Happiest and everyone else,
Yes, it is VERY VERY VERY painful. I’m usually not very emotional, and the whole day I’ve been thinking about it.
Now – please take my words properly. These points are a composition of ideas I’ve learned over the years, as well as being based on ideas that I saw today in a letter which Rav Dovid Sitnick shlit”a sent to the parent body of his school. Please understand that not every idea presented below is based on that letter.
The questions is, are you asking because you want an answer, or is the question an answer in itself?
We don’t understand. We simply do not. HaShem has His cheshbonos, which we simply do not have the capability to comprehend. If we could understand HaShem, we would be Him. And that’s impossible.
We don’t know what Leiby z”l was in a previous gilgul, what tikun he had to attain.
We don’t know. A father has to let his son get a shot, even though it hurts, since it’s for the good of child. This terrible tzora was and is a BIG shot. Somehow, it’s for our good.
We say Boruch Dayan HaEmes. What does it mean? We acknowledge that HaShem is the True Judge. HaShem knows each and every detail. Every single aspect of the tzora has been calculated down to the minutest detail.
For example: there are missing children who have been missing for YEARS, so much so that they have to do age progression to the photos. Here, Leiby was found within 48 hours. It could have dragged out MUCH longer – but HaShem didn’t want anyone involved to have to go through that additional difficulty. And on the other side, it was very warm yesterday – that was also part of cheshbonos HaShem. Maybe more sechar for those who went looking? I don’t know.
I’m not saying that I’m as strong as I should be in faith, but we have to try.
I hope that this has helped to some extent. May we hear only besuros tovos.