"It’s about bringing light to the world and not, chas v’shalom, the opposite”
It has been a very bad week for me. Over 40 years ago, my new wife and I joined the chareidi world. For 30 years, I have been a sometime spokesperson for that community, at least to the outside world. And suddenly, I find myself wondering whether I understand anything about the community, or at least a major swath of it, and its mindset.
My only solace came when I mentioned how disoriented I’m feeling to my rav, a major talmid chacham and respected dayan, and he expressed the same feelings, despite having been raised from birth in the heart of the Israeli chareidi world.
My bad week began Thursday night, parshas Bo, when someone sent me a clip of a melee in a Bnei Brak yeshivah, which some undercover cops entered to investigate whether COVID regulations were being kept. They were discovered and set upon by a mob. Police reinforcements were called in. The windows of police cars were smashed.
The following Monday, a municipal bus driver in Bnei Brak was dragged from his bus, and the bus was set on fire. In the Knesset, MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni described the perpetrators as chareidi youth “from the fringes.” And photos from the scene seemed to confirm that. But even youth on the fringe are more likely to act violently when there is already violence in the air.
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