| Many thoughts and emotions are going on in our minds and hearts regarding the critical, tragic situation that Klal Yisroel is in. Our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel are on the front lines of Hashem's decree, but even those of us in chutz laaretz are all part of one guf, one neshamah. We are all Hashem's children; we are all brothers and sisters. The atrocities in Eretz Yisroel hurt us, and the pain is excruciating and relentless.
Let us go through a few different responses of what Hashem wants from us at this time.
First and foremost is the recognition and internalization that everything is ein od milvado. Everything is run by the hand of Hashem. Whenever Hamas attacks, and when they do the most atrocious things in the world, it is only because Hashem allowed it. Nobody can lay a finger on us if Hashem, the Av Harachaman, did not deem it in our best interest. That does not take away the appreciation of the cruelty, but we cannot forget that Hashem is allowing Hamas to do what they are doing. The first address of our frustration and pain must be our Father in shamayim.
As a young married man, I was in Telshe Cleveland for Sukkos with my in-laws, zichronam livrachah. This was in the year 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. I had the privilege to watch the unforgettable Rosh Yeshiva Rav Gifter zt"l as he was nosei b'ol im Klal Yisroel. The Rosh Yeshiva said פרק פ״ג three times a day, weekday, Shabbos, and Yom Tov – and for years that rang in my head. Because Rav Gifter had the koach to cry for the tzaros of Klal Yisroel and to rejoice with the Torah at the same time! That is an unforgettable lesson. We all have the capacity to simultaneously serve Hashem b'simchah and to cry out to Him from the depths of our hearts.
A second thing we have to remember is that this is a test. Do we have the middah of nosei b'ol im chaveiro? To feel the pain and carry the load with our brothers? Moshe Rabbeinu commanded this middah at a time when he could not do anything for the tzaros of Klal Yisroel. He could not make a move to help them, but he was nosei b'ol with them. My father zt"l taught that if down here in olam hazeh Klal Yisroel storms the heavens with nosei b'ol, if we empathize and carry the burden together with the Yidden in Eretz Yisroel, we will be zocheh to "Vaya'ar Elokim es Bnei Yisroel," we will be zocheh to Hashem lightening our burden. We need this middah the whole year and we need it in peacetime; the essence of Klal Yisroel is "v'ahavta l'rei'acha kamocha." But now is the test, and we must rise to the occasion.
The last thing comes from Parshas Bereishis. We read on Simchas Torah the famous pasuk of "naaseh adam." Human beings were created "b'tzalmeinu, k'dmuseinu." The Tomer Devorah says that the tzelem is the physical structure of a human being. The middos structure of a human being is called dmus. How unfortunate is a person who does not work on his middos – he is a tzelem but not a dmus, and Hashem created the human as a tzelem with a dmus. The first middah of Hashem is "Mah Hu rachum af atah rachum" – Hashem has compassion! We emulate this middah by feeling sympathy for the pain and tzaar and by feeling the pain ourselves; by crying for the atrocities that we hear about. If I see or hear an atrocity, I should not look at it as a news item or something to tell my friend; it is not something to forward on my phone. Hearing about a tragedy should bring me to tears! It should bring me to upheaval in my essence! Then I have reached a level of dmus. There is a Jewish term that even non-Jews use, that a person is a "mentsch." Even the non-Jews know that if a person has middos, he is a mentsch – a real human. If we do not have middos, if we walk around nonchalantly hearing the 'news' going on in Eretz Yisroel and we do not feel brokenhearted from the tzaar, then we are a tzelem and not a dmus. I hate to say it, but we know it is true: a tzelem who is not a dmus is not a mentsch. Whoever is not crying today about what is going on in Eretz Yisroel has to look at himself internally and say, "Am I a mentsch?" We need to work on our compassion; on our mentschlichkeit.
With Hashem's help, this challenging tekufah should bring us to kirvas Elokim, to the awareness that everything is ein od milvado. If we are nosei b'ol and we reach the madreigah of v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha – we understand that there are no 'Americans' and there areio 'Israelis,' it is just all of us in it together – and we emulate Hashem's middah of rachamim, that will definitely bring a yeshuah gedolah. We will be zocheh b'karov to "Uva l'Tzion goel, n'um Hashem." | 
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