Tzipiyah.com

I’m coming out of hiding and admitting that I have been watching the show “Srugim”. While I’m not necessarily comfortable with everything shown on that show, I do believe it brings up a number of powerful serious issues in the religious community in Israel. One scene in this week’s episode was especially powerful:

If you do not see a video here, you need to click here to see the full post.

For those who do not understand Hebrew, the younger character is speaking to her aunt about her feelings after the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif. After praying intensely for months, with an intensity which has not been equaled in decades, the Jews of Gush Katif were still expulsed from their homes and a lot of people started asking questions: “Why did God not answer our prayers?”. The younger character, one of the youth from Gush Katif, in this show lost her faith because of this and could not connect to God anymore. She started rebelling against everything God represented. In the real world, the rebellions which some of the youth from Gush Katif went through was even more dramatic - the community was completely devastated.

In order to enhance your understanding of the problem, and understand the painful position taken from some of these youth, take a look at this video which shows us a glimpse of the intensity in which the prayers were conducted in. Take a moment to watch this video before reading on:

So, how do we deal with such a disappointment. How could we have prayed for so long and with so much power and not receive any answer?

Rav Mordechai Elon once told us the powerful story of his connection to the family of Nachshon Wachsman. Nachshon was a soldier which got kidnapped by Arab Terrorists. Back then, as soon as he got kidnapped, the whole nation came together to try and find a way to save him. There has never been a time of national unity like the week after Nachshon was kidnapped.

One night, there was a special Tfillah at the Kotel in favor of his capture. This was no usual Tfillah at the kotel. There were hundreds of thousands of people at the Kotel. The Kotel had never been this full since right after the 6 day war. On top of that, the incredible diversity of the people attending was striking. Rav Elon said that many people were not even wearing kippahs, at the Kotel, because all the paper kippahs were already used up. What a great scene this was! What an incredible show of unity! Oh, and the prayers were so powerful. No one had ever seen such a Tfillah in their lives.

A few days later, the IDF decided to try and save Nachshon from captivity. Unfortunately, he was killed in the operation. Another soldier also got killed in the operation.

Rav Elon was very close to the family and so after they heard the news, he had a conversation with Nachshon’s dad. Nachshon’s dad asked him to eulogize his son at the funeral and Rav Elon immediately accepted. But then, Nachshon’s dad added a special request: He was worried that Klal Israel would become depressed because of what happened. They prayed so much! How could their prayers not be answered?

Nachshon’s dad explained to Rav Elon that he used to always tell Nachshon when he was small, crying for things to which his dad said no, that the difference between a little kid and a big kid is not that the little kid wants a lot of things and the big kid doesn’t want those things. The adult also wants a lot of things! The difference between them is them is that the big kid understands that sometimes, no is also an answer. It’s not the answer you want, it’s not the answer you hope for, but it is also an answer. The kid doesn’t always understand why that answer is given but he trusts in his dad’s judgement.

Nachshon’s dad explained that the same was true in his case. There was no way he or anyone could explain why the answer given by God was no. However, the time was not a time to act like a little kid, we had to be big kids. We had to accept the fact that no is also an answer.

What was true for Nachshon was also true for the disengement. This is not a “sit back and let God do the work” kind of answer. No! Tfillot are necessary! They have the power to change reality! However, sometimes, God, for reasons we cannot understand, answers no. We cannot understand why, but we trust in his judgement. We also trust in the fact that the zchut of our tfillot will be productive towards other good productive things. Our tfillot are never in vain.

It’s already been a while since the disengagement, and its effects are still very present. The worse effects of the disengagement were not on a security level, although those were very bad. They were not on a religious level, although I believe giving back land is a sin. The worse effect was a humanitarian one. All those families which were kicked out of their homes, with no real home to go to - all this incredible youth who lost faith and passion - that is our greatest loss! As we continue to struggle to recuperate from this great national mistake, and as we continue to struggle with the theological questions it raised, we need to have trust in God the way a big kid can have trust in his father - we need to understand that sometimes, for reasons which we cannot understand, no is also an answer.

Through this, we will be able to continue focusing our strength and energy in making sure that the yeridah (downfall) which we experienced in the disengagement will ulimately be a yerida letzorech aliyah, a downfall which is used to eventually bring us even higher.