Certainly the most instinctive and admittedly familiar response was to flee the crushing reality, and look to a more eternal and radiant one. When the optic eye could no longer comprehend the empirical world it became that much easier for the imaginative eye to glimpse a more perfect and eternal state. Sitting in Yeshiva and echoing words which have been recited for thousands of years, phrases which thunder through history, certainly aided us in escaping the dreary and gloomy circumstances of our condition. Yet, as seductive as the escape to Shamayim seemed, Yeshiva always demands that we remain tethered to Aretz. True to this ideal, our commitment to Jewish History and Jewish Peoplehood requires that we confront rather than flee from the crisis.
Confrontation transcends purely practical or strategic preparation - as important as they are.
Confrontation demands that we look toward these seemingly unfathomable events and retrieve meaning for our people and our State. Once again Rav Amital's voice echoes in my mind. That period was also marked by a severe wave of terror which was directed at Israel's larger cities. Preoccupied by these events we found it challenging to generate the intensity for Rosh Hashanah. Rav Amital shared with us the texture of his davening 50 or so years earlier in a concentration camp.