Especially during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva we find ourselves wondering what life is about. All of us realize the importance of these significant days. Each in his own way decides how to work on himself to improve. Some choose to take on chumras that they do not necessarily do during the balance of the year. Our family would go out of the way to use only chalov yisrael and pas yisrael products. Others might choose to put aside extra tzedakah money, some spend more time concerned with their interpersonal skills while others work on being more careful about speaking loshen horah.
Nina feels that since Debbie and Rabbi Jake Rubenstein were killed in their home in Scarsdale after lightning struck their house, she davens much more passionately when she says U’nesaneh Tokef. They were a Rav and his wife who gave everything to their community and were dearly beloved by all. Debbie came from Montreal and we were well acquainted with her family. How could such a devastating freak occurrence be allowed to happen? For none of their children to have been at home when that tragedy occurred is in itself a miracle. However there is no way to rationally explain this disaster.
While we davened and waited with bated breath during the ongoing search for Naftali, Eyal and Gilad–boys who could have been our sons and brothers who did nothing more than excitedly leave school to go home to loving families for Shabbat–what was that? Did their parents and certainly not these very young minds ever consider that such a tragedy could befall them?
When Steven Sotloff was beheaded by the Islamic terrorists, who could ever conceive that such a thing could be done to anyone.
When every day we hear of friends, relatives and acquaintances who have been diagnosed with a terrible disease, what are we to think? Many of them are the same people who pleaded and davened to Hashem during the recital of Unsaneh Tokef. Were their prayers not heard?
Many years ago a young Montrealer who was a counselor at Camp Moshava drowned when taking a short cut through a lake with his campers. Marvin Friedman was an only child. His parents were Holocaust survivors who had lost their entire families during the war.
Is there an explanation for any of this? Obviously there is not. Nina recalls many years ago sitting with someone in the chemotherapy room of the oncology ward at a hospital where many people were hooked up to various drugs being pumped into their veins. As she sat there she thought that there cannot be any way to get through this heart wrenching experience unless you have a deep faith and believe in Hashem.
We cannot be made to understand why these atrocities and tragedies occur. We can only continue to strive to be better people with the hope that if each one of us does this, perhaps one day all of this horrible strife can be eradicated from the world. It is too complicated for the human mind to absorb and understand. It is only through our emunah and bitachon that we can look forward to a better and brighter new year.
By Rabbi Mordechai and Nina Glick
