Opinion & Comment
Sanctifying the Name of Heaven -- Rare Praise for the Chareidim

The 22 kedoshim killed in the terrorist attack on the 2 bus in Jerusalem had the merit of sanctifying the Name of Heaven in their deaths and of bringing Jews closer to emunoh and yiras Shomayim in an unprecedented way. No measuring device can gauge the effect the past weeks have had on the hearts of Jews far from Torah and mitzvos.

There are many masks and barriers standing before hundreds of thousands of Jews -- tinokos shenishbu -- that hide and obstruct from view the good and enchanting things in our forefathers' ways. Worldly vanities, anti-religious incitement, deflecting people's attention to inconsequential matters and most of all, ignorance.

Secular children, teenagers and even adults know nothing about chareidi Judaism and the vast majority of them do not know the fundamentals of their own religion. They are proud of their Judaism but are unable to pin down of what it consists. When they try it sounds so hollow and empty, they would have been better off leaving it undefined.

The media, the window on the world, shows what it wants to show and usually it opts to emphasize the negative. By the way, the media does not do this to chareidim alone. The media's unwritten tenet is that bad is more interesting than good and what is interesting is what sells. Still, an attitude of contempt and revulsion is generally reserved for the chareidim.

And then something happened. A horrific attack in a chareidi neighborhood in Jerusalem. The media expected the usual ritual of alternating between the sorrow felt by the families of the victims to allegations against the government for policies too far to the right/left, demonstrations and outbursts of anger, alongside accusations of technical or security failures.

But this time something different happened. When something different takes place it piques the media's interest and then the media aims its floodlights, allowing everyone to see what happened.

Although for us this was not new, it is worthwhile to try to see from an outsider's perspective the difference that caused this astonishment and wonder.

It is said a man can be judged by how he acts in a time of grief. The same rule applies to an entire sector of the public as well. Twenty funerals were held and at none of them could anybody be seen waving signs, crying out against the government or raging against a soft-on-terrorism policy. It simply was not an issue. The chareidi sector has never attributed death or tragedy to an individual or organization, but only to HaKodosh Boruch Hu's Will. The first sentence uttered when somebody passes away, even the most beloved person and the greatest tragedy is, "Boruch Dayan ho'emmes." We bless HaKodosh Boruch Hu for his decree. Afterwards one says, "Hashem gave and Hashem took away. May Hashem's Name be blessed."

And beyond that, nothing else. The Jewish-Arab conflict? Heavy- handedness? The assassinations policy? Who could care less at a time like this? People dear to us went to the Next World because that's what HaKodosh Boruch Hu wanted, and if any investigating has to be done it is mainly fixing and self-evaluation among all of those involved.

Everybody can understand that on the surface this is impossible: that at twenty funerals not a single voice of politics is heard, just subdued sorrow and Tziduk Hadin. This type of behavior is the result of strong emunoh and education. And thus the chareidi public was displayed in all its glory at the levayos of the kedoshim, with the great expanse of its spirit and emunoh laid bare.

This conduct had a powerful effect on the secular public, which has been trying to cope with its fears and inability to understand why people die, or for that matter, why they are born. This sector views death as an absolute end after which there is nothing. Likewise life is not so great for them because one day it all comes to an end. And for all they know the end could come tomorrow, chas vesholom.

Take a look at a few reactions by journalists and you will realize what a great kiddush Hashem took place.

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Under the headline "Learning from the Chareidim," journalist Gidon Levy, known for his pro-Palestinian stance, wrote the following:

"There was something that awakened respect in the way the chareidi community accepted the horrifying attack. Secular society, in which hatred toward chareidim has come to be a central value, can learn from them how to deal with a terror attack and what conclusions can be drawn from the atrocity. While after every attack the majority of Israelis are accustomed to denouncing only those behind the attack without thinking that perhaps there was something in their own deeds that brought the tragedy upon them, it was very impressive to see how the chareidim searched for blame among themselves. The direction of their scrutiny could not fail to impress for its courage and strength."

At this point Gidon Levy penned perhaps his very first words of criticism against his beloved Palestinians: "The Palestinians are also invited to adopt this way of searching for blame within themselves before coming out with accusations against the whole world."

His father-in-law at Ma'ariv wrote, "The restrained reaction of the chareidi families and the chareidi sector in general to the attack in Jerusalem stirred a general sense of admiration and a good measure of envy among the large secular majority. The belief that all is in Divine control provided those who cling to it a remedy for the pain and an inner strength far out of reach of the nonbeliever . . . "

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Yoram Kaniuk, an anti-religious novelist who acknowledges that over the course of his 73 years he has not written a single kind word about the chareidim, did so for the first time, unhesitatingly, following Jerusalem's terrorist attack. His article, headlined "The Nobility of the Chareidim," will make you rub your eyes with disbelief.

"Instead of feelings of hatred and vengeance in light of the attack in Jerusalem, the chareidim are asking themselves what sins they committed. [On a nationally broadcasted news program] interviewer Shelly Yachimovich spoke very wisely on our attitude toward the chareidim and of their strength in times of distress.

"I've been thinking about this ever since the day the bus exploded in Jerusalem. The bus was packed with chareidim. Most of the casualties- -the dead and the wounded, some of them critically--were chareidim or their children. If this type of tragedy had happened to secular Israelis . . . their cries of grief would have immediately sought out the guilty parties: the government, the bus company, the lack of security guards, and of course the usual cries of `Death to the Arabs' and the terrible and justified anger against the human agent that brought the tragedy down upon them . . .

"With a sort of nobility devoid of pathos they live in a world that lies outside of history. The truths of the world [sic] are not their truths. They live in a world in which HaKodosh Boruch Hu loves the Jewish people and whatever befalls a person is his own doing. HaKodosh Boruch Hu stipulated to His Chosen People that they must fulfill the mitzvos and do good in His eyes, and He need not explain what this good is.

"The chareidim do not believe that calamities occur at random. There is always One in charge and He knows what He's doing. When I saw how they stood and prayed over their own blood, with terrible grief and restrained horror, begging G-d to forgive them, I could only be envious that my forefathers were like them . . .

"We live in a world in which [commercialization is an integral part of life.] . . . The chareidim have nothing to do with this. They are not interested in Immanuel Kant, Bach, Beethoven, or the question of how much a pair of Reeboks cost. When tragedy strikes them they seek to understand within their hearts, through prayer, what evil might have been committed by those who have never sinned . . . But their strength to withstand curses, terror and calamities is a strength that we, with all of our teachings--our various "Torahs"--do not know. We disparage them, but they pity us.

"I never believed that at the age of 73 I would write an article praising the chareidim, who live as my father and grandfather did . . . But the moments after the tragedy in Jerusalem made me realize something that I had not fully appreciated. And it would not hurt us to try to understand the nature of their elegant and pained stance at a time when the soul cries out for vengeance . . ."

These were a few of the intense reactions that opened a porthole through which millions of Jews got a glimpse of their believing brethren, and what emunoh does to their souls and their ability to endure.

In their deaths the twenty martyrs sanctified Shem Shomayim throughout the world and within us, the living, who are commanded to carry on the great thing they brought about through their deaths.

May Hashem avenge their deaths and may their souls be gathered in eternal life.

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