Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
They davened Shemoneh Esrei
One last time,
Their last words were
Oseh shalom bimromav.
Yechidei segulah
Each one.
Bekrovai ekodeish
Each one an olah temimah.
In a flash
24 yesomim
4 almanos
Not one dry eye.
Jews everywhere in shock
Numb with grief.
Frozen hearts
Disbelief.
In the heart of Yerushalayim
A shul under attack
Unarmed mispallelim
Shot in the back
Rifle blazing
Knife stabbing
Savage hate
Gunfire roaring
People falling
Massacred.
Innocent souls
Will never daven
Speak
Or learn again.
They leave us behind
To ponder the tragedy
Of how they died.
Complacency shattered
Around the world
Jews gasped.
We are all sons
All brothers
All cousins
All friends.
The victims are our
Brothers,
Cousins,
Friends.
The yesomim and almanos
Are ours.
We need to feel
Their pain.
Can it be that shuls, too,
are no longer safe?
Our teivas Noach
In stormy waves
The teivah was breached
In tallis and tefillin
Slain,
Wounded, bleeding
Searing pain.
The Jewish heart punctured
Our souls
Grieving
United in grief.
Yerushalmi Yidden
Broke down and cried.
Mosru nafshom al kiddush Hashem.
Seforim soaked with victims’ blood,
Survivors numb
Friends and family gone forever,
To their final rest in the World of Truth.
Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers
Trying to comfort each other
Sitting shivah, hearts rent
Grief that keeps flowing without end.
Jewish pain is as vast as the ocean
The cycle returns
The waves crash,
Hate and persecution take their toll
On a nation with an eternal soul.
Down the corridors of history
From the days of Harugei Beitar
The eight crusades
Gezeiros Tach V’Tat.
Crisscrossing the globe
The pogroms in Russia
Poland… Chevron.
Auschwitz
Birkenau
TheresienstadtTreblinka.
Naharia
Kiryat Shemonah
Munich
Sderot.
The 12 bus
The 2 bus
Sbarro
Netanya
Merkaz Harav
Light rail stop.
When will it end?
Tough questions
No easy answers,
Platitudes won’t work
Neither will shirking.
Rain the first night of Sukkos
Signals Hashem’s displeasure
What about the innocents
Snatched early on a Yerushalayim morning?
Do we feel the pain in our
Deepest soul?
Do we feel the hurt
or are our hearts cold?
Look at the bloody pictures
If you can bare,
Study them. Share them.
Think about them.
There is evil in the world.
We are targets.
Lemaan yishmeu veyirou
Massacring Jews didn’t end
With the Holocaust,
We can’t close our eyes
Let’s be real.
Feel the pain,
And do what we can
To assuage it,
And do what we can
That it should never happen again.
The mizbei’ach is mechapeir
For avonos
The bais medrash became a mizbei’ach
Lechapeir al avonoseinu,
Chodesh nehefach misasson l’eivel.
But the story will soon change
In the End of Days
As love conquers hate
And comfort removes pain,
Truth will triumph over lies
Darkness will finally yield to light.
Ohr chodosh al Tzion ta’ir
The light of Moshiach will shine
Over Tzion
And Yerushalayim.
When we learn to
Love
Care
Feel the pain
Of the exile.
When at last we unite
As brothers and sisters
When love binds us close
Despite our differences
No one will defeat us
Armed with our oneness
No enemy can beat us.
Without each other,
We aren’t whole
Achdus brings us victory
Ensures our survival.
If we are united
We can triumph.
“Leich kenos es kol haYehudim.”
Only if we are together,
Can we defeat Yishmoel.
When we are One
Echad
Without friction or fighting
No power can hurt us
No force is as mighty.
Ke’ish echod beleiv echod
Under Hashem Echod.
May Hashem bring us safely
To that blessed day
Bayom hahu yihiyeh Hashem Echod
Ushemo Echod.
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