Playing the blame game

I sometimes wish that I had the confidence that I see in others around me. I wish I had the clarity to say out loud why bad things have happened and what we should be doing about them so that they don’t happen again. I wish that I could see things with the simplicity that others seem to when they lay blame for tragedies and the ills in the world. I wish I knew why the horror that occurred on Lag B’Omer in Meron did, and what we are meant to do about it.

But I don’t. And in spite of the confidence that others seem to have, I’m not convinced that they do either. Perhaps they are even more unsettled than I am, but don’t have the courage to acknowledge it. And perhaps the bravado simply covers up the fear, pain, worry, and realisation that life is precarious and bad things happen.

Bodies hadn’t been fully identified or buried before the accusations started. It was, apparently, the Haredim, the police, the secular government who had been wrestling for control of Meron. It was the rabbis, the students, the vaccinated, the anti-vaxers, and it was the “I told you so” crew who predicted this. It was the fact that there is no unity among Jews, and it was because the Israeli government is afraid of the ultra-Orthodox.

If this was a multiple-choice quiz, it might be that the correct answer could be “none of the above”. “All of the above” could also be correct.

Remember all those years ago, before CAP, when hijackings were all the rage? News of a criminal incident would often go something like this.

“Oy. Did you hear that Neville was hijacked?”

“No! Terrible. What car was he driving?”

“Brand-new-out-the-box BM. Seriously looking for trouble!”

“For sure. Really stupid! What did he expect was going to happen?”

We all had those conversations. And although it might seem unreasonable now, in some way, they actually made perfect sense. It was a form of protection from the randomness of the crime and the fear that it could happen to us or to our families. The implication was that if we didn’t drive a new-out-the-box BM, then we wouldn’t fall victim. The goal was to reduce anxiety and stress by somehow distancing ourselves from the incident. Even if it meant blaming Neville and his car of choice.

This doesn’t mean that there are no lessons to be learned from the Meron tragedy. There are, no doubt, many. The investigation into the incident has begun, and chances are that multiple factors will have contributed to the event. And, of course, there are things that we should be doing: seeing the loss through compassionate eyes, feeling the pain of others, and resolving to keeping our blame for a group that we aren’t part of in check.

In many ways, South African Jews – perhaps due to our numbers or the fact that many non-religious Jews have returned to observance – are best equipped to lead the way in showcasing what unity means.

We can’t know exactly why Meron happened. And we can’t know exactly what’s expected of us. But it can’t do us any harm to consider what it means to each of us. After all, it’s unlikely that anyone drove to that mountain in a brand-new-out-the-box BM.