I aimlessly look at my watch – 12:47 am, Thursday evening. I eerily realize it was just about now last week that all went wrong. An otherworldly joy became an otherworldly sadness. I say some Tehilim, review the personal kabbala I have undertaken for the next 2 weeks לעילוי נשמתם, and think about what I really need to fix in myself.
The pain is so fresh and real for so many. Besides the holy forty-five and their families, not to mention thousands of others directly affected by what they saw and suffered, we are all grieving.
To be honest, for many what brings this home so acutely is the sense that it could easily have been them or their children. (I personally had a daughter on the way to Meron when the tragedy occurred, and a son who, after going back and forth all week, fortunately decided against travelling). And it isn’t just those in Eretz Yisrael. Many thousands of Chutz La’aretz families have sons and daughters studying in yeshivot and seminaries. Which here-for-the year-or-two-student doesn’t consider going to Meron on Lag B’omer?
I remember what my Rebbe, Rav Reuven Leuchter, once shared about the famed, last mashgiach of Slabodka, Hakadosh Rav Avraham Grodzinsky הי”ד. During the Holocaust he was involved in something like a selektzia. After making it through successfully, he still found in himself the compassion to cry intensely over each and every Jew that didn’t. Rav Leuchter pointed out the greatness in this. Usually when one is personally saved, he is so overwhelmed with his own salvation he doesn’t really have room for another’s feelings. He may pay them lip service, but his heart is wholly engaged with himself. Not the heiliga Baal Toras Avraham – his amazing tikkun hamiddos through years of limud Torah and mussar had refined him to the enth degree.
We all are saddened now, but let’s take this to a different level. Let us channel the understandably strong sense of “it could have been me” away from its naturally selfish place towards deeper and deeper compassion for those really suffering. We can use that intense, primal feeling to continue to awaken our usually sleepy selves. “It could have been my son” becomes “it was someone else’s son!” Let’s combine that with our natural care, compassion and feelings of achdus. And let’s do something concrete.
I once offered condolences to my friend Yechiel soon after he had lost his mother. He wisely and candidly said “Now everyone is wishing me well; who will remember to ask me in six months how am I doing?” Now thousands and tens of thousands are visiting baatei aveil, giving tzedaka, gathering for chizuk talks… but who will think of the changed-forever families in six months?
So, what can we do? Many families need money. By giving not just a one-time sum, but a monthly donation, we can bring them ongoing light. Everyone will need chizuk. And sometimes chizuk from a well-intentioned stranger can go a very long way. We can continue to learn and change ourselves based on things we learn about the amazing niftarim. Can you imagine the strength and happiness one can bring an almana by letting her know in 2 months how one’s davening is totally different because of something learned from her husband? Of course, this needs to be done appropriately and wisely. It’s often not about saying anything specific, but rather just letting them know there is someone out there that cares about them. As in “I just called to see how you are doing and if there is anything I can do to help.” If nothing else we can continue to daven for them – to have fortitude and happiness, despite all they have been through.
This sounds unusual and unconventional. But this event was unusual and unconventional (to say the least). This is Klal Yisrael’s tzara – this is about all of us. The forty-five are our fallen brothers. Why is it so strange to call up our brother’s family 6 months after he passed away and see how they are doing?
We can feel bad for a few more weeks (days?), go back to our old ways, follow the news about who will be found “at fault”… or we can really change. This is one derech for real change. It will refine us as people and significantly help those that will continue to need it the most.
