We have forgotten how to connect the dots that lead in the direction of the Creator
After the tragic Erev Shavuos scaffold collapse in Stolin that left three dead and dozens injured, there was a message on social media I found particularly poignant: “Lag B’omer wasn’t Lag B’omer, and Shavuos wasn’t Shavuos, halevai that Tishah B’Av won’t be Tishah B’Av.”
Well, here we are, and Tishah B’Av is Tishah B’Av.
To say we are living in a time of great hester Panim would be a gross understatement. I have long struggled to understand what “hester Panim” truly is. On some level I understand what galus is and even what churban is. Rav Avrohom Schorr said in a passionate address a few years ago that when we hear statistics from Chai Lifeline, “es darf unchapen a tziter,” it must cause us to shudder. “There is no such thing as we can’t feel churban, this is churban! These bitter, bitter tzaros, this is galus!”
We desperately need to understand what hester Panim is, because Chazal say the days before Mashiach’s arrival will be filled with it. My personal struggle to come to grips with it started after a brief confrontation with an elderly Holocaust survivor more than two decades ago.
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