02 Aug THE DANGER OF PASSIVITY

Willpower.

A woman is leaving

her multimillion

-dollar mansion in

Beverly Hills when

a poor man

approaches her and

cries, “Oh ma’am, I

haven’t eaten in three days.” To which the

woman responds: “I am so envious of you; I

wish had your willpower.” Three Prophets

An intriguing Midrash states that three of the

great Jewish personalities communicated

their prophecies using an identical Hebrew

term, eicha, which means “how” or “alas.”

The first one to utter this word was Moses.

At the beginning of this week’s portion,

Devarim, Moses, speaking during the last

weeks of his life, recalls how many years

earlier he shared with his people his

profound frustration as the leader of Israel. “I

said to you at that time, ‘I cannot carry you

alone…How (eicha) can I carry your

contentiousness, your burdens, and your

quarrels if I am all by myself ?” The second

was Isaiah. In the opening chapter of Isaiah,

this extraordinary man of G-d laments the

moral degeneration of Jerusalem and its

Jewish inhabitants 700 years after Moses’

death . “How—eicha—has the faithful city

become a prostitute?” Isaiah cries. “She was

full of justice, righteousness lodged in her,

but now murderers .” The third was

Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s heart-wrenching book

of Lamentations, written 200 years after

Isaiah and depicting the bloody destruction

of Jerusalem, opens with the word “Eicha,”

alas. “Alas—she sits in solitude! The city

that was great with people has become like a

widow.” The Midrash concludes: Said Rabbi

Levi, it is compared to a noblewoman who

had three friends. One saw her in her

negligence, one saw her in her recklessness,

and one saw her in her degenerateness. So

did Moses see Israel in their honor, and in

their negligence, and he said, “How will I

carry their burden alone?” Isaiah saw them

in their recklessness, and he said “How she

has become a prostitute…” Jeremiah saw

them in their degenerateness, and he said,

“How does she dwell…” Three Linked

Messages It is logical to assume that the

Midrash is not making a random observation

of three people using the same term. Rather,

the Midrash is attempting to tell us that there

exists a subtle link between the three

messages of Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. It

is this connection that compelled the three

prophets to choose the dramatic term “eicha”

for their conversations with the people of

Israel . On the surface, no link is

visible. Moses was discussing the

enormous burden of leadership;

Isaiah, the ugliness of promiscuity;

and Jeremiah the tragedy of loss. Yet,

the Midrash is hinting to us that these

three messages are not only

intertwined but actually evolve one

from another. The Tragedy of Silence

What was Moses’ complaint? This

great leader, “Whom G-d had known

face to face,” was not lamenting his

stressful schedule or the lack of time

for leisure. What perturbed Moses

was that he was the only one taking

ultimate responsibility for the fate of the

nation. Others were willing to assist during

their free time, but it was only Moses who

felt that the needs and struggles of the people

of Israel were his own. “How (eicha) can I

carry your contentiousness, your burdens,

and your quarrels if I am all by myself?”

Moses cries. If only one person is ready to

put himself on the line in the fight for a

better world, while others just emit a sigh

and go on with their personal affairs, we are

bound to crumble. The triumph of evil does

not occur as a result of the perpetrators of

evil per se; it happens because of the many

ordinary men and women who don’t care

enough to stand up for what is right. When

ordinary people of good moral standing

lose the courage or willingness to

protest injustice, morality is dead. This

is what Moses protested: the notion that

ordinary people need not share equal

responsibility in mending the world,

combating immorality, and

transforming human society into an

abode for G-d. Aicha, says the Midrash

elsewhere, is comprised of the same

letters as the word Ayekah, the question

G-d asks Adam after eating from the

Tree of Knowledge: Where are you?!

The Aicha becomes a call for Ayekah.

The cry of Moses’ “How can I carry you

alone” ultimately evolved into the

second stage of degeneration, which

reached its peak during the time of

Isaiah. “How has the faithful city

become a prostitute?” Isaiah asked.

“She was full of justice, righteousness

lodged in her, but now murderers.”

How indeed? Because Moses was left

alone on the front lines of the

battlefield for goodness and morality.

When multitudes of people of moral

stature do not feel an urgent

responsibility to combat the flames of

hate and evil burning in their society, a

city once full of justice becomes,

instead, a haven for murderers; a city of

light turns into darkness. Isaiah’s call of

“How has the faithful city become a

prostitute,” evolved into the third stage

of degeneration, when Jerusalem

destroyed itself, reaching the abyss

during the days of Jeremiah.

“Alas—she sits in solitude! The city

that was great with people has become

like a widow,” he lamented. The three

“eicha’s” represent three levels of

moral degeneration: Passivity,

destruction, and isolation.

Contemporary Jewish Silence This painful

truth was demonstrated once again in most

recent times, during the destruction of our

brothers and sisters in Jerusalem and in the

entire land of Israel, following the signing of

the Oslo accords in 1996 and the Gaza

withdrawal in 2005. The tragedy of Oslo was

twofold. Israel withdrew from most of its

own territories, facilitating the creation of a

massive terrorist infrastructure right at its

back door. And Israel extended incredible

tolerance toward the terrorists, allowing

them to continue the bloodshed. Following

the Gaza withdrawal, leaving it vacant of

every Jew, Gaza was transformed to

Hamastan, committed to the destruction of

Israel. Tens of thousands of rockets were

launched from Gaza, targeting innocent

civilians. Yet this was not solely the result of

erroneous decisions by some self-deceived

individuals on the top of the

government—the late Yitzchak Rabin,

Shimon Peres, Yossi Sarid, Ahud Almert

and Ariel Sharon. Such a perverse

perspective on good and evil could have

been fermented only because so many decent

and nice people in Israel and abroad

succumbed to the temptation of remaining

silent and politically correct. The same is

true concerning every crisis—physical or

spiritual—that faces our people today, from

mass assimilation to inner conflict and

disharmony, to domestic abuse, teenage

despair, and the dangers of Anti-Semitism

the world over. If we rely on “Moses” to do

all the caring for us, our future is

endangered. Every individual ought to lose a

little bit of sleep because of his or her

personal concern on how to bring

redemption to a hurting world. “Why Did

You Not Faint”? A moving tale: Rabbi

Yisroel Meir Kagen, the saintly Chafatz

Chaim (1838-1933), once dispatched a

delegation of Jewish representatives to the

Polish prime minister in an attempt to nullify

a new decree against Jewish ritual

slaughtering (shechitah). Upon their return,

they reported to the great rabbi that their

mission was a failure. “The minister did not

understand our Yiddish, and the translator

did not do a good job conveying our

message,” the delegation reported. “Yes,

yes,” cried the Chafatz Chaim. “But why did

none of you faint? Had one of you been

genuinely affected by the decree against

Judaism as to faint, the prime minister

would have understood you very well,” he

concluded.