In our society, there’s no such thing as a lone wolf. If an individual commits a dreadful act, it means society as a whole wasn’t sufficiently outraged by the mere thought of the deed. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been possible for someone on the periphery of the nation to make such a brazen move.
In our bleakest dreams we never imagined the devastation within our community would be so profound. But what happened last Wednesday morning after Israel’s municipal elections was worse than anything we ever expected to see; holy barriers were breached a clear warning sign for us to brake stop and reflect. It’s time for us to make a thorough exhaustive moral inventory and to be brutally honest in our conclusions.
Of course that the deranged individual who burst into Rav Aharon Leib Steiman’s home and attacked him will be presented by the enemies of Rav Steinman (yes the 100-year-old sage has enemies that go beyond the far-reaching dispute over the leadership of the chareidi community) as a bizarre mentally unstable individual who acted independently. They will certainly argue in their own defense that an entire community cannot be indicted for the actions of a single individual. They will certainly claim that this man does not represent the community of voters who threw their support behind the alternative “Eitz” chareidi party. And I agree with them. Heaven forbid that real bnei Torah could think of committing such a dreadful act. But at the same time he is not a person suffering from a psychological illness. Rather he is a person who has been incited to violence.
In Sefer Yehoshua we read about the sin of Achan. In this brief episode the text relates that “Bnei Yisrael took unlawfully from that which was consecrated for Achan the son of Karmi the son of Zabdi the son of Zerach of the tribe of Yehuda took from the consecrated property and G-d became angry with Bnei Yisrael” (Yehoshua 7:1).
After 36 of Yehoshua’s soldiers fell in battle at the city of Ai Yehoshua prostrated himself before Hashem in prayer. Hashem’s answer was “Get up; why are you falling on your face? Yisrael has sinned and they have transgressed My covenant that I commanded them and they have also taken from that which was consecrated and they have also stolen and they have also lied and they have also put it in their vessels” (ibid. v. 10-11).
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