Question:
I feel very heartbroken about Miron? Do you have any advice? I don’t want it to weaken my Avodas Hashem? We are just frail human beings in need of G-ds mercy.
Answer:
You are correctly heartbroken because of what happened in Miron. All of Klal Yisroel is shocked at seeing the midas hadin, on such a happy night, to people that were busy doing a mitzva. This is not something, that should weaken our avodas Hashem, rather it should help it.
The first thing we have to work on is strengthening our emuna in Hashem. He knows what He is doing, and us mortals don’t. Let me give you an example that I heard. The midrash says that when Hashem was giving the torah to Moshe Rabeinu, He should him the gedolei hador of each generation. When Moshe Rabeinu saw R’ Akiva, he exclaimed, why are you giving the torah thru me, give it thru R’ Akiva. To which Hashem said, No this is my decree, that he torah should be given specifically from you. Afterwards when the Malachim saw how R’ Akiva was to die, a very painful death, his skin was combed with iron combs and it tore into his flesh, they exclaimed, “This is the reward of one who learns torah?!” To which Hashem said, “If I will hear another word about this, I will return the world to nothingness- this is the decree that I gave, and you have no permission to doubt it!” The meforshim explain that the level that R’ Akiva attained as a result of the way he died brought him to a tremendous level, and they explain why it was indeed needed. Additionally, the day that the Mishkan was erected and inaugurated was almost the happiest day in the history of the world, especially for Aharon Hakohen, who was now given the merit of personally serving Hashem as His Kohen Gadol. In middle of the celebration, the greatest of calamities happened, two of Aharon’s cherished, son who were total tzaddikim were killed, in middle of the festivities! What did Aharon do? He kept quiet. Yes, it is terribly difficult, but we trust Hashem, the one who has taken care of all our needs until now, and the one who created our ingenious body, and the whole universe, with such wisdom, that we don’t even begin to understand its depth. Science is making great strides, and slowly getting to see just how brilliant and meticulously organized the world is.
Yes, it is hard to understand, but at least we understand that we don’t understand. The same way a child is sometimes told by his father, when you get older you will understand it better, we are the same. I once heard a cute vort. We say in Hallel למה יאמרו הגוים, the simple meaning is why should the goyim say…, but there is another way to read it, למה-why? That is some thing that יאמרו הגוים, something the goyim do. A Yid doesn’t ask questions why Hashem does what He does. He knows better.
On the other hand, this does not mean we should just take it shrug our shoulders, say we don’t understand and continue on with life. When a tzara happens, especially of such enormity, we are taught that it is in order to send us a message that we have to improve ourselves. The question though is what message should we take from this? Now no one really “knows” definitively why this gezeira happened, however a number of gedolim, including Horav Gershon Eidelstein, Horav Yackov Hillel, Horav Shalom Cohen shlit”a, and others, have all taken the same approach. They said that it seems that the message for us is to work on dissension among us, on the private and public levels. They said that Lag B’omer is a joyous day because the talmidim of R’ Akiva stopped dying then. Why did they die, because they weren’t respectful enough to each other. There are those who say that during the 49 days of sefira we work on one of each of the 49 kinyanei hatorah and perfect ourselves. The 33rd kinyan is “ohev es habrios”, to love others. Since on this day they worked on their relationship with others, therefore they stopped to die, because they corrected the situation, and therefore it is a happy day. Unfortunately, in our situation, we have much to work on in this area, so the Lag B’omer celebration came to a halt! Additionally, they say that the gezeira happened when people from all walks of the orthodox rainbow were all together, Ashkenazim Sefradim, Litvish, Chassidish, Mezrachi, and from all countries of the world. What killed them- they trampled on each other! These, say the gedolim, are signs that perhaps these are the areas that we have to improve ourselves. Additionally, the death of all these people from all walks of religious life, has caused all of us to mourn for each other, which in itself is a big step in right direction.
Again, we don’t know the reason, and each person can really work and grow in the area that he/she feels is the message that Hashem means to give. What I am writing here is only a suggestion. The main thing is that we should realize, that this tremendous bolt of lightning, that came out of shomayim, should at least give us some light, and we should not just, feel bad, broken, and otherwise just ignore the main point and purpose of why this happened to us.
