This week we were all shocked when we heard about the terrible tragedy in Beit Zeit. A yeshiva student, a tender and young man, drowned in the watery swamp in front of his unfortunate friends who were desperate for help. The tragedy is double, because even when rescue workers arrived at the scene, they were not allowed to enter the reservoir for safety and health reasons.
The terrifying situation of waiting for the ZAKA divers to retrieve the boy's dead body from the water, knowing that in those minutes the young man was suffocating to death and suffocating from the contaminated water, had the power to leave a mark of death and fear not only in the hearts of the deceased's family members, but also in the minds and souls of the tender young men who stood at the water's edge.
The blood of the revered young man, the son of saints, a student of a respected yeshiva in Jerusalem, is still boiling and bubbling - and the bereavement is still in our hearts. This is not the place to examine, investigate and understand why the tragedy occurred and under what circumstances. But this is certainly the time and the occasion to raise a few words about the 'neighbor' method. Not the Israeli one, but the 'Haredi' one.
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Yeshiva students are the crown of creation, there is no doubt about that. The abolition of self-will and the enslavement of the innermost personal point to the words of Torah and holiness alone are not found anywhere in the world, and certainly not during the most difficult ages of adolescence. The age, which throughout the world is defined as the age of rebellion and rebellion in which there is no complete control over the adolescent boy, is defined precisely in the yeshiva world as the most successful and most important time for building the Torah-based and compassionate personality of the yeshiva student. Happy Talmudei Tochami.
As part of building the Torah personality, the yeshiva world elevates the inner "I" of the yeshiva student. The adolescent boy learns at the age of fourteen and up that he is the crown of creation, that the world was created for him, and that the family of Torah students is the one that holds the world together with the power of the Torah. And so develops the worldly glory of hundreds of thousands of Tishchorot who recognize their worth and know their inner and outer place, which causes them to rise first as human beings and only then as Torah personalities. Complicated? Not if your hand touched the doorknob of the yeshiva world. My hand touched it, and it still does.
This tremendous feeling is what can bring a person to enormous heights in the best case. And to develop an overly independent personality, in the worst case. And it is worth considering the worst case.
Haredi Judaism, and forgive me now for those who are clucking their tongues - the victims of internal criticism, has developed the system of the neighbor that has the power to kill, corrupt, and lose.
This pure and innocent belief of "it will be alright" is true in all walks of life, but it requires certain conditions for its opening. It is impossible that a trip to Nahal Datrog - as a proverb - would require three and a half minutes' notice and equipment that does not exceed a "Negan Amp Pi Shleus" and elegant "Paco Rabanne" shoes. It is impossible that a trip to "Shabbat Safed" would require a nice neighbor who would agree to lend it as a gift, not in order to return the 1992 Toyota Corolla that he owns, and a few disposable dishes from the yeshiva kitchen without a minyan or a number. All this when the brilliant idea of going to Safed flashed in the mind of the yeshiva's on-duty sha'ar on a winter Friday afternoon.
There is no doubt that these methods have proven themselves to be quite effective. I was a teenager and an old man, and I had time to experience firsthand this legendary thrill of 'say little and do much.' The soles of my 'Aldo' shoes (a kind of current 'Paco Rabanne') stamped passports on dozens of hiking trails for the 'best walkers' and the 'brave of spirit' that are now unlikely to be accessible to anything that is not round and rubbery. Like everyone else, we trusted the senior driver who only got his driver's license two months ago, and is now making the journey for the first time on the Jerusalem-Tiberias line. And like most of them, we reached the terrible and terrifying stage of disillusionment and a piercing reckoning with the meanness of human life that came precisely from the highest place of 'human greatness.'.
The latest tragic incident has the power to send a red and prominent warning sign, and if not to the teenage boys, then to their parents. The pain and pity turn to anger and rage when one hears that large and prominent signs greeted the boys upon their arrival at Lake Beit Zeit, declaring a clear and tangible danger from the water and prohibiting bathing there. God forbid we judge each person individually. But the drowning is nothing more than a symptom of a well-known and painful state of 'it will be alright' that is all too prevalent in the Haredi community.
Wise people, be careful on your vacation.
