Where is the outcry when we are crushed like never before, muted and silenced? * Everything we need to learn has been entrusted to us. It is up to us to be the mouthpiece of leadership - and more importantly, to live it ourselves.
By Rabbi Boruch Merkur
There is a war raging and in fear we wear masks, terrified of an invisible, silent killer.
Thirty years ago, in the Gulf War, it was fear of biological weapons. We wore gas masks and huddled together in shelters. Now in lockdown, we are secluded. When we are forced to go out and risk an encounter with someone, we muzzle our faces and wear masks. We don’t even bother to say hello. We are silent and cold, like never before.
For most Jews, simchas are nearly impossible. Yeshivas surround with police cars; officers interrogate staff and student alike. It is the biggest disaster for Jewish education since Soviet Russia. The opportunity to congregate to pray is a closing window, slammed full shut in many places.
Everywhere. Silence.
As the war rages, a lucky young man still has a shul to go to. Aflame with the rage for those who cannot, his whispered prayers betray the need for silence – still life prayer. The congregant who turns around to hush him isn’t wearing a mask, so he hushes him, finger to lip, shhh!
Afterwards, a discussion ensues. Only on Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur may one breach the silence of the Silent Prayer. When our fate throughout the year is being determined, everyone is so focused that nearby sounds do not disturb.
Do we still not get it? We still don’t feel the abundant pain? Where is the outcry when we are crushed like never before? Are these not Days of Awe, Days of Wrath? We are muted and silenced.
Our Sages teach, “All who go out to wage war for the House of David write a get krisus, a bill of divorce,”[1] “relinquishing possession of everything he has … to throw himself totally into war.”[2]
This young man had had enough of this inexplicable apathy and forced silence, he went to the generals to get a get and go out to war. Surely our leaders get it…
They don’t: You can’t just devoid previous commitments! You cannot go to war without consent!
Zoom out.
*
“Between apathy and heresy there is a very thin barrier,”[3] a thin sheet of material, but just enough to muzzle all but the most authentic outcry - or battlecry.
But we have a leader who has blazed the path for us. He trusts that we know when things just aren’t right. That is our battlefield:
When Divine service is motivated by victory, any opposition is completely irrelevant. Even if the opposition is not regarding something fundamental, such as a Biblical commandment, or even if it’s not against a Rabbinical Mitzva, even if it does not oppose a lenient Rabbinical nuance, but one just knows it is not in line with the Supernal will (and thus it opposes G-d’s will), he engages his entire being to defeat it. He gives not only his body and Animal Soul, but also his precious treasures - his life itself and the life of his G-dly soul.
The power to achieve victory is through Divine assistance, the squandering of all the treasuries from Above. Since there must be a massive war, to the point of jeopardizing one’s very life and the life of his or her G-dly soul, also the assistance that comes from Above is the squandering of the most precious treasures of all.[4]
The treasures of course are the revolutionary teachings of p’nimius ha’Torah, the inner dimension of the Torah. This is the battlecry we must voice to the world.
Everything we need to hear has been spoken, taught, and given to us from the commander in chief himself, the Rebbe. It is up to us to be his mouthpiece - and more importantly, to live it ourselves. That is the authentic cry of victory.
NOTES:
[1] Shabbos 36a, K’suvos 9b. See the address of Simchas Torah 5661.
[2] Basi L’Gani 5721, 1st maamer, section 7
[3] Sicha of 5661
[4] Basi L’Gani 5721, 2nd maamer, section 11