An Unbearable Tragedy: Dozens of Jews Buried Under the Rubble of Their Homes

The severe disaster that occurred in Miami, Florida, when a multi-story residential building collapsed on hundreds of its occupants, deeply shakes anyone who hears about the dreadful tragedy. The concern and anxiety for the safety of dozens of Jewish residents, who apparently have been under the rubble for several days, affects all segments of the Jewish nation. The details of those trapped under beams and piles of concrete gradually emerge. Everyone is worried about the safety of these dear ones, and hearts go out in concern for the families of the victims and the missing, who have been without any sign of life from their loved ones for such a long time," writes Rabbi Shaul Lerner in his column in 'Yated Ne'eman'.

The thoughts about this disaster, which involves so many precious Jewish lives, are horrifying. Jews sitting in their homes, not on a cable car in the mountains of Italy. In their home, sleeping peacefully, in the middle of the night, no activity around, everything is quiet, calm, and pleasant, and suddenly the house becomes heaps of ruins, a living grave and an actual grave. An unfathomable disaster.

All the wise and experts know in hindsight to speak of flaws that someone warned about months ago, but all this does not change the simple fact: hundreds of the building’s residents heard nothing and knew nothing. Their home, the protected fortress, where they return after risks on the roads and crossing traffic lights, the place symbolizing safety and quiet and peace, turns in an instant into ruins.

The chilling documentation from the disaster shows unimaginable images of 12 floors of a building crushed on top of one another in perfect order, almost without scattering debris around the area. This indicates the complete collapse of the structure at once, simply swallowed by the ground as it is. No earthquake, no explosion. Just the collapse of the house on its residents.

Other documentation shows a room that almost entirely fell, with only a bed and a chair remaining as a silent testimony somewhere on one of the floors of the building, without any way to fall from it. The bed on its two levels covered in sheets, just now children lay on it, and now nothing remains of the entire room except the edge holding up the teetering bed. The place meant to symbolize calm and stability has become a graveyard for all its inhabitants.

And if we have not learned enough from everything we have gone through in the recent period, from the coronavirus pandemic, to the severe and terrible disasters at Mount Meron, with the dreadful extent that the disaster entailed, and on the eve of the Shavuot holiday at the Karlin Hasidic court, and also the disaster in the cable car collapse, this disaster comes, shocking every heart, to teach us another lesson.

Not a Tight Passage, Not Tribunes Without Reinforcement, Not a Cable Car

Not a tight passage, not tribunes whose reinforcements were not completed, not a cable car from which a safety brake was disconnected. A house. The private and quiet, strong and stable house, in one moment collapsed and is gone. In the middle of sleep, in the middle of nothing, entire families were obliterated, leaving relatives wringing their hands and devoid of certainty for such a long time.

And we learned another lesson in humility. The technological capabilities of great and powerful America were revealed in their full inadequacy. As for days and days, they stood helpless in front of a single building that collapsed, unable to clear the debris safely without endangering the rescuers. Long days and hours passed, and who knows how many could still have been saved.

There is no need to teach the children of Judah a bow, how such a case should awaken us to correct our ways. The situation screams on its own, blow after blow, with such intensity, with such strange things that have never been heard or seen, certainly not in such a sequence, and certainly not in such a dispersion across all communities of Israel. The situation speaks for itself. Return to Me and I will return to you.

We cannot but have an insight that settles within us when we see homes collapsing: to protect the home! But not just physically. Every Jewish home raises generations, educates the young, the next generation, to a life of Torah and commandments, to prayer and good traits. The street is dangerous, full of pitfalls. The flood of the world drags with it, to the heartbreak of many young people, to threatening traps. Everyone tries to protect the greenhouse, so that at least there everything will be safe.

The place where everyone feels safe, when the children stay at home and don't wander in the open street. They are not near bad friends, at home everything is calmer, safer, more stable.

But, unfortunately, in our generation, the stable home, the safe place, the closed and guarded place, can at once be a place that collapses on its residents, burying all who sit under its ruins.

The technological revolution affecting us introduces the need for technology tools into almost every home. They can at once, without attention, in a moment of distraction, become a terrible and dreadful trap, collapsing the house on its residents.

If we do not take care to regulate the use of the internet and computers, players, cameras, and mobile devices, it can become a spiritual death trap for the next generation, within the stable and protected home from all foreign and external influences," concludes Rabbi Lerner, and quotes the letter of the great leaders of Israel: "Lo, in recent months, a disorder has come upon the world, killing both good and evil, and whoever hears it, both ears shall tingle, and what does Hashem demand of us, and our sages have already said brought in Rashi 'wherever you find idolatry and promiscuity, disorder comes to the world and kills both good and evil'. And it is known that in recent years the plague of the internet has been developing and progressing, a wicked inclination entering the innermost chambers of every individual and in all workplaces where men, women, and children are employed... and our sages have already said in Avodah Zarah 17a that whoever clings to it online will not return. On this letter, the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, added in his own hand: 'As it is known, the internet is truly the gateway to hell, and everyone who values his soul should distance himself from it'.

"Why do you, the religious, disconnect your children from reality and do not expose them to the internet and television?", A teacher from Be'er Sheva asked Rabbi Zamir Cohen. The answer he gave her will leave you amazed. Watch: