CHOCHMAS NASHIM: TRAGIC LOSS OF TWO
By: Suri Davis
Yesterday in the news, there was a tragic loss of Boruch Taub and Binyomin Chafetz who were Ohio residents, who flew a small propeller plane from their home in Ohio to pay a shiva visit in New York. Really? Tragedy as they are coming home from doing a mitzvah?
There is the famous story of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuya who later Iife was quoted in the Talmud under the name Acher, as he had become an apostate. What made Elisha ben Abuyah become an apostate? He saw a child who was commanded by his father to climb a tree and perform the mitzvah/good deed of shooing away a mother bird before taking her eggs, as he was coming down the tree, he fell and died. Rabbi Elisha was shocked as it clearly states in the torah that if one obeys his father or performs this mitzvah of shooing away the mother bird, he will have a long life.
In trying to understand how this could have happened to the boy, the commentaries state that he had already performed the mitzvah and he was already on his way back from performing the mitzvah. This is to say, who knows? We are in the midst of reading the portions of the Torah about Jewish slavery, a time in Jewish history, 210 years, where it was virtually impossible for the Jews to see the open hand in G-d, for generations of their slavery. Only the commentators reveal the depth of Egyptian cruelty to the Jews for those centuries…and yet we keep the faith. It is our job to find the good in all that happens, as I mentioned last week, there was a difference in the view of Theodicy, why seemingly bad things happen to seemingly good people. It is ok to be like Rabbi Akiva and feel the bad before searching for the good, human nature.
The Jewish month of Shvat arrives this week, a harbinger of spring.
Shabbat shalom.
Gutten chodesh.
-Suri