“It’s so
much easier for the religious,” the woman tearfully told me. “They have their
faith and that helps them cope.”
My heart went
out to her, the mother of a terror victim. Her son had been murdered by a
suicide bomber while he was having lunch in a family restaurant. Yes, the
religious have their faith and it helps them but no one has a monopoly on
faith. It is not inherited nor can it be purchased in a store. It takes work to
maintain it.
We learn
that when the Hebrew month, Adar, arrives joy increases. Being that I am a
basically happy person I always looked forward to the month of Purim. Yet, five
years ago, on Rosh Chodesh Adar, there was the horrific massacre in the
Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva. Eight students were slaughtered in the fortress of Torah
study. The whole country was horrified by this attack. I felt as if I had been
personally assaulted. One of the students, Yonaton, was my neighbor. I
remembered when he was born. I was at his brit. I enjoyed watching him grow up
and become a serious Torah scholar at his beloved yeshiva. After such a
terrible tragedy how would it be possible to be happy in Adar? Now, every year
I struggle with the question from anew.
That
question was very much on my mind the past Shabbat, the Shabbat when we blessed
the new month. All of Yonaton’s family, his parents, brothers, sister, their
families, and grandmother, wanted to be in Shilo on the Shabbat preceding his yahrzeit.
It was bittersweet to see all of them. They are a beautiful family but this
time they were together for a tragic reason.
As is the
custom Yonaton’s father was called to the Torah Shabbat morning since his son’s
yahrzeit would begin immediately after Shabbat. The reader chanted the
words from Exodus Chapter23, verse 22, For IF you shall listen well
to His voice… After the next blessing the reading continued with the
promise in verse 26, There will be no bereaved of children or barren women
in your land. Obviously we were not
doing a good job of listening to HaShem’s words. I did not find that thought
particularly comforting.
I do believe
that whatever HaShem does is for the best. In my life I have seen many
heartrending situations that end up joyful: estranged relatives making peace, spinsters
finding happiness in marriage, chronically ill children becoming healthy. The
list goes on and on but death is so final. How can murder end joyfully?
So I turned
to Yigdal, the beautiful poem that I recite every day. It summarizes the
Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Faith. There, in the next-to-the-last line, I found
what I was looking for. With His abundant kindness HaShem will revive the
dead. This is my comfort.
At the
cemetery the following day for Yonaton’s memorial service his father confirmed
my thoughts. He spoke of the blessings the family had received the past year,
more daughters-in-law and grandchildren. He spoke of the joy they had had being
together the day before and singing Shabbat songs, especially songs about the
revival of the dead and coming of the Moshiach.
I do not
know how the woman whose son was murdered in the restaurant can possibly cope
without believing that there is more to life than the world we are in right
now. It has been a number of years since I heard her earnest cry and my heart
still goes out to her. How I wish that I could have said something to make her
believe, as I do, that the Moshiach is coming. When he arrives we will
finally understand why bad things have happened to good people. I pray he will
come soon.
Rosh
Chodesh: literally
the head of the month
Yahrzeit:
anniversary of a
death
Moshiach: The Redeemer
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