Sderot & Tel Aviv - A Lesson From The Gemara
Taanis 21b:
They once said to Shmuel: There is a deadly plaque in Bei Chozaei, a town in Babylonia. He decreed a fast for his city.
They said to him: But it is far away from where we live, and we are not in danger! He said to them: There is no river crossing here to halt its spread, and there is therefore a danger of it spreading to our area.
2 Comments:
It is quite true that if we don't do anything to help the people of S'derot, we are quite likely to be deaing with the Arab flood of rockets on our own doorstep whereever we happen to live in Israel. But more than the security issue, this is also a challenge for our love of our fellow Jew; do we really feel his pain? Are we doing enough to help him - not out of concern for ourselves, but out of concern for him? Everyone of us needs to answer these questions by himself.
Shifra Shomron
www.geocities.com/nevedekalim
I was going to write something similar to what Shifra wrote.
The gemara deals with a sakana issue - bnei chozai had a plague and the fear was it could spread to his town. Some were less concerned and Shmuel was more concerned.
This does apply to Sderot. Because the government let it go on for so long, now they are shooting at Ashkelon and Netivot, and have nearly reach southern Ashdod. Who is to say that in a year or 5 years, they will not have Kassams or Grads or Katyuishas with a range of hitting Bet Shemesh, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv's southern environs such as Rishon, Holon and the like?
But also, as Shifra said, there is also an issue of empathizing with the people in the tzara. Understanding their pain and trying to help them get through it.
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