In The Time of Our Lives...

Lately, it seems that God has been conspiring to remind me that every moment I am permitted on this earth is precious, not to be taken for granted. Yesterday, this post made me cry. This morning, an email informed me of the sudden death of a girl I shared a class with in college, and who attended my seminary only a year before I did.

If those factors weren’t enough, this afternoon I was placed only seconds away from horrible injury, if not death. My sister, who just got her driver’s license, was at the wheel, and though my mother yelled, “Stop! Stop!” she continued to make a slow left-hand turn, right in front of a rapidly approaching oncoming car. I closed my eyes, braced for an impact. The earsplitting screech of the other car’s brakes alerted me to the fact that, miraculously, we had escaped unscathed. It took several moments for my breathing to return to normal, and longer for my mind to attempt to grasp the concept: instead of laughing shakily as my sister repeatedly crept forward and reversed in an attempt to park the car—I could have been dead.

It has been said a thousand times, but it’s infinitely true: life is fragile. We have little control over what happens in our lives, and any day could be our last. Yet, we must not, we cannot, live our lives conscious of this fact at every second. To do so would be to live a life of fear. And so, blessedly, we are often able to forget. Yet, an occasional reminder of mortality is necessary. It is sobering, but uplifting, providing an insistent call to make the most of each opportunity we have to find beauty and meaning in this life.

The Limits of Empathy

When tragedy hits another, someone you’ve never met and never will meet, what is your response?

Very few people will brush off the news without even a second thought. Even fewer (probably none) will feel the pain like someone who was directly affected. But between these two extremes, what is your reaction, and what do you believe the proper reaction should be? Is it correct to feel pain, and if so, to what extent? Should one encourage feelings of pain and sadness, or try to dispel them?

There are, as I see it, pros and cons to each side. One might argue that you should encourage and experience sensations of grief: this is empathy, feeling for someone else, a compassionate human quality. When you suffer, I suffer, because we are all intrinsically connected.

However, on the other side, if I allow myself to grieve, if I dwell on the tragedy, cry, and feel pain, where do I draw the line? At what point do I distract myself from these thoughts, or allow myself to be distracted? At what point does my grief for people unknown become excessive, detracting from my ability to do other things, to be productive, to live my own life? Is it really right for me to be sad and depressed, even for just a number of hours, because of something that didn’t happen to me, and that only hurts me because I allow it to?

Why I Cried

As I sat in the back seat of my parents' rented car, departing three hours early for a wedding that was 1.5 hours' drive away (my father is ridiculously paranoid about traffic), my emotions were mixed. I was grateful to be well enough to be out of bed, happy to see my parents, glad to be going to a simcha; but also weak and drained from my illness, nervous about the week and a half of school I'd missed, and stressed by the rush from class to meet my parents. My feelings sloshed around messily inside me. And then my phone buzzed, a text message from my friend.

"Terrorists infiltrated yeshivat merkaz harav and have killed at least 7 yeshiva boys. Please say tehillim and please pass the message around….."

My heart stopped. It didn't sink in. "Um, bad news," I stuttered aloud to my parents. "There's been a terrorist attack at a yeshiva in Yerushalayim."

For once my news-conscious father had not been listening to the radio. He turned it on.

"…at least seven killed and dozens wounded in a terrorist attack on a religious seminary in Jerusalem. Sources say the attacker infiltrated the school by dressing up as a student…"

When I heard the anonymous American news anchor say these words in his flat, emotionless American voice, the tears began to spill out of my eyes faster than I could catch them. Even I was surprised by the violence of my reaction. I didn't want to make a scene or alarm my parents, so I tried to cry noiselessly, unobtrusively, in the back seat. My father noticed, and tactfully said nothing.

I cried.

....

I love my land, my people; I feel connected; but I am not usually the type who cries so easily for tragedies that I haven't experienced firsthand. So why today?

Lately, I think, I have been far away. While my ideals of unity and connectedness were still intact, the emotions that accompany them had been gradually diminishing. My mind had been full of other ideas, other emotions. Important ideas, important emotions, yes, but my head and my heart can only focus on a certain amount at a time. It is part of the limit of being human; every choice requires a sacrifice, whether conscious or not.

And suddenly, I found myself confronted with a tragedy. A reminder.

In my head, I saw Yeshivat Merkaz Harav as I most vividly remember it: the night of Yom Ha'atzmaut after maariv, hundreds of young men, dancing with pure joy, full of gratitude to Hashem, celebrating our ability to live in our homeland. And then I imagined the same place, filled with emergency vehicles, stained with blood.

I cried.

I felt it, I felt the hurt. How could they do such a thing to us?

And then, to hear the bored anchor continue tonelessly on to other news, treated as equally, if not more, important—trivial news, most of it—ripped me apart. I yelled silently at the radio: "What do you mean!? That's all?! That's all you have to say? Do you understand what you just said? How can you just move on from that? How can you talk about the stupid tiny details of the primary vote tallies, or the four-year-old girl who showed up to school drunk? They just killed at least seven members of my family!"

But, of course, the news anchor really didn't care much. Why should he, in truth? Israel is a tiny country, far away; for him, the people there exist only in the same way that all theoretical people exist, the ones we've never met and never will meet.

Realizing this, I felt, anew, that connection, that pull, that reminds me why I care, why this feels so different to me than it does to Mr. News Anchor. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh: we are one family; we are connected.

It is not a question of politics. It is not about the right solution, the wrong solution, whether there is a solution. And for me, it doesn't feel like a time to ask God why, either. It feels like a time to feel. A time to experience the emotion of connectedness; to hurt because of my brothers' and sisters' hurt, to stand together as one people, united against those who wish to exterminate us.

