B'rishus Morai v'Rabosai,

 

Klal Yisroel is in shock over the horrific loss of a precious child. With an outpouring of achdus and love we mourn with the family that has suffered this terrible blow. The world sees that Klal Yisroel is indeed one body, one soul.

 

Beyond this, we have begun to search for causes both in the realm of the physical and the spiritual. We question how the perpetrator went unnoticed or whether symptoms were ignored or unaddressed. And we turn to modes of tikkun and teshuva; learning for the neshama, working on lashon hara, areas of bein adam l'makom, and areas of bein adam l'chaveiro. It is our way to look for obvious Mitzvos in need of attention and direct our focus there. But one element has been overlooked.

 

Another family has lost a child.

 

The circumstances are different, the shock more jarring to our senses, but the reality remains the same - Hashem has taken away another of our children.

The Los Angeles community has seen its share of loss as well. Every one of us knows a family that has suffered. I will mention no names, they grieve enough; but my mind is filled with dozens of names and faces of parents who carry the heart wrenching pain of losing a son or daughter. Some were in the prime of their life on the verge of starting families of their own. Some were angelic youth in all their innocence. Some were parents or even grandparents in their own right. And then there are those hundreds, literally hundreds, of unknown little ones about whom the community has never heard, because their parents grieved in private for little kedoshim that never saw the world.

And how many names are currently on our lists B'toch Sh'ar Cholei Yisroel?

The "Three Weeks" are upon us; they started early last week. We all approach this period with a sense of dread that Chas V'Shalom something will happen, because Hashem Yeracheim, it has always been a time of troubles for Klal Yisroel.

So I beseech my fellow brothers and sisters, fellow parents and grandparents of young men and women, boys and girls, tinokos shel beis rabban, and vladim u'vlados b'mei imon...

Daven! Storm the Heavens with your Tefillos, with your Tehillim, with your tears!

And on Shiva Asar B'Tammuz, be moved enough to use the Tefilla already provided to us by Chazal. At the height of our Selichos, right before we beg Hashem, "Shema Koleinu"!

קל נא רפא נא תחלואי גפן פוריה

It is printed in our siddurim, it is available to us on every Ta'anis. And yet for some reason, most shuls I've davened in skip it. "It's not our minhag." "It's only for an epidemic." "We just don't say it".

Can we neglect to use the very Tefilla specifically composed to protect our children?

I speak from the heart, as one of the parents who grieves in silence. Rabbosai please, let us not meet again in tragedy and merely say "how terrible for the parents, can you imagine what they must be going through?"

Let us turn to Avinu Shebashamayim, the Father of all these children, with our power of Tefila, and may He bring the Geulah Shelaima B'Karov, Amen.