When the atmosphere in our community becomes tolerant of spiritual murder someone on the fringe can turn that coldness into real cold-blooded murder. It’s telling us one thing — we are all murderers at some leve
Who would have thought that I’d have to be writing on this subject again so soon? Just last week even though we hadn’t quite digested the shocking news from Boro Park — the murder of a pure innocent child by a Jew from the Torah-observant camp nevertheless I attempted to bring some points to ponder some guidance based on the teachings of our gedolei Yisrael on how we might correct ourselves in the face of such a shameful tragedy. And now it’s happened again — a Jew from our own religious community committed an atrocity that boggles the mind the slaying of the pure tzaddik the Baba Elazar ztz”l in Be’er Sheva. Words have lost their power and our thoughts flit about wildly seeking some anchor of sanity somewhere so that life can somehow go on….
The entire world of Torah-observant Jewry has been struck. When such terrible things happen we are liable to look for an escape rather than consider their implications for us as individuals and as a community. We feel helpless; we have no idea where to file such things in our minds how to compartmentalize and deal with them.
I suppose that Jews everywhere are waiting anxiously to hear what the psychiatrists have to say about these confessed murderers. There is a deep hidden desire in our hearts to hear the word that will release us: these killers are psychopaths incurably sick dregs of society. Then we would feel better. After all every society has a few crazy elements whose actions aren’t governed by the social norms. In a word we’re blameless. The criminals have been caught and the rest of us saddened and shocked though we are can go on with our normal routine. The underpinnings of our community are still firmly in place and everything’s all right with us.
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