In EmunahSpeak:
Goin' Ostrich, we pointed out that, as is well known, the Gemara in Yevamos
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.
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.
Rather than see a wake up call, we see a
routine, or more accurately we succumb to a routine much akin to garbage
collection or bread delivery.
And now, of course,
we're talking knives, meat cleavers and whatever else may be readily pulled
out of a kitchen draw. It's the same wake up call and over and above the Teshuva that is always required of us, it calls for an additional response nuanced to the circumstances.
Rabbi Daniel
Travis tells us that the only aitza in dealing, on a somewhat pain free basis, with the Chevlei Moshiach that
we are experiencing is by means of Talmud Torah
and Gemillas Chasodim.
Talmud Torah we
understand, but what about Gemillas Chasodim in this context? He lets us hear that our interaction with other
people is very important and that a person should do whatever he can for
others.
The most
important form of doing for others is, of course, davening and reciting
Tehillim. It's the ruchniyas equivalent
of using laser guided munitions.
But in these
times it's not enough. We should also
think about them.
Davening and
Tehillim speak to the amelioration of the situation on the ground but it
doesn't necessarily connect us to it. This
is a big speed bump because a person should think more about yenem than himself, and yet, when we hear about a tragedy how
much do we think about the other person?
Rabbi Avi
Wiesenfeld asks this very question on a much less pareve decibel level:
People hear about what's going on and
it's terrible. A couple of minutes later
it's "pass the chips please."
It affected you? It did something to you? How can you hear that a man who was standing
by a bus stop on the way to learning this morning is no longer among the living? How can you hear that and it doesn't affect
you? How can you hear that and say, "you know, these things happen,"
and then go back to breakfast or lunch?
How can it not have an
affect on you?
At the very least, our love for a Jew who
was attacked r"l, should be no less intense than the hatred of the Arab
that wielded the knife
