When Sbarro?s was bombed, and all those families were impacted by the loss of their loved ones, it hurt a lot. The graphic descriptions of what took place there were gruesome. When Shalhevet Pass - little, nine-month old Shalhevet Pass - was killed by a sniper in Hevron, it really hurt a lot. She had a whole life ahead of her, and she was killed in her parent?s arms. When Hillel Lieberman was killed in his attempt to protect the Tomb of Joseph and all of the Torahs and other holy books there, it definitely hurt. Here was a man who was willing to give up his life for our holy site. When the (fill in the blank) tragedy occurred, it hurt.
But none of it, and I mean none of it, compares to what happened this past Shabbos.
When the rabbi announced it in shul, I literally thought I had misheard what he had said. I looked around the shul to see if I had heard correctly, and the people were just sitting there. No reactions. No nothing.
But I was going bonkers inside. And I suppose many others were as well. I sat there, completely unable to comprehend anything else the rabbi said for the rest of his speech. And completely unable to hear what the bar mitzvah boy had to say. The speeches ended and I got up and walked out of the shul, not ready to pray to HaShem after what I had just found out He had done to Ilan Ramon and to the rest of the Columbia space shuttle crew, and to their families, and to the Jewish people... and to me.
On the way home from shul, I thought to myself, why is this one so different? We've had hundreds of our brothers and sisters killed over the last two years, and every single death has hurt. My wife and I took a walk with the kids. And we walked and walked, like zombies. We talked a little about it. We tried to figure out "why?" Why did it have to happen to a man, Ilan Ramon, who was seemingly doing so much for the Jewish people while he was up there - eating kosher, when he didn't normally do so, showing the world a concentration camp Torah scroll he had brought with him, and various other symbolic Jewish gestures?
Amazing how we human beings always have to get that answer, isn't it? We need to know "why?" Why the Holocaust? Why the World Trade Center? Why Kobi Mandell? Why Yehuda Shoham? Just "why?"
I don't know. Actually, when it comes to these kinds of things, I'm not such a big fan of "why", because the truth is, when it comes to HaShem, we don't know "why", we can't know "why". So there's really no reason to discuss it.
And yet...
We can still ask "why?" regarding something else: Why does this one feel different?
There was no Left. There was no Right. There were no Hawks, no Doves. There were no Chareidim (in the US, they're called "black-hatters"), no Chilonim (secular Jews). There was no Peace Process. No Palestinian conflict. No suicide bombers. There was just Colonel Ilan Ramon, representing the Jewish people and the State of Israel as well as he was able. And there was the beautiful image of him working and living side-by-side with six other non-Jews. It was a unifying event of a very high degree. Simply put, it was good for the Jews in general, and for everyone else in the world.
It was so positive, and now it's so negative. It went from an event that was nothing but wonderful for the Jewish people, to an event that made us doubt everything we believe in. It was taking the most wonderful thing and making it horrible. Simply put, it was the highest high and then the lowest low.
Dayenu! (Enough!) As if we hadn't already gone through enough the last few years. As if we hadn't already gone through enough the last 60 years. As if we hadn't already gone through enough the last 3,500 years. And then, this had to happen. How many times will we be hurt? How many times will we have to "pull together" and recover? How many times will we have to coordinate shul memorial services for this and that tragedy? Simply put, it's the straw that broke the camel's back.
Or is it?
Yes, it was a wonderfully uniting event. It was wonderful. I can't forget that. It was a special time. And Ilan Ramon being up in that space shuttle brought us all closer together. And there will be more times like that in the future. Let's pray that they happen as frequently as possible. But Ilan Ramon being killed at the end of that mission to space is also bringing us closer together. Let's get strength from that.
I felt the excitement, the positiveness, the euphoria of the Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of HaShem's name) that Ilan Ramon was demonstrating. And I felt pleasure from the fact that it was a Jewish Israeli up there at this time. And then it was worse than gone. ?Gone? would have been landing safely and moving on. This is much worse, because it?s still here and it?s bad. And yet, Ramon continues to be an inspiration for all Jews around the world, and maybe we can all improve ourselves somehow, just by following his lead.
It is exhausting us, but it has not exhausted us. We're still here. We're still strong. In fact, we're stronger than we've been in a very long time. There is no rational explanation for the Jewish people continuing to exist, and yet we do. Let's be comforted by that.
We have a choice.
Do we engross ourselves in Fox News' coverage of whatever catchy-themed ("Tragedy in the Sky," "Shuttle Explosion over Texas," or whatever) attention they are giving this tragedy? Do we walk around like zombies? Do we just sit and cry, like I know a lot of people are doing? Do we put up a wall and move on?
The answer is that we probably doing a mixture of them. But the most important thing is that we remember what Ilan Ramon did. We remember that a secular Jew decided to take his fame and turn it into a unifying event for the Jewish people. We remember the pleasure we felt when it was announced he'd be eating kosher food, when we first saw him on TV, when we saw the Israeli flag on his spacesuit.
