Our Broken Hearts

 In Judaism, we are taught to believe that everything happens for the best, and for a purpose. It’s straight out of the Rambam’s 13 Principles of Faith. But what happens when we witness such horrors, such subhuman, bestial behavior? How do we keep our emuna strong that this too is for the best? When we hear of the latest victim of a brutal murder- beautiful, sweet, innocent, Leiby Kletzky? We wonder- how can Hashem let such an angelic creature be murdered in the most barbaric and sickening of ways? How does this evil being even deserve one more second of life? Being a mother of three young boys, I cannot even imagine the unbearable pain his poor parents are going through. How can they go on living? How do they not melt into the floor in a puddle of absolute misery? My heart is breaking for them. May Hashem comfort his parents among the mourners of Israel and Zion.
 
If it were not for my introduction into the concept of emuna through Rabbi Brody and Rav Arush, I, too, would be thinking heretical thoughts, wondering how G-d could let such a thing happen. I would probably be wondering how in the world this is supposed to be for the best. Maybe I wouldn’t even wonder that far. Maybe I would just write it off like most people do, as yet another unchecked injustice done in this world. But where does this kind of thinking leave us? We become victims of life, and an unfair-looking one at that.
 
It happens to be that after hearing about this tragedy, I remembered a parable that Rav Arush once told about a similar situation, in which a young boy is abducted and murdered. Eventually, the father dies, and the mother loses all of her emuna. One night in a dream, the husband comes to her, and shows her who her son is. He is a big tzaddik, teaching others in Heaven, basking in the Light of Heaven. Everything is beautiful there. No pain, no suffering. Everyone there sees the big picture. So why did he have to suffer such a horrible death as a young boy? Is this the payment one gets for being righteous?
 
G-d forbid! We live in a world where our senses see everything backwards. What’s bad is good and what’s good is bad. How many people do you see running after modesty and cutting out  shrimp cocktails? Very few, at least where I live. So why did he die? Rav Arush explains a fundamental  concept in Kabbalah- when there is severe judgement hanging over a large group of people, Hashem will accept one perfect sacrifice to atone for the entire group. Lieby Kletzky was that perfect sacrifice.
 
In a world where there is no Holy Temple (yet) to enable us to bring sacrifices to atone for our sins, this is the next option. The great Rabbis of this and former generations say that we are sitting at the 49^th level of impurity, just like the Jews were at the time they lived in Egypt. We are drowning in our own debauchery, our insatiable physical desires, our egos and arrogance. Our society is spiraling out of control- nothing is off limits anymore. There is no moral code to hold by for those that don’t follow a Torah lifestyle. Everything goes. If the Jews living in Egypt hit the 50^th level, there would have been no turning back. They would have been obliterated from reality. In order to rescue them from such a horrible fate, Hashem had to force them out of Egypt. So they went, kicking and screaming, complaining at every chance they got. That redemption was a free gift, one we didn’t earn.
 
Now we find ourselves in a scarily similar situation. How much longer will Hashem substitute his perfect children as sacrifices for our transgressions? How much longer will He wait patiently for us to return to Him and fulfill our obligations to ourselves and to the world? It seems from the more frequent murders of righteous Jews that He is not going to wait that much longer. Then what? What will become of us? How much harder will the tests of emuna have to get before we wake up and return to Him of our own accord?
 
Or will our Father have to, once again, drag us kicking and screaming, out of our own mud and into His realm of purity? It’s our choice, and we need to choose quickly. Time is running out.