01 Jun PARSHAS BEHAALOSCHA: “STATISTICAL” CRUELTY

This week’s parsha
contains the positive
Biblical command
[Rambam Hilchos
Ta’anis Chapter 1]
of “crying out and
blowing trumpet
blasts regarding every calamity that
befalls the community”. According to
some opinions, this law is applicable even
nowadays (in the Land of Israel);
according to other opinions, it is only
applicable when the Beis HaMikdash is
built.
The Rambam, quoting the pasuk in this
week’s parsha [Bamidbar 10:9], explains
that every communal calamity — be it a
plague or pestilence or locusts or any
public suffering — requires crying out
and blowing of trumpets.
The Rambam explains that this is part of
the Teshuvah process. When we Jews
hear the sound of the trumpet we know
that the troubles befalling us are because
of our deeds. This introspection and

determination to repent and improve our
communal and individual ways will
eventually stop our misfortunes.
But, says the Rambam, if the response of
the community is not to blow and not to
pray, repent and think any differently, but
rather to attribute the misfortune to “the
ways of the world”, to statistical chance,
to the “realities of life” — this is derech
achzariyus [the way of cruelty]. Such
attitudes cause people to remain attached
to their evil ways and cause G-d’s
response to be “more such statistics”.
This expression of the Rambam —
“derech achzariyus” — has always
bothered me. If the Rambam would have
called it “the way of heretics” or “the way
of fools”, I would not have been bothered,
but “the way of the cruel” is a perplexing
choice of words. What does this have to
do with being cruel?
Once, I heard an interesting insight from
Rav Nosson Scherman into the meaning
of this Rambam. Rav Scherman compared
this matter to an intersection in one’s

neighborhood where accidents are
constantly occurring. It is just a terrible
corner — again and again, another
accident, another person killed.
Someone approaches the government and
petitions that they do something about the
intersection. “Put up a stop sign; put up a
red light; do something — there is a
carnage going on out there!”
The bureaucrat responds “No, the
department has determined that there is
no need for a stop sign.” That bureaucrat
is cruel, because he can stop the carnage,
he can stop the accidents; but he is not
willing to do anything about it. It is simply
cruel to preside over carnage and do
nothing, when it is within your power to
stop the carnage.
This is what the Rambam is telling us.
Troubles befall a community, and the
community can do something about it —
because the blowing of the trumpets and
doing Teshuvah will cause the troubles to
stop — however, the community fails to
do something about the troubles but rather

attributes them to “the realities of life”.
Such a community is cruel to its own
members.
So many times, when we see things go
wrong in our communities, we have a
tendency to react by saying, “Well, that’s
just the way it is”. That is cruel. This is
not the reaction that the Torah expects
from us. The Torah wants us to put up a
stop sign — to stop and think and react
and try to improve. A community that
fails to react is as bad as the bureaucrat
who fails to put up the stop sign on the
carnage-prone intersection.