I have just returned from the cemetery. For the past 21 years, I’ve walked the dreaded stone steps to the grave with the headstone that bears the name we gave our precious son almost 42 years ago. I go there on the anniversary of his death because that’s all that remains of the sweet, innocent man-child whom this country now calls a hero. How naive and innocent we all are when we say, “There should be no more mothers having to visit their sons in a cemetery.”
And yet, today we are bombarded with names of the fallen – and those of the murdered who have yet to be identified by name. Victims of brutality and subhuman behavior, taken hostage by some of the most barbaric, bloodthirsty and crazed hoodlums – dare I say – ever to walk this Earth.
We have all been bombarded with videos, news reports, and social media revealing that the impossible has truly happened.
We are walking around in a stupor, dumbfounded, in a daze... wondering how such a thing could happen. None of it makes sense. How could the most powerful, motivated army in the world be so ill-prepared for this monumental incursion at the hottest border of our country? Where were our soldiers?! Where was our intelligence?! Where was our might??
These intruders (I purposely avoid using the word “people” because the definition doesn’t seem to fit here) are a band of maniacal hoodlums brandishing automatic weapons and unsophisticated artillery, yet are armed with an obsessive compulsion to kill Jews. And this time, they got us good.
Once the dust settles and we bury our dead, thinking of some way to return the hostages to their anxious families, we will ask ourselves these and other questions: How could this happen? Why did this happen? What can we do to make sure that this happens “never again”? (Sound familiar?)
Simchat Torah terror: A bad kind of miracle
THE EXPLANATION that keeps going round and round in my head answers these and all questions. (I’m Israeli, of course; I have all the answers!) What happened on that fateful morning of Simchat Torah was, ironically, nothing short of a miracle. Not the good kind, of course. The bad kind.
A miracle is something that happens in a supernatural fashion, something that defies logic, something that no one expects to happen because it just couldn’t possibly be.
This describes these events to a T. Nothing like this has ever occurred in the history of the state; every security and safety precaution was breached. No one would have ever believed it; we still can’t. It’s impossible. We may one day explain it away in human terms, but that is only a smoke screen that conceals the hand of God.
Now, I’m normally a clear-thinking, down-to-earth person, but it seems clear as day that this could be nothing short of a message from the Almighty. We have always been taught that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat hinam, the baseless hatred of one Jew for another. Yet, I always found that hard to believe, since the generations of the Second Temple were holy, Torah-observant, intellectual, and God-fearing scholars, who thought about nothing other than serving God in the holiest of places on Earth!
These were the people who were unkind to one another?!
These were the people who shamed, bullied, and ostracized each other? But I thought they were frum! (substitute “Orthodox,” “shomrei Torah u’mitzvot,” or “haredi,” if you like). I could never imagine how the “Jew vs Jew” syndrome could be so vicious that it depended on how, or if, we cover our heads or celebrate Shabbat – be it in shul or at the beach; or how we choose to serve our country, or where our political leanings lie.
Until now. These last 10 months, we have been battling against each other in ways I never thought possible. Yes, we pride ourselves in diversity, differing opinions, and loud discourse. But “antagonistic,” “abusive,” and “hateful” are more realistic descriptions of what we have become to each other. We see it in the halls of the Knesset, on the roads, and in the weekly protests. Even the way someone looks or dresses is bound to annoy somebody else. We judge harshly and hastily. We pick fights where none needs to exist. And yet, this is who and what we have become. All of us.
For the first time, it clicked. This is what it must have been like during those times before the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people from our land. This is how a once holy people behaved and deserved banishment, necessitating a “do-over.” I, for one, am scared to death that the devastation we just witnessed is a taste of things to come, unless and until we do some serious soul-searching and get our acts together. The climate is frighteningly similar to that of the past.
Many may pooh-pooh it and search for other, more logical or rational reasons. But, my dear friends, “United we stand, divided we fall” has never been so true. As parents, there is no greater nahat, pride, than when all our children get along. God feels the same way.
United, we are invincible. The current outpouring of kindness, generosity, and abundant love for our holy soldiers in the wake of this tragedy is what we are all about. When we need one another, there is no one like an Israeli. But what a shame that it had to come to this to prove that we are still God’s beloved people.
Let us not return to the climate that preceded this calamity. Let us vow, from the top down, to accept the alternative of tolerance, understanding, dialogue, and, above all, love for our fellow Jew. “Ein lanu eretz aheret” – this land is the only one we’ve got. It’s this or nothing. We had 2,000 years of “nothing” – and you know where that got us.
The writer is the mother of fallen soldier Ari Weiss; she is engaged in fund-raising operations for several organizations on behalf of IDF soldiers.