In EmunahSpeak:
Now We Know we said that As is well known, the Gemara teaches that
every disaster that comes upon the world comes only because of Klal
Yisroel. It’s always about us. It always was and it always will be.
Rav Miller,
z”l used to say that if you see a small news item on the bottom of page 89 in
the New York Times reporting a cyclone in Bangladesh that killed 200,000
people, the whole purpose for this devastation was that a Jew named Miller in
Flatbush should hear about it and do Teshuva. And if he doesn’t do
Teshuva, then it’s a waste of a lot of goyim for nothing.
But the truth is
that when we learn from Chazal that even a ship carrying goods from one country
to another does so only for the needs of Klal Yisroel even if there are no Jews
living in either of those countries, they are telling us the paramount
centricity of Klal Yisroel in this world is such that it transcends disasters
to touch every aspect of life.
From these well
established core teachings of Chazal as to Klal Yisroel’s importance and
responsibility vis á vis the rest of the world, we can extrapolate the
importance and responsibility of those Jews who are loyal to the Torah to the
vast majority of our brothers and sisters who presently are not.
And while we’re
at it, how did this vast majority of Jews, who are presently having difficulty
distinguishing Shabbos from Tuesday, get this way? Rabbi Yigal Haimoff cautions us not to let
assimilation, Communism, Socialism, Zionism, Czarist despotism or Eastern
European poverty et al. divert our attention from the real source of this
disaster. He tells us in the name of his
rebbe that the reason that there are so many Jews who think that Shabbos is the
best day to wash the car or play golf is because the Jews who do observe
Shabbos don’t keep it the way they should.
The vicissitudes
of life invariably bring upon us circumstances that we perceive as giving us
cause to cry. But for the real reasons
that we have to cry we are not, says Rabbi Haimoff, because if we see a Jew
driving on Shabbos we don’t cry.
So Hashem gives
us other outlets for our tears.
But Shabbos is
but one responsibility gone awry. Given
the fact that all about us in the context of Klal Yisroel’s constituent
parts means that everything Torah Jewry does impacts for better or worse
on those Jews who are less affiliated, we should not have difficulty making a
connection between our failings in the realm of proper tznius and the disregard
that all too many of the not yet affiliated Jews have for the concept of
clothing one’s body.
But Rabbi
Haimoff takes us one step further by informing us that if those whose level of
tznius is already conforming to the Halacha in every respect would do a little
more, the others would get dressed.
So how far does
this go anyway?
Rabbi Aharon
Lieb Shteinman says that if a Jew who is loyal to the Torah takes upon himself
something new in Torah and Mitzvahs that previously wasn’t his custom to do, fifty
people will walk out of the hospital and the doctors won’t even understand the
reason.
Why?
Because it’s all
about us.
