If They’re Not Sick
| August 3, 2011When the atmosphere in our community becomes tolerant of spiritual murder someone on the fringe can turn that coldness into real cold-blooded murder. It’s telling us one thing -- we are all murderers at some leve
Who would have thought that I’d have to be writing on this subject again so soon? Just last week even though we hadn’t quite digested the shocking news from Boro Park -- the murder of a pure innocent child by a Jew from the Torah-observant camp nevertheless I attempted to bring some points to ponder some guidance based on the teachings of our gedolei Yisrael on how we might correct ourselves in the face of such a shameful tragedy. And now it’s happened again — a Jew from our own religious community committed an atrocity that boggles the mind the slaying of the pure tzaddik the Baba Elazar ztz”l in Be’er Sheva. Words have lost their power and our thoughts flit about wildly seeking some anchor of sanity somewhere so that life can somehow go on….
The entire world of Torah-observant Jewry has been struck. When such terrible things happen we are liable to look for an escape rather than consider their implications for us as individuals and as a community. We feel helpless; we have no idea where to file such things in our minds how to compartmentalize and deal with them.
I suppose that Jews everywhere are waiting anxiously to hear what the psychiatrists have to say about these confessed murderers. There is a deep hidden desire in our hearts to hear the word that will release us: these killers are psychopaths incurably sick dregs of society. Then we would feel better. After all every society has a few crazy elements whose actions aren’t governed by the social norms. In a word we’re blameless. The criminals have been caught and the rest of us saddened and shocked though we are can go on with our normal routine. The underpinnings of our community are still firmly in place and everything’s all right with us.
Or is it?
Last week we discussed the fact that Leiby Kletzky’s killing came on the eve of the Three Weeks. Every year these weeks try unsuccessfully to move us to put aside our hatred of one another and this year HaKadosh Baruch Hu forced us by means of that tragedy to come together as one. For a few short fear-riddled days we were united. Divisive walls melted away and we saw that it really was possible to overcome the barriers of animosity jealousy and conflicts of interest that spoil the quality of our communal life.
And then all of a sudden we get an atomic explosion! A spiritual leader to whom so many Jews flocked is felled in an inconceivable manner. The knife that stabbed him inflicted a mortal wound on us all as individuals and as a community. Our voices can’t stop crying out: how could this happen? It’s so unbearable to contemplate that we would gladly run for cover behind a psychiatrist nod our heads in agreement and say “What can you do? There are some really sick people in this world…”
But is that really so? Isn’t Divine Providence trying to tell us something? Do such tragedies just happen at random? And specifically in the week before Tisha B’Av the day of the churban haMikdash? So what exactly does Divine Providence want from us?
I am too small to give the answer. That is in the hands of our gedolim whose constant immersion in Torah and avodah provides them with sensors to pick up the messages that befit each generation in its time.
I did however have an encounter with a fine avreich who gave me a glimmer of enlightenment.
I was out in the streets of Jerusalem as the levayah of Rav Elazar Abuhatzira ztz”l was arriving from Be’er Sheva when a stranger stopped me and said “Excuse me — what do you have to say about what happened?”
I gave an automatic reply: “The ways of Hashem are hidden.”
He smiled bitterly and said “That sounds a bit evasive. As if you want to lay all the blame on Him.”
He paused for a moment and said “If you think about it deeply wouldn’t you say that we’re all killers?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Well isn’t it considered murder when we shame someone or shame a community in public? Do we ever speak lashon hara about anyone about a different rebbe or a Chassidic group we don’t like — and isn’t that called murder? A virtual form of murder but it is called murder. And speaking ill of people behind their backs that’s not murder? It’s no use denying it because sad to say our community is full of this kind of killing. Of course we do a lot of mitzvos but at the same time the atmosphere in our community is all too tolerant of this kind of spiritual murder. And because we take these acts lightly our attitude has been channeled through someone on the margins of the community into an act of overt murder – a murder of a leader and a tzaddik at that. It’s meant to shock us into realizing that we are all murderers to one extent or another.”
He spoke his piece and walked off.
And I thought to myself he is right. The incident brings me to Achan who took from the spoils of Jericho (see Yehoshua chapter 6). HaKadosh Baruch Hu blames the entire nation for an act of theft by one man. In other words they are accused of a sin they did not commit. Rav Eliyahu Dessler ztz”l explains why:
“Through Achan’s deed a very subtle flaw in the Jewish People’s level of devotion to Hashem was revealed. For the influence of the collective on the individual is well known. And Scripture bears witness that if they had looked upon the contraband with a very great sense of repellence scorn and disgust it would have been impossible for there to be even one individual who would have actually dared to steal. Yet the Torah speaks of this subtle deficiency which we can hardly discern in terms of a gross sin: ‘They took… they stole… they lied…’ all expressed in the plural” (Michtav MeEliyahu I p. 161).
We cannot deny it then. “For the influence of the collective on the individual is well known.” It is a basic rule that is always in effect in every generation however hidden its operation. It applies equally to our generation to us and to our unseen influence on the madman who wields the murder weapon.
Over Shabbos I gave much thought to the words of that avreich and thinking back on many events and disputes within our community on every level I realized how right he was how his words hit their mark even on a personal level with regard to each one of us. It’s not just lashon hara it’s not just rejecting boys or girls of a certain kind from our schools. If we call it by its proper name it’s murder. Not just a struggle between certain communities not just defamatory notices plastered on our city walls but murder. That was his insight into the shocking things we’ve witnessed. Murder is rampant all around us. In a few quick words the message was encapsulated: this system that’s destroying us has a name and that name is murder. It’s murder when we feel that for the sake of my group for the sake of my ethnic subgroup for the sake of this and the sake of that… anything is permissible. This public act of murder came to hit us over the head and shout “Stop!”
In the parsah discussing the cities of refuge for those who killed by accident the pasuk says “For the blood will not be atoned except by the blood of he who spilled it.” If we’ll allow the truth to take root in our hearts the truth that in fact we are all killers albeit in a virtual sense then we must acknowledge that this “blood” can be atoned only by the blood of “he who spilled it.” Only by our return to the proper behavior that we should be exhibiting in our treatment of our fellow Jew can we make atonement..
And if when the psychiatrists give their diagnosis and declare these despicable killers insane we sigh with relief and consider ourselves exempt; otherwise we’d all be guilty.
Food for Thought
If we meet someone who doesn’t feel the pain of his fellowman
we can be certain that his ancestors did not stand at Har Sinai
(Rebbe Mendel of Zlotchov)
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