Two years ago, I
had the privilege of traveling to a European city with three
other Israelis; all of us victims of terror through losing
friends, family or limbs.
This was the first ever gathering of victims of terror from
all over the world. We hardly knew what to expect. For
myself, the only terror victims I had come to know since the
murder of my daughter were people who live in my immediate
neighborhood – there are six such families – or other
Israelis whom I met through gatherings of bereaved families
arranged by One Family, by Bituach Leumi and by other local
organizations.
I wondered whether we would find a common language; whether
the fear and the pain we have gotten to know in our own
lives would be reflected in the lives of others from
different places and different backgrounds.
The experience turned out to be a surprising one. Before
even arriving in the European city where the congress would
take place, and two weeks before it began, a message came
from the organizers: Do not come. A delegation of
Israeli victims of terror is not wanted, not welcome. This
is not for you. If you insist on coming, you can pay the fee
at the door and take a seat like everyone else, but you will
not be recognized officially, you will not be treated as
representatives of a participating country, and you will not
be invited to speak. You are persona non grata - do not
come.
Naturally, we went.
There were many hundreds of people in the congress hall when
we took our seats. Just five minutes before the congress got
underway, a local, quite senior politician known for his
warm feelings towards Israel, accompanied by one of the
local Israeli diplomats, introduced himself to me. He asked
if I would be willing to join the opening panel of speakers.
I agreed of course, and while it was never completely clear
to me how or why he managed to arrange this, I busied myself
with jotting down some notes.
Then two minutes later as I walked towards the platform, he
tapped my arm again, and said: “But don’t talk politics.”
Five other panelists spoke before me, most of them
describing the struggle with terror in their countries in a
fairly political manner. When my turn came, I spoke of how
Israeli victims try to find strength in their family
circles. I spoke of the One Family organization and its work
and of the fine work of Bituach Leumi, Israel’s social
security administration. And above all, I spoke of the
silence that all of us here know so well in our homes – the
silence of grieving for a precious life stolen from us by
barbarians.
When I sat down, one after another of the ordinary people
taking part in the congress – those who did not get invited
to speak on the platform – approached me with warm words in
a foreign language unknown to me. Their faces, and some
kindly interpreters, helped me understand how strongly they
were able to relate to the shared human experience which I
related. That I spoke – with the help of simultaneous
translation – as an Israeli father of a child murdered by
hatred was perfectly understandable to them. In their eyes,
we were not personae non grata. We were colleagues in a
shared experience, traveling along a similar and very
difficult road.
Only after I resumed my seat did I become aware that seated
in the hall as honored guests while we terror victims spoke
were the ambassadors of Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian
Authority!
Two days later, an opportunity presented itself for my
colleagues and me to meet with the top echelon of foreign
ministry officials in that country. The discussion was
proper and correct but far from warm, and ended on a strange
note. The senior politician present in the room, somewhat
irritated, I presume, by several of the things we Israelis
said, wrapped up the meeting by saying that in his country,
there was real, pure terrorism, with truly
innocent victims. We Israelis needed to understand, he
generously explained, that our children are being murdered
because of a political struggle, by unresolved political
problems. We needed to hold our government responsible
because our government had to find a political solution and
had failed to do this in terms that the international
community would accept. His government, on the other hand,
was fighting evil and would prevail.
I managed to get in the last word and said that the
terrorism of the sort which has cost us so many lives in
Israel does not respect national borders and that in this
sense we are a tragic kind of canary in the coal mine.
Four weeks later on 11th March 2004, the trains blew up in
Madrid. The Spanish government fell in elections three days
after that, and the entire mood in Spain, the country which
hosted that first congress of terror victims, underwent a
fundamental change. No longer was theirs a struggle with
Basque separatists but with terrorists, with Jihadists, from
another place altogether. The message we Israelis had tried
to convey was, I think, better understood in the wake of
those dramatic events.
Since that first gathering, I have had the privilege of
taking part in two more international congress of terror
victims, one in 2005 and one in February of this year, as
Israel’s representative. Now Israel is received as a member
of this community of shared pain, with something to learn
and something to teach.
