On November 22, 1963, the United States was shaken to the core by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The president was shot on a Friday morning, and a state funeral was held the following Monday. Private and public schools throughout the country were closing on that day, and Dr. Joseph Kamenetzky, the director of Torah Umesorah, asked Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky whether their schools should follow suit.
Rav Yaakov advised that schools should definitely be closed. He quoted the Kuzari’s teaching that the Jewish people’s relationship with the nations of the world is analogous to the relationship between the heart and the rest of the body.
The Jews are supposed to be the “heart” of the world, teaching morality to all the nations. If such a horrific wrong could be committed, it meant that the they had failed in some measure to carry out their mission.
How we can show respect for people who do not live in accordance with the Torah? If we recognize that it is our responsibility to model the correct way to live, and that their failure to live properly represents a failing of our own, we will simply not be able to feel disdain for them.
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
