The 3 Weeks


I'm still in shock. I have no words to describe what have happened in Israel a couple of days ago. Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira Z'L, a great cabbalist rabbi and grandson of the Baba Sali (the Baba Sali was a great and righteous rabbi, famous for his miracles), was murdered on Thursday night. When I first heard about it, I thought that for sure it was an Arab, a terrorist attack or so. But it is even worse; he was murdered by a Jew! A fellow Jew who frequently visited R' Abuhatzeira to receive blessings and advice, that was upset because he did not succeed after receiving his advices! But beside the spiritual loss, what distress me the most, it that just a couple of weeks ago we were all horrified by the homicide of Leivi Klesky, that little kid that was also killed by a crazy Jew. And it did not just happened to them, it happened to all of us. Even though we are not the killers, G-d forbid, we are all somehow guilty for having these things happening in our society, we are missing the point, and therefore we need to be able to read the message. Why is this happening to us, what are we doing wrong. In Judaism there is not such a thing as chance,
consequently the events we live are linked with the times we are living in. We are living the 3 weeks ‘bein hametzarim’(between the straits/days of distress), between the 17th of Tamuz and the 9th of Av. This period of time is the darkest in the Jewish history, since we have lived our main tragedies, including the greatest of all: the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Beis Hamikdash (Holly Temple). Our sages teach that the 2nd Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam (free hatred), therefore the tikkun (way of repairing this) of our generation is to achieve real love for each other and unity. But I thing that these days, the opposite of this is not free hatred but apathy and indifference, which might be even worse. I heard a Rebbetzin said related to little Leivi, that we are so absorbed in our blackberries, Iphones, etc., that we can’t even notice a little kid lost in the street. We could think that we care, but being honest, how much we really care about the people surrounding us, how open we are to listen when someone is in need. We care sometimes, but most of the times, in a general way, in our generation there is a continuous state of apathy.
And getting to our topic, even though there are many spiritual roots for the environmental challenges that we are facing today, for sure one of them is this state of apathy. If people really cared about each other, would realize how much their actions affect their neighbors, their children and grandchildren to come and the whole planet. Because of indifference, people don’t look farther; don’t care where the water comes from beyond the tap, and where the waste goes to beyond the bin. We try lo live in a magic bubble thinking that nothing really happen. But it does. We need to listen. To love. To care.
May we don’t have to experience these tragedies ever again and merit to bring the final geula(redemption) soon, now.


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