Sometimes, reality surpasses all imagination. Sometimes, a writer takes his personal feeling and turns it into the feeling of the "general public", while applying his emotional detachment to everyone, and turning his words into a bad name for an entire public.
That's exactly what the columnist, Menachem Mann, did here, claiming that the Haredi public doesn't care about the kidnapped because they don't belong to it. It's just that the claims he makes are baseless, exactly the kind of claims after which you have to prove not only that your sister didn't do anything, but that you don't have a sister at all.
In my head I hear the creaking of a movie, back in time, back to Friday afternoon. Like every Friday, I was happily busy preparing for Shabbat, while the news – in violation of a gag order – about the kidnapping of the boys – raged in my head. I froze. I fell silent. Emotionally unable to bear the shock and pain alone, I called my mother and told her about what was happening. After that, I simply didn’t know what was happening to me. The fact that I arrived at Shabbat with everything I needed to be ready is a miracle in itself, because in my loss of temper, I forgot a few basic things that I remembered I hadn’t prepared right before the siren sounded.
An update call I made to tell my mother that the news had been officially published proved to me that her situation was the same. She sounded like she had come out of hiding. On Shabbat night, we sang one hymn, to fulfill our duty. We were no longer able. I have hardly slept the nights since. The nightmare of the three boys crying for help plays in my head. The worry of their families – I worried. On Shabbat night, I walked to the mass prayer at the Western Wall, and on Sunday, even though after two nights and three days of almost sleepless worry, every bone in my body ached – I joined the mass prayer again.
But this is not just about me, in my personal feelings. As someone who has an internet connection in their family and many friends who do not, I have received many phone calls or e-mails from those whose connection is only to e-mail. All the messages express concern, even before asking if there is anything new. Many of those interested are, like my mother, whom I mentioned here, those who have stopped engaging in "Nies" altogether. They asked because the pain pierced the chambers of their hearts, just like mine.
Not a chapter or years
Following the accusatory column published here in Haredim10, I checked myself again. I wasn't lazy, I called a sample of people – from all corners of society: Sephardim from different streams, Lithuanians from different and opposing yeshivahs, and Hasidim. Apart from the well-known fact mentioned in advance in Mann's harsh column, that everyone prays every day and not, not "a chapter or two" or "our brothers all the house of Israel" – in educational institutions they finish entire books of Psalms, and in various communities they have held conferences for women to pray for them.
My sister told me that her school was discussing the issue and distributing materials calling for prayer and strength, and from the maternity hospital in "Telz Stone," a mother-in-law staying there told me, the shocking and painful conversations dealt with the intense emotions between despair and hope. Everyone I asked was preoccupied with the deep pain and shock resulting from the kidnapping of these boys.
A person who doesn't care doesn't pray at all. If the writer wants to claim that prayer stems from a "newsworthy issue," he had better know: First, as mentioned, many who pray are far from such an occupation. Second, such an issue is fading quickly, but prayers certainly haven't. From the columnist's harsh text, it seemed as if he was searching underground for a pretext to lash out at the public, who had finished tens of thousands of Psalms in the last five days, and who had experienced sleepless nights of worry - a matter I had heard about from many acquaintances - about the fate of the boys.
Memory tests?
Without data and based on wild guesswork, the only "proof" the author wants to rely on is the claim that the public does not know the names by heart. Well, this is a claim that is not even worth the fraction of the electricity it consumes in the keyboard typing that created it. Many people do not remember names by heart, and no, not everyone remembered the names of the Gross family by heart, when praying for a number of names they write them down on a piece of paper and in any case do not bother to remember them by heart. This proof is so ridiculous and shaky that the author should have been ashamed to use it – and since this is his only proof, all his claims have faded into insignificance.
And finally, a small sociological note: A person is close to himself. We are closer to our family, our neighbors, the members of our community and the members of the sector to which we belong, than to those who are further away. If my secular neighbor dies in a car accident, it will probably shock me more than if an ultra-Orthodox person dies somewhere in the world under the same circumstances. Familiarity and a sense of belonging dominate our emotions. Precisely because of this fact, all the arguments raised by the writer, citing facts that he himself is aware of, become a huge compliment to the ultra-Orthodox public, which, although not so connected to the national religious public, feels the pain intensely and cares. Very much.
Check it out at a yeshiva near your home.
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