they have stood against us to destroy us.” We all will announce in a loud and clear voice: “G-d saves us from their hands.”
The spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished; its connection with Torah and its commandments can never be destroyed.
Parents, please kiss your children. Tell them how much you love them, and how dear it is to your heart that they be living examples of our Torah, imbued with the fear of Heaven and with love of their fellow man.
Please increase your study of Torah, whether on your own or with your family and friends. Help others who may find study difficult to achieve alone.
May it be G-d’s will that from this moment on, we will all only know happiness.
Does this sound like a widow so recently bereft of her husband and two sons that our tears haven’t had time to dry yet?
Who’s speaking here, anyway?
Is it not Hashem? And is he not speaking directly to us?
What we are hearing here is not your every day wake up call. Hashem is not hinting to us by way of missiles and the like in lieu of the Neviim, to which He came in visions and dreams.
He’s speaking to us Panim el Panim in a scream couched in the barely audible whisper of a widow. And we don’t have to ponder our reaction because this time He tells us exactly what it should be.