Meeting other parents from other places, whose experiences
are both so familiar to me and so different from the events
of my life and the lives of the members of my family, has
been extraordinary. We have many things in common – above
all, the sense that the painful experience of surviving the
murder of a loved spouse, parents, sibling or child is a
very long term process.
We all know, even while the pop-psychologists evidently do
not, that there is no closure, no moving on, no bringing the
pain of loss to an end, none of those cliches. We are in
fact in a life-time struggle of trying to make a decent life
for ourselves and our families after encountering the most
unthinkable kind of violent hatred. By and large, with all
of the help that friends, family and community can provide,
this remains a lonely, private, intimate and isolating
process.
For my wife and me, one of the sources of great wisdom in
this has been a figure from the recent history of our great
and troubled people – a figure who remains, even today,
relatively unknown and under-appreciated. Harav Kalonymus
Kalman Shapira z”l, known as the Esh Kodesh, was the
Piasetschner Rebbe. He is better known today as the Rebbe of
the Warsaw Ghetto. His writings come to us because of an
astonishingly heroic act. He buried his shiurim and writings
in a milk can which emerged from the dirt of Warsaw only in
the nineteen fifties, long after he had been turned to dust
by the Nazis.
These rediscovered pages give voice to an experience that is
almost unique in Jewish history or any history. Rabbi
Shapira, the Esh Kodesh, led his people at a time of
unimaginable suffering, of contradictions and challenges of
the most profound, the most incomprehensible kind. And in
the end, the Esh Kodesh – a year before his life ended in a
Nazi work-camp – fell totally silent.
In his commentary on the Parshah of Shabbat Nachamu,
Rav Shapira writes:
It is not our
own loss that causes us pain. It is the knowledge – in
the face of so many brachot in the Torah which
emphasize this – that we are promised arichat yamim…
something which our children were not granted. Their
lives were snuffed out like a candle, ended in the prime
of their lives. What sort of comfort can there be for
this, if they are not alive? Nachamu nachamu ami
– says the pasuk.
But where is it
to be found, this comfort (this nechama)? The
pasuk continues: Yomar Elokeicheim, meaning,
the Esh Kadosh explains, through techiyat ha-metim.
What is the comfort for the untimely and cruel loss of
the life of one’s child? Nothing. There is none. None.
Only Hashem by means of techiyat ha-metim (the
promised resurrection of the dead). Nothing less will serve
as a comfort for a parent bereaved of a child. The Esh
Kadosh knows this. He experienced loss of this kind himself
and in his community in the Warsaw Ghetto. His writings,
inspired by the events of his life, are uniquely powerful,
filled with insight.
One Family and its founders, its staff, its volunteers, its
supporters play a role of the utmost importance. They
achieve so much simply by being attuned to the struggle that
each of us is conducting within our own families, and with
the society around us.
With notable exceptions, we – the community of victims of
terror - will not recover… because we are not sick. It is
not sickness. A refuah shleimah is not what we
need.
In his commentary on Parshat Hukat, the Esh Kodesh
says
In order to
arouse compassion in Heaven upon Israel, and to sweeten
the strict judgments, we must all arouse in our hearts
compassion for other Jews. Not only must we give all we
can to them [in a material sense] but the very feeling
of compassion which we arouse in our own hearts
has a positive effect in Heaven.
צריכים שלא
להתרגל בצרות ישראל, כלומר ריבוי הצרות לא יטשטשו בקרבנו
ולא יכהו את הרחמנות על ישראל. אדרבה, צריך הלב כמעט להיות
נמוג ח"ו מצרות כאלו
We must not become accustomed to the suffering
of Jews. To the contrary, our hearts must melt from such
bitter troubles.
To its very great
credit, One Family has taken upon itself the responsibility
to sensitize the Family of Israel to the suffering of Jews.
This compassion, the melting of hearts in the face of such
bitter troubles, is indispensable to the process of arousing
the mercy of Heaven.
Thank you, One Family.
