The National Religious / dati leumi have had a difficult two weeks, to say the least. The amount of dead and wounded soldiers, always devastating, has reached excruciating levels. When you look at the numbers of new widows and orphans, and unborn babies that will never get to meet their fathers, the pain becomes unbearable.
But instead of sitting with the pain and the grief, instead of acknowledging that Hashem has His reasons, which none of us will ever know or understand, we have found an easier way. And it's not food or wine or coffee or Nethflix.
It's this: Let's see who we can blame.
Wait, wait – I know the answer to this one – It's the charedim, of course. It's so obvious, and it's so easy and in fact, it's even sometimes enjoyable. They don't serve, they let us take the fall and they sit in their nice cosy yeshivas on their nice comfy chairs, with the A/C in the background, while we lose soldier after soldier, while our soldiers lose their arms and legs.
And we gorge ourselves on righteous indignation and we fill our hearts with hate and we poison our friends and family in the name of 'truth and justice.'
But if we really stop and take a second to think, we might realize this isn't what Hashem wants from us! This isn't going to bring us the geulah we daven for; this isn't going to bring the hostages back.
Everyone who knows me, knows that I am a fierce believer in the IDF and a very proud soldier's mama. They also know that I am fierce believer that charedim should serve in the army.
They also know that I, like many others, am filled with an ache in my heart, and every single time I read 'Cleared for publication', I get a pit in my stomach because I know what it means. We all do.
We also know that one of the 5 stages of grief, according to Elizabeth Kuber-Ross, is anger.
But being angry with the charedim doesn't solve anything. Sure, it's easy, and it takes the ache away for a little.
Here's the problem with that: Hate poisons us against our own family, the bitter resentment seeping into our souls, coloring our mitzvos and our chesed and our davening and changing the way we look at everything. Hate fills the vaccuum where sadness once was. It shades the light in our lives and all the blessings, and we start to see things through grey-tinted lenses.
I don't claim to have all the answers. I don't even claim to have any of them.
But this I know– Hating my brothers will never be the answer.
