Today was a blow at a deeper level than I've felt until now.
When this nightmare first started, it was aloof, as I wrote in the first post of this thread. It quickly got real, as this mageifa tore through our communities, ripping them open - both from the cholim and niftarim, and on a different level, from the consequences of the lockdowns as well. But eventually it almost becomes a fact of life, as human nature unfortunately is. We get used to things, no matter how unnatural and grotesque they may be.
Today was a wakeup call. In my mind, we were nine-tenths over this thing. It would be a matter of weeks and COVID would, for all practical purposes be a thing of the past. But Hashem said No, it's not over yet. And he said it in a powerful, deliberate manner.
Trying to make sense of this is not easy. But I had a thought I wish to share.
Watching Rabbi Twerski's levaya and hearing them sing his famous Hoshei Es Amecha reminded me of another, less-famous song of his, one which can lend a perspective to these tragedies. On Avraham Fried's yiddish album "Ah Mechaya", he sings a composition of Rabbi A.J. Twerski, entitled Ah Freilichen Tisha B'Av. (Tune is
here, lyrics are
here). in the song, he describes what Tisha B'av will be like after Moshiach arrives. His beautiful, poetic depiction gives a feeling of what geula will be like, and what lies ahead for us after, and as a result, of this bitter galus.
It brings to mind a pusuk in Tehillim, which we say every Shabbos in pesukei d'zimra.
Samicheinu kimos inisanu shnos ra’inu ra’ah. (Tehillim 90:15)
May the joy of the days of Moshiach be equivalent to the length and the scope of the Galus.
