He walked into the synagogue. I nodded my acknowledgement like I always do. He made some strange gesture, which I couldn't catch and understand. I went on with the business of the prayer service.
A few minutes later, he walked over to me and said, "Didn't you hear?"
"Hear about what?"
"Didn't you HEAR?"
I understood that he was talking about last night's terror attack on Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. I assumed that he obviously intended that someone we knew was hurt or killed.
"About who?" I asked.
He looked at me as if I had landed from another planet, "About who? About everyone who was attacked last night."
I nodded, "Yes, I heard."
"Then why aren't YOU crying?"
His words shot through me like a spear piercing my heart. Our Rabbis teach that "words that come from the heart enter the heart." He was right. Why wasn't I crying?
I could not answer. I had nothing to say.
He pointed around the synagogue, "Why aren't all of my friends crying?"
I could not answer. I had nothing to say.
"Shouldn't we all be crying?"
I could not answer. I had nothing to say.
He was right. What has happened to all of us, myself included? We have turned to stone. Some would call it numbness. Some would call it collective national shock. Some would say that we have all suffered never-ending trauma and it has affected our senses.
Frankly, the excuses are worthless. All the reasons in the world don't justify our distance from the real pain that is burning in our midst. When an attack happens, in the heat of the moment, we frantically check to see if someone we know has been hurt or killed. Then, if we find out that 'our friends and family are safe', we sigh a deep sigh of relief, grunt and grumble about the latest tragic event and then continue with our robotic motions and go on with our lives.
We have not lost our minds, my friends. We have lost our hearts and that is why we keep losing our lives.
When I left the synagogue, my friend said to me with tears dripping from his bloodshot eyes, "I heard once that the Torah teaches that for every tear that drops from our eyes, another drop of blood is saved."
We are living in a time of absolute madness. It is obvious what is going on around us and yet we detach ourselves and keep running on automatic in our daily lives. Last night, ten people were killed and nearly 200 were injured. Even on MSN.com they referred to the triple terror attack as a "slaughter".
Yet, we are not crying.
Perhaps my friends, we are being foolish to really believe that the nations of the world should be upset about the continuous murder and slaughter of Jews if we ourselves are not crying about it. Am I my brother's keeper? The most effective way for us to stop the carnage in our midst is to wake up and to react to it from our hearts. How can we DEMAND that G-D stops the tragedy when most of us react like robots when tragedy strikes?
If WE don't cry about what is happening around us, who will?
If YOU don't cry about what is happening around us, who will?
If I don't cry about what is happening to us, who will?
One thing is for sure: My friend walked into the synagogue this morning and from the looks on his friend's faces, he could not tell that they had heard what had happened on Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. When our enemies pound us and we don't react because we no longer feel the pain, we are truly in a dangerous and precarious position in the battle and struggle to survive.
I know a woman who lost sensitivity in her fingers. When she approaches fire, she doesn't feel the pain. That puts her in a very dangerous position because she might be hurting (ie., getting burnt) and not know it, because her senses don't feel it. If we are being hurt and we don't feel it, then we are in a very risky position. A devastating three pronged suicide attack on Jerusalem's most popular thoroughfare should evoke a cry of pain and suffering from all of us, should it not? Unless of course, we have lost our senses. If we have lost our senses, then what hope is there?
Maybe our salvation from this horrific mess will come only after we tune into our emotions and cry and scream about it. As King Solomon said, "There is a time for everything." Now is the time for crying.
May G-D protect each and every one of us from our enemies so that we will
not have to cry in the future.
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Chezi Goldberg is a Jerusalem based counselor for Adolescents and Families
at Risk and is a freelance columnist.