Rav’s Answer
The question is clear, and there is a clear, simple answer to this.
The greatest pain that there is today is - that suddenly, when a situation of physical trouble and suffering has come to the world, everyone is waking up from this – but what about the fact that every day, neshamos are being burned and destroyed? That is so much worse, and yet it results in very, very little awakening.
When Moshe Rabbeinu saw the Egyptians inserting babies into the walls to complete the structure, he asked Hashem why He is letting this happen. Hashem told him that the babies being killed are those who, if spared, are destined to become wicked people who won’t be redeemed from Egypt. What really bothered Moshe then? Not just the fact that they were putting babies into the walls, but something much worse - that these Jewish souls won’t leave Egypt. That was his main pain. Moshe Rabbeinu wanted the Eirev Rav to become good, it was his own decision to bring them out of Egypt and convert them, and once he removed a baby from the walls. That baby grew up to become the only idol worshipping Jew to leave Egypt and bring idol worship with him into the sea. What truly pained Moshe was that there were souls who would remain behind in Egypt. What bothered him more – the physical labor in Egypt or the 49 levels of spiritual contamination which the Jews were in then? Certainly, the latter was what bothered him more.
Anyone who lives in this generation, who has gone through the recent period we are in, must mainly be pained – and this is a deep awareness to have – unlike the main pain which people are feeling now that there is a war, the main pain which we must have is: There is an internal, spiritual war taking place within ourselves personally. Suddenly a physical war has broken out on Simchas Torah and now people are banging on the doors “What can we do??” Why didn’t they come banging during the rest of the year? Suddenly because there is a war, so instantly people become afraid of being killed and everything is in upheaval now. But what should be our main pain now? The pain we must feel on the internal war within us personally, which is taking place every day - and to feel pained at the very fact that people are in pain only when there is a war and when they are afraid of what’s going to happen to our physical situation. Our pain now must be comprehensive, both on the physical and spiritual suffering we are in. We should not remain only at the level of being pained about the physical situation now.
What happens when people are only pained over the physical situation now? They join with the Eirev Rav, who have made this war, and who are the cause for this war. Every success that the Eirev Rav has becomes turned into the three cardinal sins of idol worship, illicit relations, and murder.
The internal, true way to go about the situation now is to have a pain that is comprehensive (to feel pain both over the physical and spiritual situation). This is true about everything, but it is especially applicable to the current situation. People are left homeless, people have been exiled from their homes, and the pain is enormous. But every person also can know something else that is even more frightening - that 99% of souls who leave the world do not reach Gan Eden. That is a punishment far worse than any of the physical suffering now. Yet why doesn’t this bother people, where is the pain over this? Because it is something abstract and spiritual which we don’t see with our eyes. But anyone who lives just a bit spiritually doesn’t have to hear the news, he doesn’t have to know what’s happening in Gaza or Turkey or Lebanon in order to be in pain. For he is already in a much more profound kind of pain, because he is aware of the very painful reality of today [the internal war that is taking place inside each of our souls, which so many are falling in]. When one sees even a bit of what’s happening today, he knows that it is all painful, and now we have additional pain because of the situation now - and altogether all of this pain adds up, and it is enormous!
When a person has an entire spectrum of existence beginning from the depth of the neshamah, all the way down to his physical existence, it certainly pains him when he sees the physical pain that others are in, but will he be in pain only about this...?
The most painful thing in the world today is the very painful reality which we are in where people only see the branches without seeing the root, when they see the outcomes without seeing what’s channeling it, when they see only the body and they don’t see the soul. That is the main thing to be bothered and pained about.
[ עקב האסון הכבד והנורא שארע תשע“א068דרשות ]
