Not long ago an elderly lady came to my office. She could hardly speak; her tears were choking her voice. “Rebbetzin,” she gasped, “for the last eight years my son and daughter-in-law have not spoken to me. Last week, their daughter, my sweet granddaughter, was married. I of course was not invited. Nevertheless I gathered my courage and went anyway. I just wanted to give my granddaughter a kiss and wish her Mazal Tov…”
At this point the grandmother stopped. She started weeping uncontrollably. When she finally caught her breath, she blurted out, “Rebbetzin, they had a bouncer waiting, he removed me by force! And would you believe it – no one protested. No one spoke up, no one came to my aid.”
I have heard many stories, one more bizarre than the other, but this was a new low and I had difficulty absorbing it.
How is it, I asked myself, that after the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust and nearly 2,000 years of exile, the sin of hatred of Kamtza and bar Kamtza continues to plague us? The pain is too awful to contemplate.
(To Be Continued)
