BS’D
Today’s daily dose of emuna is dedicated in loving memory of our seven beautiful neshamot who passed from this world this Shabbat. The pain is immense and words cannot describe. We must mourn for the loss and step up to the holy task we have been commissioned to do. May the zechut of our teshuva serve to elevate the neshamot of these precious angels and envelop the family with strength, emuna and clarity. May it serve as a refuah shleimah for the Mother Avigail bat Tzipporah and the daughter Tzipporah bat Avigail among all of Klal Yisrael who are sick and suffering b’karov, b’rachamim, Amen.
Today we are a nation in mourning; there is no running away from this reality. We are called the ‘Tylenol’ generation – living at a time where we wish to remove all discomfort and pain, NOW. Yet an inescapable part of life is the unexplained tragedies that leave us broken and confused. We are driven to ask ‘why’… but would any answer suffice? So long as we dwell in this lowly world and live with a tremendous sense of distance from our Father in Heaven, our minds and hearts can never be consoled by any ‘logical’ explanation… ever. Asking ‘why’ is questioning the unquestionable and seeking to answer the unanswerable. To ask ‘why’ is destructive since it suggests we are innocent and feel the decree is unfair. Yet our measuring barometer is calibrated only to this world and doesn’t take into account other Heavenly spheres and events.
The fact that we even ask ‘why’ testifies that we believe that there is order, there is justice and there is meaning. Pain and tragedy trips our understanding. We are desperate to understand since greater comprehension enhances our sense of belonging – confusion makes us feel like a stranger in this world. Yet we must realize that living in this world cannot help but leave many questions unanswered – most suffering is a mystery to us mortal beings. All we can do is extract lessons; we cannot demand justification. ‘Why’ in Hebrew is Lama, yet with a slight change in accent we can read it as L’ma, for what. The Jewish approach to hardship is ‘Where do I go from here?’ and ‘How can I return to my original place from which I have strayed?’
