Confession

Lakewhut,

I think the two points you made are mutually exclusive

@lakewhut, thank you for sharing your honest feelings. You’re not alone and I know that many others identify with every word you wrote, so please let me share the thoughts of a simple jew in EY.

Not feeling tzaar from the tragedy is understandable. To you the victims are no more than a picture and a number, they had no impact on you when they were alive so deaths have no impact on you either. All this is again understandable, you are human after all.

What is not understandable is when we skip the tzaar because we found the reason for their deaths. “This was waiting to happen!” or “the kever was a breathing hazard!” are easy ways to calm any uneasy feelings we might have that forty-five people were killed in one night. If this was a natural event, why should we feel bad? People die of old age too, don’t they? Death is inevitable!

Therefore I ask you to stop for a minute and ask yourself some uncomfortable questions:
Is it natural for forty-five people to be crushed to death in one night? Is it ‘unsurprising’ that a Chosson’s friends attended his levayah instead of his chasunah? Or that a father came to Meron with three sons and left with only one? Is it unsurprising that a four-year-old was flung from his dying father’s hands? Or that a bochur carried his friend’s dead body away from the scene?

Yes, there are guilty parties, no one is denying that. But the question we should be asking ourselves is; what are we supposed to make of it on a personal level? This is not some mussar point for a mashgiach to tell his yeshivah. What happened in Meron was a slap in the face of the entire jewish community. In the largest annual gathering of jews, forty-five children, bochurim and fathers, from almost all backgrounds , died an unnatural death. Do we really need another wake-up call?

Dear Aliyah,

I think feeling the extent of the tragedy, is not realizing that it is unnatural. Personally, I would say that I have thought about the tragedy without having any ‘wake up call’.

I think we can feel for the tragedy even when people did something inappropriate… when a child hurts himself, you don’t start chastising him for not following safety rules, you first take care of his pain….

what is not appropriate is blaming others – government, police – or even say “we do not understand your ways Hashem, but we accept it” rather than looking at your own behavior. It is understandable in the face of the tragedy, of course.

R Avigdor Miller talked about a parent who let a strange poor person in, gave him hot tea, then went to bring another cup of tea, while leaving a kid in the room with the stranger who poured hot tea into the kid’s face.. do not say “I do not understand this tragedy while doing a mitzva”, do say “she did an aveirah of leaving a kid with a strange while doing a mitzva and was punished for that”…

Rabosai, it is not enough to feel pain or to log it as just another tragedy or message, or to say we must be mehazek. In time, we must ask some questions, and introspect.
Some outlines:
was the bickering and jockeying for control of the tzuyun between edot not off-putting enough

were the of rabonnim past and present who said not to participate not worthy of being listened to

if torah is magna umatzla, perhaps this “hilula” is not reason enough to leave the bais medrash

The concept of vacation is a foreign idea. If one needs to find thrilling situations for feeling devekus, why isnt the day to day torah life fullfilling enough

The korban tomid and the avodah waa accomplished by one mishmar oif cohanim, one mishmar of leviim, and ten ansheu maamad. The anshei maamad were representatives of the klal. WE don’t have the korban, but it’s importance and it’s messages are still relevant. The importance of the ‘hilula’ is arguably, not the same as the the importance of the avoda.

Do we have chain of custody mesorah that lag bOmer is the yahrzeit

could the minhagim of Tzefat and Teveria have remained in Tzefat and Teveria why are they relevanrt to anyone else

There is a money and kovod trail to follow

May HKB”H grant us clarity, teshuva, and nechama

I was just sharing my thoughts and I am in no place to give anyone mussar.

However, I beg of you all to think deeply about the spiritual cause before the physical cause.

I will now get off the soapbox, thank you for listening.

> korban tomid and the avodah waa accomplished by one mishmar oif cohanim

and we had Cohanim ONLY TWICE engage in inappropriate fights for the honor (Yoma 22-23, one knifed, one broken leg) and the Rabbis stopped the races. Why are we less sensitive to human tragedy in our times?

Always the gemara there laments they were more concerned with taharas hakelim than for life, and we nebech know it is a lesson for us. My point was it is chadoshim mikarav ba’u to think the whole oilam must go there

Nom, why wrong thread, yes we should mourn, but we should be sharp enough to think when x activity is visited with tragedy, something was amiss with x activity.
Another thought, do the multiple hadlokos give the optics of Achdus, or of somthing else?

Everyone has different emotional triggers. Try ignoring the why, it isn’t really relevant. In the end of the day lives of great people were lost. Something that helps me feel the pain is putting myself in the victims shoes. Imagine it was me who perished H”V, how would my family react. Imagine the pain of all those who love you. What if it was my spouse who perished H”V or another loved one. Think for a while, play it out it your head. Think of what their new day to day life will be like. Read their stories and hespedim and substitute yourself for them. Each person is an entire world, with a family just like yours. Think about all the thoughts that pass through your head daily, each of these people had the same amount of thoughts and feelings. Really imagine what it is like for a person to suddenly seize to exist. Think hard and try to cry. Sometimes we need to use our imagination to awaken our true feelings. Hope this helps.