The Real Achdus
If you were
looking for a post-mortem on the Asifa at Citi Field, fuggedaboutit.
We’re talking here about the Asifa that never was.
In EmunahSpeak:
The Satan’s Achdus we said,
When our Rabbis admonish us as regards our lack of achdus they are not
referring to the touchy feely variety that was on display in Boro Park
at the time of the Leiby Kletzky a"h, tragedy.
And it was
different by the Asifa?
The Torah
oriented Jewish papers all kvelled about the unbelievable achdus that was on
display at Citi Field.
And why
not?
All those who
were opposed to the Asifa for one reason or the other stayed home. Those who came, for the most part, belonged
to either a like minded Chasidishe chevra or to a homogenized Litvishe one. In addition, they came to hear their
Rabbis speak about things that they generally agreed with.
So why shouldn’t
there have been achdus?
And as we
further explained in EmunahSpeak:
The Satan’s Achdus, The
reason that the achdus that obtained in Boro Park was not of the variety that
keeps the Satan up at night has nothing at all to do with what the people did
or did not do. It was simply impossible for the “Satan’s achdus” to exist
in such an environment.
Make that ditto
for the Asifa.
So what exactly
is the Satan’s achdus?
As we said when
we discussed the Kletsky tragedy, “The Satan’s Achdus” is about getting out
of our comfort zone….it’s an achdus that can only be achieved by first
withstanding a firestorm of vitriol emanating from the Yetzer Hora. The
existence of such an achdus draws a bull’s-eye around the Satan and then
proceeds to hit it.
The seeds of
what could grow into the “Satan’s achdus” are not scattered to the four
winds. They are selectively sown. In any situation in which you wouldn’t
reflexively demonstrate a feeling of achdus the Yetzer Hora is all over you
relentlessly justifying your hesitation. Any attempt at real achdus has
to have the staying power to weather the long march through our worst
instincts.
This is “The
Satan's Achdus."
That was the
import of the message in that piece when it was originally written and it was
clearly explained as such. But upon
reflection, I have come to realize that the term the Satan’s Achdus
embodies two distinct meanings with neither one contradicting the other. The first is the intended meaning, as
explained above.
The second,
which was originally unintended, is no less true, and that is that the Satan’s
Achdus is what we generally refer to as stam achdus, as in the Citi Field
Asifa, the outpouring last year for the Kletzky family and every other
situation where the Satan doesn’t challenge us, thereby allowing our good
instincts to prevail by default. In a
certain sense they are two sides of the same coin.
It’s not that
these things shouldn’t be engaged in on the merits. They most certainly should.
It’s turning them into achdus happenings that shifts the
Satan into smile mode. After all, why
bother with the tircha of all that is entailed in stepping outside our comfort
zone to push ourselves in the direction of real achdus if we already think
we’re riding high in achdus cruise control?
We are taught
that davening is not results oriented.
The goal, as such, is not that which we are asking for but rather the
connection to Hashem that’s in inherent in the act of davening itself.
We are also
adjured to daven for others, and when we daven for others we are by extension
also connecting with them also.
And this brings
us to the Asifa that never was, the one that should have been held ten
to fifteen years ago before the wildfire of the Internet began singeing the
environs of Lakewood, Williamsburg and other impregnable bastions of
Torah and Chassidus.
But this is all
somewhat of a misnomer because it more accurately could be called the outcry
that never was or even better yet the whimper that never was.
Way back then,
when the not yet religious Jews (a.k.a Acheinu B’nai Yisroel) and their
children were being spiritually and morally decimated by the tens of thousands,
one could have heard a pin drop in the aforementioned impregnable bastions
of Torah and Chassidus, given the silence that obtained therein as to the
crisis.
It was very much
the same reaction that we spoke of in EmunahSpeak:
Goin’ Ostrich, where we noted
the selective outrage that manifested itself when certain venues were hit by
Hamas rockets as opposed to others. And
we said there:
What future
is there in a country where the concern of anyone as to what’s happening runs
only to the extent that it’s happening to him?
And as this
relates to our collective reaction to the initial Internet Tsunami that
blindsided our less affiliated brethren, we paraphrase:
What future
is there for a people where the concern of any segment thereof as to what’s
happening runs only to the extent that it’s happening to it?
Nu?
We are taught by
one opinion in Avos that someone who says what’s mine is mine and what yours is
yours is reflecting the middos of S’dom.
Query: Isn’t the attitude of, I’ll care about my
concerns and you’ll care about yours a close first cousin to this middas
S’dom?
Theoretical
asifas aside, had we davened for them it may have rendered the need for the
Citi Field Asifa moot, because as we also know, not only are we adjured to
daven for others but we are also told that those that do so are answered
first. Meanwhile, not only didn’t we
daven, but it didn’t occur to most of us that there was either something or
someone (else) to daven for.
That was an
opportunity for Achdus if there ever was one, and we took a pass on it. Not a conscious pass to be sure, because we
were totally oblivious to the conflagration raging around us, but a pass just
the same because had we related to them as Acheinu B’nei Yisroel we wouldn’t
have been oblivious in the first place.
But we were, and
what goes around comes around, so years later here we are reaping the
whirlwind.
All of the spin
notwithstanding, if the Citi Field Asifa saved even one Jew from the quicksand
of the Internet then it was a worthy event.
