16 Dec CRYING FOR BONDI

I opened the door of my over-stuffed freezer,
and a large roast came tumbling out, right onto
my poor toes. OUCH!
No one was home, not a soul around to hear
me, yet I cried out in pain. Broken toes hurt.
In a lecture entitled “Scream if it Hurts”,
Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein z”l, said that it is
human, even instinctive, to cry out when in
pain. While it doesn’t make the pain go away,
nor does it alleviate the problem, we cry out.
Why? Because it hurts.
Rabbi Wallerstein shared that so it is with
spiritual and emotional pain. We must call out
to HaShem, even if we don’t see an immediate
fix. Cry, pray, call out to Him. Tefilla is the
voice of the neshama, calling out, I’m in pain,
it hurts. Help!
This past Sunday morning, I, like so many
others, woke up to the most devastating news.
A targeted terror attack at a Chanukah
gathering at Bondi Beach. What was meant to
be a time of light and celebration, became one
of darkness and mourning. A living nightmare.
For Jews worldwide, it is a time to scream – it
hurts so much. While the massacre was

thousands of miles away, while we may not
know the families of the victims, and we may
not know the injured, they are part of us. The
Jewish nation is family. We are all one. And
when any part of us is in pain, we cry out.
When I began writing these words, 11 holy
souls were lost. 29 painfully injured. The cruel

results of vicious hatred and evil anti-
Semitism. As the hours passed, the number of

kedoshim and injured continued to rise. 15
korbonos, innocent lives sacrificed, and over
40 injured.
Al eileh ani bochia, for these I cry. Each life
holy, each one precious. A heartbreak. An
unimaginable tragedy. Amongst them,
Rabbonim, a holocaust survivor, a survivor of
October 7, mothers, fathers, and a beautiful
10-year old girl. Each life lost is a world lost.
As a nation, we are in pain. Shocked to our
very core. I know I have written it before, but
my mother’s voice is haunting me. “Chaya
Sorale, I’m so frightened. I feel it happening
once again. The hatred, the anti-Semitism, the
violence.” Words not only spoken to me, but
shared by the Rebbetzin a”h in so many
lectures and classes.
“Kinderlach, my dear children”, my mother
would say, “We are sleeping. We have to wake
up and see the world around us. We are living

in the challenging time of ikvesa
d’Meshicha, the footsteps of
moshiach. The final days – and I
don’t know how many those days
will be – preceding the arrival of
moshiach. Our answer to the pain
that surrounds us must be one of
inner strength. To be fortified by
turning to HaShem. Our ammunition
is a life of Torah, avoda – prayer, and
gemilas chassodim – acts of
lovingkindness. To be the very best
Jew we can.”
Words my mother voiced years ago.
Words we are living today. As a
nation, we are not safe anywhere. We
have been targeted so many times.
Each time, is a time too many.
As I am writing, so many brutal acts
of anti-Semitic terror come to mind.
Who can ever forget the cruel Munich
Olympic attack. Mumbai, Barcelona, Rome,
Paris, Montpellier, London, South Africa.
Each generation believes the danger belongs
to another place, another time—until it
doesn’t. There was a time we all felt safe and
secure in the US. After all, we are living in a
democracy, gifted with the right of religious
freedom, a government that protects its
citizens. We would think it’s over there, it
can’t happen here. How wrong we were.
What a foolish thought. Why would it be
safer for Jews here than anywhere else. The
attacks on the Poway Chabad shul, the Tree
of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Jersey
City Kosher Market, the Chanukah
stabbings in Rabbi Rottenberg’s shul in
Monsey. The list continues. Boulder,
Colorado, the DC Holocaust Memorial
Museum, and even on our college campuses.
Memories we let fade and forget, allowing
them to slip into the recesses of our mind.
As Jews, we are all connected to one
another, going all the way back to our
patriarchs. The stories of our ancestors are
our stories. Ma’aseh avos, siman l’bonim.
Chazal teach that the deeds of the fathers are
a sign for the children. Our lives and their
lives are intertwined, mirroring one another.
The Ramban comments that the Torah
teaches so many details about the lives of
the avos, in order to teach us about the
future. Their life occurrences are prophetic
of what the future holds for us.
In his weekly Shabbos drasha, the rov of our
shul, Rabbi Yosef Frankel, Shlita, applied
the above thought to the time when Yaakov
was about to confront the treacherous hand
of Eisav. Yaakov understood that he
couldn’t allow his entire family to be
together as one group. The Torah tells us
that “He divided the people with him… so
that if Eisav comes to one camp and strikes
it down, then the remaining camp shall
survive.” (Bereishis 32:8-9)
Throughout history, this lesson has faced us

time and time again. There have been – and
will always be – times when a part of Bnei
Yisroel, the descendants of Yaakov, will be
confronted by danger in their homeland and
be forced to pick themselves up and relocate
to another country. During the Inquisition,
many were forced to flee to Portugal, Turkey,
Greece and other Mediterranean countries.
Following the pogroms in Russia, many
immigrated to countries in Western and
Central Europe, the United States, Canada,
South America and Australia. More recently,
following the Holocaust, our people were
forced to move once again. This time, to either
the United States, South America, Canada or
Israel.

Today, we are once again faced with vile anti-
Semitism. But now, there are no safe havens.

There are no guarantees. Bondi Beach was
known as a serene, tranquil place. Until, for a
group of Jewish people celebrating Chanukah,
it wasn’t.
Rabbi Frankel told us that it must mean one
thing. That we are getting closer and closer to
the coming of Moshiach. A time when all of
the Jewish nation will be ingathered to our
final home.
This Shabbos is Shabbos Chanukah. Parshas
Mikeitz is almost always read on this Shabbos.
Mikeitz means the end. In this week’s parsha,
for Yosef, it was the end of his imprisonment
in Egypt. The end of his difficult, dark journey.
It’s Chanukah, our time to celebrate the
triumph of light over darkness. Not just
physical light and darkness, but spiritual. As
the Lubavitch Rebbe taught, even a little bit of
light dispels a great deal of darkness.
As we sit around our menorahs and celebrate
with our family, let’s remember to cry out for
those who are hurting, those in pain. May we
soon see an end to our long journey of
darkness. May we be zoche to merit
illuminating the dark world through the light
of Torah, avoda and gemilas chassodim. May
HaShem bring a keitz, a final end, to this
difficult and long exile.