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WHY?
These are just random thoughts that I am pondering while I am recovering from the Pesach food binge and attempting to return to the post holiday normalcy of our every day existence. The apocryphal story is told of the professor at a very prestigious university who was administering an exam in philosophy to his doctoral level students. He announced that there would be only one question on the exam and that he would write that question immediately on the blackboard at the front of the classroom. He then proceeded to write “Why?” on the board.
Later he informed the students that there were only two possible correct answers to that question and that they were “Because” and “Why not?” Well, I have been nagged for some time by questions of “why?” on varying subjects of importance. And like the worthy professor in the anecdote related just above the only answers I can come up with are “because” and “why not?”
For example, I cannot fathom why Israel continues to play this charade game of two states with the Palestinians. It is obvious to all that the Palestinian leadership is not the least bit interested in having a state of its own. Then it would have responsibilities and legalities that it is now not burdened with. And also it would not have its default excuse for all of the ills of its society – that everything is the fault of the “Israeli occupation.” This is so patently obvious to all so why does Israel continue to waltz this non-solution around with the UN and Abbas, Obama, Clinton, etc.? Why, indeed?
This past Pesach season our modest congregation and yours truly privately helped out financially approximately two hundred fifty families to meet their holiday expenses. It is a privilege to give charity to the needy. But I do not think that there is any imperative present to be one of the needy. Most of my customers were men who have been in their kollelim for decades and are blessed with large families and with spouses who for various health and social reasons no longer work.
The kollelim pay only a pittance, the welfare system in Israel pays a bit more but it is obvious that the families live in abject poverty. And then they will have to borrow enormous sums of money – which in normal circumstances they will never be able to repay – when it comes time for their children to marry. Since the idiocy here in Israel in yeshiva circles is that the young couple has to be provided with an apartment bought on their behalf by their parents, someone who has eight or ten children will need many millions of dollars in order to marry off their children! And to this my mind asks “why?”
How did we allow such a system of cruelty to develop in our supposedly holy society? Why weren’t most of these men told that they will never have any financial future and that their Torah learning skills are insufficient to obtain for them any meaningful position in the Torah educational field? Why did their teachers and mentors not warn them of the personal disasters that they face? Why, indeed?
And why do we bother to hear and give publicity and media attention to the advice, analysis and pronouncements of a failed and corrupt former prime minister? There is no sense of shame when it comes to politics here in Israel. A former government minister who served actual time in prison is being touted as a potential leader and vote getter in the next Israeli election. Why doesn’t he just stay quiet and give up on public life? Why isn’t he ashamed and reticent? Why is our public so jaded that it accepts such behavior without any noticeable reaction of outrage?
I imagine that the answer to all of the “whys” posed above is “because” or “why not?” But that cannot be a long term answer to any of the issues that so bedevil us. Sooner or later a more meaningful and cogent answer will need to be found in order to erase at least some of the “whys” from our minds. To ignore this situation of unanswered “whys” is to bury our collective head in the sand.
The “why” that really troubles me is why are these issues not raised and properly discussed. It is foolish in the extreme to assume that these problems will solve themselves without our society undergoing a change of mindset on many matters. So why don’t we consider a change of mindset on all of the important issues that confront us? Why indeed?
Shabat shalom.
Berel Wein