Am Yisrael chai.

A Teacher, A Friend

This post is dedicated to Dr. Lana Schwebel, A"H
(For background, see this, and this extremely moving post by Erachet)

I am an English major. English has always been my subject, and I have always excelled in it. I used to walk into an English class confident that I would do well, that the teacher would see my work and immediately approve. And this was always the case—until Dr. Schwebel’s class. She was the first English professor who truly challenged me without making me resentful. While other teachers would occasionally find fault with something I wrote, I usually felt the criticism to be subjective and nitpicky. Dr. Schwebel asked more of me than anyone else ever had---and the most difficult part was that I knew her criticism was justified. She could simultaneously laud my writing style and point out inexcusable errors in my analysis. Though I was sometimes frustrated, I knew she was right, and she got me to push myself in a way that no other teacher had.

I didn’t know her well—I was only her student for a single semester. Yet, in a way I knew her intimately. Twice a week for over four months I listened to her, watched her, noted her funky wardrobe. In every day of her class her unique personality shone through. She made Beowulf relevant. She compared Shakespeare and Donne to modern day love ballads. She was the only person I ever met who could use the word “oogy” and still sound intelligent. She was one of the most brilliant teachers I have ever had, yet she never condescended or talked over our heads. Her passion for what she taught was unmatched. Her passion for life was astounding. She was one of the most vibrant, zany people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

And she was so nice. She was always up for a chat, if only to exchange a few words after class. I would hang back when class ended, even if I had nothing to say, just to hear her speak to my friend (who also worshipped her). When I had a question about how to improve my essay, I knew I could write her an email and expect a lengthy response within a day. At her Survey of English Lit I final, when I couldn't think of an answer, one I knew I knew, I asked her about it, and she was so sympathetic to my memory block, yet utterly refused to give me any hint. I couldn’t come up with the answer, but I did well on the final anyway. A few weeks after school ended, after I had seen my grade in her class (and been pleasantly shocked), I wrote her to ask about my final essay. I wanted to know what she thought of it, since I had written more drafts for it than any other essay I had ever composed—and because I had done so in a fervent attempt to meet her incredibly high standards. She responded with an amazingly detailed breakdown of everything that was done well, as well as what could be improved in my paper. Her suggestions were typically insightful, and her praise generous. Her appreciation for what I had written meant that much more to me because of the hard work I had put in to deserve it.

The tragedy of her passing has hurt and confused me. How could this happen? I wasn’t done learning from her. And still, I am not done learning from her. Remembering her, I know I will push myself harder and expect more from myself than I did before. Those lucky enough to have had an instructor like her will understand how a teacher who has pushed you to improve really feels like a friend. The impact she has had on my life will reach far beyond the single semester I was privileged to know her.

Why I Don't Read Holocaust Books

I am spoiled.

I have lived a perfect life, a life entirely free from intense suffering. Sure, I have known people—young people, good people—who have suffered from terrible diseases, from impossible hardship. But these people have not been the people closest to me, so these tragedies have not touched me in the most personal way. My faith is strong—but who am I to talk, I whose faith has never been tested?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for a test. I’m not asking for a tragedy, chas v’shalom. But I fear. I have lived a life without trial, yet I am imperfect. If, given every gift that Hashem can possibly offer, I still am unable to serve Him perfectly (in fact, far from it), where would I be if something terrible happened?

And that’s where the Holocaust books come in. My whole life, I never read any (with the exception of Elie Wiesel’s Night, which I had to read for school). My philosophy, right or wrong, has always been: why make yourself sad on purpose? Besides, I am extremely squeamish, and the details of Holocaust tales have always been too much for me to handle.

Now, a junior in college, one of my classes has required me to read a book called The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn. The author tells his own tale, a man searching for the stories of six of his ancestors who were killed by the Nazis. He travels from the Ukraine, to Australia, to Israel, seeking out his history. His saga is interspersed with comparisons to stories in Sefer Bereishit, as elucidated by Rashi and a modern commentator named Friedman. The author himself is not Orthodox—he was brought up vaguely Reform, and although since then he has ‘discovered’ much of his heritage, the impression I have gotten is that he still takes a secular approach to the validity of the Torah. The book is long, 500 pages, and I am only halfway through. Though it is slow reading, I have, for the most part, enjoyed its intricate rambling and frequent keen insights.

But reading about some of the horrors of the Holocaust, and only just the horrors that occurred to the population of a tiny town called Bolechow, has also frightened me immensely. Reading the book for long periods of time, I feel sucked into a world I am afraid of. The way that Hashem allowed people, Jewish people, religious people, to be treated makes me forget, momentarily, that He is just. When I hear that the Rabbis suffered most—how a Rabbi, his eyes cut out, was forced to dance naked with a woman for the officers’ amusement, I wonder—how? Why?

Yes, I had heard about the evils of the Holocaust before. I had heard of the slaughter, but rarely in such vivid detail. Six million is not just a number. Six million are people, each with an individual story. When I hear the story of a single death I am sickened—multiply that horror by six million, and what happens? I cannot even fathom it.

And that, that is why I do not read Holocaust books. Because yes, it is important to be aware of our history. Yes, it is bad to close your eyes to reality. But I am not as strong as I should be. Hashem has not tested my faith, He has not put me in their shoes. Maybe, in a tough situation, I’d find my hidden strength. I’d like to think I would. But their tests are not mine, and reading about them will not make them mine—it will only confuse me.

As a close friend said, “I’d rather not shred myself up into little tiny pieces just to see if the pieces can come back together when I close the book.”