Yerushalayim in shock
Numb with grief
Frozen hearts
Disbelief
In the heart of Yerushalayim
A yeshiva under attack
Unarmed students
Shot in the back
Rifle blazing
No escape
Vicious death trap
Savage hate
Gunfire roaring
Young men falling
Massacred
No escape
On Rosh Chodesh
Adar Sheini.
Yeshiva bochurim
Close to eighty
The murderer sought
To kill them all
600 bullets
Blasted forth.
Innocent souls
Pure young men
Will never speak
Learn
Or laugh again
Victims so young
Leave us behind
To ponder the tragedy
Of how they died
Complacency shattered
Pow
Does nonsense still matter?
Bang
People misguided, divided
Boom
The first report announced
Terror in a yeshiva
All across the world
Headlines screamed
A yeshiva, a yeshiva
Under siege
Jews gasped,
Immediately asked,
Which yeshiva?
Where is the yeshiva?
Is it the yeshiva
Where my son learns?
My brother?
My cousin?
My friend?
We are all sons
All brothers
All cousins
All friends
Can it be that yeshivos, too,
are no longer safe?
Our teivas noach
In stormy waves
The teivah was breached
Bochurim slain
Wounded, bleeding
Searing pain
The Jewish heart punctured
Jewish souls bereaved
Across the world
United in grief
Yerushalmi Yidden
Broke down and cried.
For the yeshiva was taken
To the war’s front lines
All over Eretz Yisroel
As they assembled for Maariv
They said Yaaleh Veyavoh
for Chodesh Adar
And when they finished davening,
A silence so bitter
All they could muster
A tearful whisper
Hashem yishmor
How were there no guns that
day in Merkaz Harav?
Young boys died armed only with
their seforim
Mosru nafshom al kiddush Hashem
Gemaros soaked with victims’ blood
Seforim shot up, survivors numb
Friends gone forever, innocent youth
To their final rest in the world of Truth
Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers
Trying to comfort each other
Sitting shivah, hearts rent
Grief that keeps flowing without end
As vast as the ocean is Jewish pain
The cycle returns in every decade
Hate and persecution take their toll
On a nation with an eternal soul
Down the corridors of history
From the days of Harugei Beitar
The eight crusades
Gezeiros Tach V’Tat
Crisscrossing the globe
The pogroms in Russia
Poland… Chevron.
Auschwitz
Birkenau
Therezenstadt
Treblinka
Naharia
Kiryat Shemonah
Munich
Sderot
The 12 bus
The 2 bus
Sbarro’s
Park Hotel
Netanya
Pesach night
When will it end?
Rain the first night of Sukkos
Signals G-d’s displeasure
What about the innocent
Snatched on the first night of Adar
Do we feel the pain in our
deepest soul?
Do we feel the hurt or are our
hearts cold?
A yeshiva,
Any yeshiva,
Is no longer safe!
The mizbei’ach is mechapeir
for avonos
The bais medrash became a mizbei’ach
What happened to “ein
moridim m’hamizbei’ach”?
What happened to the
zechus haTorah?
Lechapeir al avonoseinu,
Chodesh nehepach misasson l’eivel
But the story will soon change
In the end of days
As love conquers hate
And comfort removes pain,
Truth will triumph over lies
Darkness will finally yield to light
Ohr chodosh al Tziyon ta’ir
The light of Moshiach will shine
Over Tzion
And Yerushalayim
When we learn to
Love
Care
Feel the pain
Of the exile
When at last we unite
As brothers and sisters
When love binds us close
Despite our differences
No one will defeat us
Armed with our oneness
No enemy can beat us
Amaleik’s power manifests in Adar.
Haman’s dice landed on Adar
Parshas Shekolim tells the secret
Of the machatzis hashekel
Its power to counteract our
eternal foes
Amaleik and Haman.
Machatzis—half.
Because without each other,
We aren’t whole
One half and another half
And another
And another
No longer separate
But part of each other.
Achdus brings us victory
It has no rival
The ‘magic bullet’
That ensures our survival.
Esther said to Mordechai,
“Leich kenos es kol haYehudim.”
Bring the Jews together
Only if they are together,
Can I win the king over
Only if they are united
Can we triumph
Over Haman
And prevail over
Amaleik
“Leich kenos es kol haYehudim.”
Only if we are together,
Can we defeat Yishmoel
When we are One
Echad
Without friction or fighting
No power can hurt us
No force is as mighty.
K’Ish Echad B’Laiv Echad
Under Hashem Echod.
May Hashem bring us safely
To that blessed day
Bayom hahu yehiyeh Hashem Echod
U’shmo Echod
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
12 Responses
Rabbi Lipschutz, very hartzik! but please don’t put pictures of these viscous murderers (or for that matter any pictures of any reshoim) in your newspaper. The idea of the Yated is to safeguard us and our kids, who needs to see pictures of murderers?! I think showing a picture of Hillary (pnei isha) is better then these sonei Yisroel (not to say shes not one either – that’s another discussion)
BTW: Your Gedolim centerfold is beautiful – as the poseuk says “… thine eyes shall see thy Teacher” (Isaiah 30:20)”
beautiful. thank you rabbi lipschutz for being michazick us once again.
every word just makes your heart cry every woed is true AM YISROEL WAKE UP we need to be united in ERETZ YISRAEL not in the gashmius world
Beautiful. Just one note: the Arabs are not Amalaik. They are Bnei Yishmael – our first cousin.
Beautiful, “hatziger verter”. It is nice to see this hishtatfus bitzaar expressed in the Yated, our chareidi/yeshivisher mouthpiece. It was also beautiful to see the pictures of the Belzer Rebbe visiting the wounded.
I would like to pose a well-intentioned, but probably unpublishable question, that has been bothering me in the past few days. Was our world adaquately represented at the levaya for the eight young kedoshim? Shouldn’t everyone-chassidish, litvish, migodol ve’ad kotton- have dropped everything that they were doing, in order to show our hishtatfus bitzaar, and in order to be mekayim the mitzvah of being melaveh these kedoshim?
To Commenter No. 4:
Some of the Meforshim on Sefer Daniel explain one of his dreams as indicating that the final Amalek — before the Bias Goel Tzedek BB”A — will be a descendant of both Eisav and Yishmael. According to HaRav Yitchak Abarbanel, that is why the Torah HaKedoshah tells us that Eisav (father of Amalek) married the daughter of Yishmael: to indicate that history will repeat itself. The modern marriage of descendants of Eisav/Amalek and Yishmael will produce that final Rotzeach, Ymoch Shmo.
Great article! I think all of Klal Yisroel should take an example from the Belzer Rebbe who went to visit the Cholim & the Satmar Rebbe who spoke about this tragedy in his Drosha in Monsey. Here are two Gedolim who have different shittos from this Yeshiva. Yet they showed how we are all Yiddin & even if our shittos differ, we are all really connected.
Rabbi Lipschutz, your a very talented writer.
#4 wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!Aisov went and married bnai yishmaelRemenber??????????? So today its aisov yishmael = Amalek
Heartfelt poem, full of ahavas yisroel. Try to keep that going in the newspaper..
4. if they are our first cousins, it is many times removed by now; ditto for our being cousins with Amalek.
Actually, Torahyid, if you open a chumash (Parshas Vayshlach between shishi and shvi’i) you’ll see that Amalek was a son of Elifaz ben Adah Eishes Eisav, and Timna the pilegesh from Alufei Se’ir. Basmas AKA Machlas Bas Yishmael was a different wife. Yishmael was at best the father of Amalek’s step-grandmother.