When tragedy becomes
common place, the emotional callouses thicken to the point that one barely
notices. You read the article, shake your head in feigned disbelief, because of
course you are not really surprised that there has been another attack, and
move on with your day. If not in a rush,
you utter a prayer for the families of the named victims. This week, I was in a rush having arrived in
Israel and in charge of another group of idealistic young adults, and I read the
names of the victims with barely a register.
However, on my way home, things slowed down in a real way. My wife called me and asked if I was going to
the funeral. Of whom, I asked. The Rabbi murdered this week was from our old
neighborhood, just two buildings down with seven children at home. Instead of making a left to my in-laws house,
I turned right towards my old apartment and joined the procession for the
eulogies. The tragedy hit a fever pitch
as his nine year old boy uttered with surprising composure the blessing ‘Blessed
are you the true judge’ and then said the mourners kaddish with equal
steadiness.
Rabbi Reuven Biermacher had just taught a class in
the old city at Aish haTorah, and presumably, was on his way back to Telzstone.
Just outside of Yaffa gate, he was accosted and murdered. Until now, there was a partly predictable
nature to the mayhem with most of the incidents occurring in the West Bank or
in East Jerusalem aside from a few ramming attacks in the middle of the city. But, there is a lesson to be learned from the
randomness of it all.
If we shift to another death, the death of Yaakov, we
see an interesting thing. He wanted to
reveal certain details of the future, but G-d’s spirit left him- he was
blocked. Hence the parsha begins without
any space as is customary between Torah portions. Why was this necessary? As soon as Yaakov’s family arrived in Egypt, ‘they
settled in the land of Goshen’.[1] They got comfortable because they knew with
certainty that the plan was to be in Egypt for an extended stay. There was no longer a yearning for inspiration
and for the holy land. For this reason, G-d
realized it was best to block future knowledge, leave things
unpredictable. The benefit of unpredictability
is that one pushes a little harder. One has to live more inspired because one
never knows what lies around the corner.
The biggest difference I see between America and
Israel is the sense of focus here.
People are more in touch with what is important because here, one never
knows and that may be a good thing.
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