While we were fast asleep Friday night, brutal inhuman terrorists infiltrated the village of Itamar not far from Shechem and barbariously slaughted Rabbi Udi Fogel, 36 and a tank officer in The IDF reserves, his wife Ruth, 35, and three of their six children - Yoav (11), Elad (4), and Hadas (3 months).
The words to describe this tragic loss and massacre defy my sorely-limited lexicon. The Fogel family was symbolic of the most beautiful aspects of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel - there is no replacement for them. This is a gaping wound that any Jew anywhere should feel, if he is truly a part of our people.
As with everything that happens to us and around us, we must try to interpret the Divine message here, for everything is from Hashem.
As hard as you look at the Fogel family, you won't find a blemish. Public sacrifices in the Holy Temple must be unblemished.
The Gemara teaches us (see tractate Moed Katan 28a) that the death of tzaddikim - the righteous and the pious - atones for Israel just as the public sacrifices did at the time of the Holy Temple. The Fogels were undoubtedly a Korban Tzibbur - a public sacrifice. They died on Shabbat Vayikra - the Shabbat of the exact Torah portion that describes how to perform a public sacrifice.
We now must do some serious soul-searching as to why we needed such a terribly high-priced public sacrifice to atone for us. Anyone who fails to do this is Poraish min haTzibbur - shirking his or her shouldering of mutual public responsibility, a serious offense. Was it our lack of emuna? Was it our intramural hate? Was it our shady practices in commerce? Was it our failure to keep our word? Was it our unwillingness to observe Hashem's commandments? Each one of must do his or her own self-evaluation and subsequent efforts to improve. Emuna and teshuva are the key words...
Although I detest the secular media's self-deprecation and the Israeli Government's fear of foreign powers rather than of Hashem, this is not the time to point fingers and to play blame games. The biggest sanctification of the Fogel Family's is for each of us to try and better our ways. May Hashem avenge their holy blood, amen.
