Bli Neder no music until all hostages are free

My Thoughts After 450 Days without Music
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How can I enjoy music when more than 800 of our soldiers
– the very best of our people – have been killed?
With more being killed every week?

How can I enjoy music when our Orthodox Rabbis and Poskim
are literally crying because they received Halachic questions
from our precious soldiers, who no longer know to put on tefillin,
because they lost their right hand or because they lost their left hand?

How can I enjoy music when our people, including innocent children,
live in more fear than they know how to cope with?

How can I enjoy music when our people, who live in our Holy Land,
are moving to the Diaspora, because they sincerely feel that they
(and their innocent children) can no longer cope with life in Holy Land?

My Thoughts After 500 Days without Music
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After 500 days without music. my memories of
the music that I used to listen to are fading.

Recently, I was considering to listening to music again,
but recent tragedies, such as the brutal satanic
murder of a mother and her 4-year-old child
and her one-year-old child, pushed that idea away.

The severe troubles of our brothers and sisters
in our Holy Land are far from over,
so my no-music lifestyle continues.

Hundreds of our best young men —
(and the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces
ARE certainly among our best young men,
whether you admit it, or not) — have been
killed long before they could get white hairs,
and their innocent wives and children
have become widows and orphans.

What troubles me the most are the thousands
of soldiers with permanent injuries and disabilities.

These men have made devastating sacrifices
to protect our people and our land, and the
Chareidim just call them “idol worshippers”.

This displays a super-massive lack of gratitude,
that would make the Gentiles shocked and
astonished and flabbergasted, if they knew about it.

It is very fortunate that the Gentiles to not know
about the super-massive lack of gratitude that
the Chareidim have towards the Jewish soldiers,
because if they knew, it would be a gigantic
Chillul HaShem that would outweigh *** ALL ***
of the good deeds done by the Chareidim.

My Thoughts After Two Years without Music
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Even if all of the hostages were freed today,
what about the many hostages who were murdered in captivity?
Including BABIES who were murdered in captivity?

Even if all of the hostages were freed today,
what about more than 900 of our precious holy soldiers
who died fighting the wicked genocidal Muslim terrorists?

Even if all of the hostages were freed today,
what about the many precious holy soldiers
who suffer from permanent injuries and disabilities that will NEVER heal?

Even if all of the hostages were freed today,
what about the many wives and children of our precious holy soldiers,
who are now widows and orphans?

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After two years without music, my thoughts have not been so clear
since my childhood. When I say clear thoughts, this means that
my mind is almost-never interrupted by random memories
of the music that I used to listen to, and even when
those musical memories happen, they quickly fade.

Lehavdil, it is like being able to watch television
without any unwanted interruptions from commercials.
(I stopped watching television more than 30 years ago.)

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Dear Matzav Inbox,

I write this with great trepidation, as I am not one who is capable
of sizing up an entire klal, yet this tzarah has been
nagging at me for a while now, and I must speak out.

We have approximately 100 of our brothers and sisters being held hostage
in dire circumstances, and our response as a klal of Torah Yidden, in my opinion,
has been severely lacking. I am aware that nearly every shul says
one to three kapitlach of Tehillim after each tefilah, and I am sure
these tefillos carry great value to Hashem.

However, I believe we as a klal are failing to truly feel the pain
of the hostages and their families. I am sure that many individuals
have taken upon themselves an extra mitzvah or tefilah as a zechus 
for their safe return, but I do not see a collective response that is adequate.

I used to wonder how I and this generation would have felt and
responded had we been living in America during the Holocaust.
Would we really have felt the pain of the Yidden suffering in Europe?
Would our lives have been any different due to their plight?
I am horrified to say that it appears that after a few weeks,
we would have, by and large, disconnected from their suffering
and continued on with our lives as usual. How can this be?

The hostages are undergoing their own Holocaust, Rachmana litzlan.
Can we take two minutes to think about the conditions they are in
— stuck in underground tunnels with no sunlight, little food (if any),
under the control of ruthless animals, and so much worse
for the women and children (may Hashem protect them all)?

We know that when tzaros happen, they are a wake-up call from Hashem
to do teshuvah. We know this is the ultimate purpose of the matzav 
that Klal Yisroel finds itself in. However, I think we all admit that teshuvah
is very difficult. Perhaps this is why Hashem brought this great tzarah to Klal Yisroel.
Hashem is not asking for our immediate teshuvah.

He wants us to cry out to Him in pain for our brothers’ and sisters’ matzav 
and beg for their yeshua! This is something that we all should be able to do,
as it only requires a little bit of thought about their dire predicament.

Any human being, and certainly any Yid, is capable of connecting to and feeling their pain.
This tze’akah is what led to Hashem’s salvation in Mitzrayim.
Ultimately, this will lead to our teshuvah as well.

I understand that seemingly all of the hostages were secular.
Regrettably, this may make it more difficult to connect to their suffering.
However, we must remember that each one has a Yiddishe neshama!
We would be obligated to be mechalel Shabbos for them if their lives were in danger.
These are Hashem’s children!

(As an aside, I heard firsthand a recording
of one of the freed female hostages speaking to the mother of
another female hostage who is, nebach, still being held.
She told her that her daughter had taken upon herself to keep 
Shabbos even as a hostage and that she refuses to obey the
commands of her captors when they entail chillul Shabbos!
Can we even fathom the level that this baalas teshuvah has reached?)

How can we as a klal bring ourselves to feel their pain?

One suggestion is that the gedolim or rabbonim declare a day of fasting,
dare I say, once a month. There would be an atzeres in our shuls the night before,
with divrei hisorerus from a gadol or rav that each shul could connect to,
followed by Tehillim (or the shul could have its own divrei hisorerus and Tehillim).

The point is that the klal should be united in crying out to Hashem,
begging Him for a yeshua for the hostages and for the entire 
klal from our enemies. I am not asking that we even cut back
on our pleasures and vacations, as this is a lot to ask for many.

However, how can we not feel their pain at least once a month for a few hours?

Again, I am not one to give mussar, as I fall short in many areas as well.
However, I feel that Hashem may be demanding more of us
and waiting to hear our cries before He brings their yeshua.

Sincerely,
Waiting for Our Collective Cry

SOURCE: Matzav Inbox: Where Is Our Collective Tzaar?
2024 September 5 at 11:45 am www (dot) matzav (dot) com

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FULL DISCLOSURE:

I did not write any part of this article.
I do not know who wrote this article.
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