Rav Yehonason provided an answer he heard from Rav Chaim Ozer Feldman of London many years ago, but I would like to provide a different answer related to this week’s events.
Thinking about the person who was niftar is supposed to help us in appreciating that person’s good qualities and figuring out how we can improve ourselves by emulating him. However, remembering Joshua as a person who performed miracles, and is therefore so far above us, will not help us concentrate on his good qualities, nor will it lead to self-improvement. We will instead think that because his qualities are so much better than ours, we cannot learn from him. But the mourning experience is supposed to train our attention on the niftar and on what we can learn from him.
It’s easy to focus on the brutality and violence of last week, of the murderers who did not value life, who only wanted to destroy and ruin. In doing so, it is easy to forget to think about the niftarim, to understand they were people we can emulate. The fact that their deaths al Kiddush Hashem are so distant from our own experience should not dominate our perception. Rather these kedoshim should provide an impetus for us to grow and become more kadosh ourselves.
Janet S. Sunness, M.D.
(Via E-Mail)
Editor’s Note: Dr. Sunness is medical director of Richard E. Hoover Low Vision Rehabilitation Services at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and an occasional contributor to The Jewish Press.