We remember. We get strength. We improve ourselves. And we are comforted. Again.
--------------------------------------------------------
Glenn Jasper, a father of four who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, yearns every day to make aliyah. He also spends a much time each day on public relations in the telecom industry.
But none of it, and I mean none of it, compares to what happened this past Shabbos.
When the rabbi announced it in shul, I literally thought I had misheard what he had said. I looked around the shul to see if I had heard correctly, and the people were just sitting there. No reactions. No nothing.
But I was going bonkers inside. And I suppose many others were as well. I sat there, completely unable to comprehend anything else the rabbi said for the rest of his speech. And completely unable to hear what the bar mitzvah boy had to say. The speeches ended and I got up and walked out of the shul, not ready to pray to HaShem after what I had just found out He had done to Ilan Ramon and to the rest of the Columbia space shuttle crew, and to their families, and to the Jewish people... and to me.
On the way home from shul, I thought to myself, why is this one so different? We've had hundreds of our brothers and sisters killed over the last two years, and every single death has hurt. My wife and I took a walk with the kids. And we walked and walked, like zombies. We talked a little about it. We tried to figure out "why?" Why did it have to happen to a man, Ilan Ramon, who was seemingly doing so much for the Jewish people while he was up there - eating kosher, when he didn't normally do so, showing the world a concentration camp Torah scroll he had brought with him, and various other symbolic Jewish gestures?
Amazing how we human beings always have to get that answer, isn't it? We need to know "why?" Why the Holocaust? Why the World Trade Center? Why Kobi Mandell? Why Yehuda Shoham? Just "why?"
I don't know. Actually, when it comes to these kinds of things, I'm not such a big fan of "why", because the truth is, when it comes to HaShem, we don't know "why", we can't know "why". So there's really no reason to discuss it.
And yet...
We can still ask "why?" regarding something else: Why does this one feel different?
There was no Left. There was no Right. There were no Hawks, no Doves. There were no Chareidim (in the US, they're called "black-hatters"), no Chilonim (secular Jews). There was no Peace Process. No Palestinian conflict. No suicide bombers. There was just Colonel Ilan Ramon, representing the Jewish people and the State of Israel as well as he was able. And there was the beautiful image of him working and living side-by-side with six other non-Jews. It was a unifying event of a very high degree. Simply put, it was good for the Jews in general, and for everyone else in the world.
It was so positive, and now it's so negative. It went from an event that was nothing but wonderful for the Jewish people, to an event that made us doubt everything we believe in. It was taking the most wonderful thing and making it horrible. Simply put, it was the highest high and then the lowest low.
Dayenu! (Enough!) As if we hadn't already gone through enough the last few years. As if we hadn't already gone through enough the last 60 years. As if we hadn't already gone through enough the last 3,500 years. And then, this had to happen. How many times will we be hurt? How many times will we have to "pull together" and recover? How many times will we have to coordinate shul memorial services for this and that tragedy? Simply put, it's the straw that broke the camel's back.
Or is it?
Yes, it was a wonderfully uniting event. It was wonderful. I can't forget that. It was a special time. And Ilan Ramon being up in that space shuttle brought us all closer together. And there will be more times like that in the future. Let's pray that they happen as frequently as possible. But Ilan Ramon being killed at the end of that mission to space is also bringing us closer together. Let's get strength from that.
I felt the excitement, the positiveness, the euphoria of the Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of HaShem's name) that Ilan Ramon was demonstrating. And I felt pleasure from the fact that it was a Jewish Israeli up there at this time. And then it was worse than gone. ?Gone? would have been landing safely and moving on. This is much worse, because it?s still here and it?s bad. And yet, Ramon continues to be an inspiration for all Jews around the world, and maybe we can all improve ourselves somehow, just by following his lead.
It is exhausting us, but it has not exhausted us. We're still here. We're still strong. In fact, we're stronger than we've been in a very long time. There is no rational explanation for the Jewish people continuing to exist, and yet we do. Let's be comforted by that.
We have a choice.
Do we engross ourselves in Fox News' coverage of whatever catchy-themed ("Tragedy in the Sky," "Shuttle Explosion over Texas," or whatever) attention they are giving this tragedy? Do we walk around like zombies? Do we just sit and cry, like I know a lot of people are doing? Do we put up a wall and move on?
The answer is that we probably doing a mixture of them. But the most important thing is that we remember what Ilan Ramon did. We remember that a secular Jew decided to take his fame and turn it into a unifying event for the Jewish people. We remember the pleasure we felt when it was announced he'd be eating kosher food, when we first saw him on TV, when we saw the Israeli flag on his spacesuit.
We remember. We get strength. We improve ourselves. And we are comforted. Again.
--------------------------------------------------------
Glenn Jasper, a father of four who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, yearns every day to make aliyah. He also spends a much time each day on public relations in the telecom industry.