Instead of looking for blame, we ought to all be doing what we first did when we heard about it: uniting in prayer and supporting the Israeli govenrment’s all out efforts to find the victims and punish the perpetrators.
For some whose agenda is more important that the individuals being directly affected, that isn’t good enough. They take the opportunity to push own agenda forward by appealing to our spiritual side. They may not think they are being cruel. They may actually think they are being helpful because they do very much believe in their cause. But I would suggest that the evidence does not support them.
I believe that this kind of thing happens because of an over-focus on spirituality. I don’t think it is healthy to do that. We can’t really know what’s ‘up there’. We only know what’s ‘down here’. And we ought to focus on that. The only valid spiritual activity is prayer. The rest is Achdus. Achdus in prayer. And Achdus in Hishtadlus. That should be our main focus. Instead of using a tragedy to forward an agenda by claiming it is some sort of spiritual message we should all go back to the kind of Achdus that we saw immediately following this kidnapping. Our only agenda here should be the safe return of those young boys to their families.
Visit Emes Ve-Emunah . / Harry Maryles