I close my eyes and see their faces. Their bright ‘gingy’ hair, their sparkling eyes, their sweet grins. They are the children of us all, snatched away, terrorized, and murdered. Who can fathom this crime? Who steals and slaughters children? What kind of monster of a man can snuff the life out of an innocent child with his bare hands?
The words of the malach come alive. “And an angel of Hashem said to her (Hagar), “Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son; you shall name him Yishmael…he shall be a pereh adam, a wild beast of a man, his hand against everyone.”
Do we not see this happening before our very eyes?
I recall growing up and hearing the question asked over and over. “Rebbetzin, how can you believe in G-d after the Holocaust? Where was G-d?” My mother’s eyes would flash with determination. ‘“The question is not where was G-d?” she would counter. “The real question is where was man? Where was man when six million were being shoved into cattle cars and burned in the crematoria? We were waiting for someone to say something, do something, bomb the railway stations as we were taken to the concentration camps. No one did a thing. The world remained silent.”’
My mother would describe being rounded up in the ghetto. The super of the synagogue had a daughter the same age as my mother. The two would play together in the courtyard of the shul. That dark night my mother held onto her only doll as the ghetto was being emptied of Jews. The little girl snatched the doll out of my mother’s hands.
“What are you doing, that’s my doll!” my mother cried.
The super spit onto the ground and laughed. “Where you are going, you will not be needing any dolls.”
When Kayin kills his brother Hevel, Hashem asks him, “Where is Hevel your brother?” And he said “I do not know. Hashomer achi anochi – Am I my brother’s keeper?”
We, too, can call out to the world ‘What happened?’
We can call out to the thousands of protestors marching for violence and terrorists. We can call out to the myriads of organizations that say they are here to protect the world’s children, stand for justice and help humanity. The college professors, the students, the politicians, and artists, the actors, the media, the international human rights organizations, the Red Cross, and the people of Gaza who have mercilessly allowed this grotesque perversion of humankind to continue.
They walk with indifference and say not a word to the atrocities happening before them. They shrug their shoulders to the carnival-like atmosphere as hostages are forced to wave and smile on stage, even kiss the ones who abused and tortured them.
Has the world gone mad? Is there no shame?
“Then Hashem said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!”
In the stillness of the night, the blood of our brothers cries out from the ground. Six million cries shaking the heavens above. And now, the cries of Ariel, Kfir, their mother Shiri, and oh, so many more, join together as one. The foundations of the world must be trembling.
I ask again, “World! Have you no shame?”
Our story continues. We stand alone. What will our comfort be?
We are entering the month of Adar. We read the megillah and see that Haman lived the same hatred as those who want to drive us into the sea, today. “Lehashmid, leharog uleabed es kol haYehudim – his goal was to destroy, kill, and eradicate every single Jew. Man, woman, and child. He lived in Persia, today’s Iran. How incredible!
The Jewish nation banded together. Esther asked that we gather as one and pray. When we are united, no power on earth can destroy us. When we cry out to Hashem as one, and use our koach of tefillah, the power of our lips, we enter the world of the Divine. We, the Jewish people, live above nature. We must only plug into the positive mazel of these days.
“Layehudim haysah orah vesimacha – and the Jews had light and joy.” The words of the megillah conclude with a promise to us today.
Walk in the footsteps of those who came before you.
Hashem’s hand may seem hidden but He is watching over you.
Never doubt it.
The King never sleeps.
