B'gilaad Nfishe Rotzchim

How horrible it is to quote such a chazal as the beginning title to a weekly attempt at  'divrey machshava.' How much worse so that these words this year strike  deeply in the hearts of every Jew ,of every color and every stripe.

The second time in a scant two weeks of a murder , first of a tohor , and then of a kodosh.

Woe unto us!

And the madmen wear yarmulkas!

I once heard from my Rebbe , the baal Pachad Yitzchok (zy'a) that in this world it is not possible that the righteous aren't somewhat afflicted with the sins of the generation.Is it enough for us to say ,'These people are sick. That's it.We are now in the 9 days of mourning for the destruction of the Temple. Mustn't every Yid look deeply into their own hearts? Not that , chas v'sholom we mean to say that these sick individuals represent our people ; but there is a tumah, a defilement in the air . Every intelligent Yid knows this.And the possuk of the parsha says so."Lo stamei es haaretz asher ani shochen b'soche' - Don't defile the land in which I dwell, "ki ani hashem , hashochen bsoch beni yisrael.'- because I am haShem Who dwells amongst the bnei Yisrael.'

The previous shabbas, Matos,we learned of the request of the 2 (and then 2 and a half) tribes to settle 'ever l'Yarden.'Moshe was not pleased, and Rashi in sefer Yehoshua calls 'ever l'Yarden' a land which is 'tamei.'I saw that the question is asked as why it is 'tamei '?It is considered to be a part of Eretz Yisrael. It is obligated in terumah and maaseros.

Rashi seems to say that it is not a place for the 'shechina' to dwell; it is not the Place that was Chosen.When Reuven and Gad asked to settle there , they showed a lack of love for the land ,and ,indeed , they went into Golus , first.This is the land which Rashi, in our parsha calls "Gilaad, the land filled with rotzchim."

It is possible to be in the Holy Land, active in torah and mitzvos, but nevertheless ,if the Temple, ie. the service of haShem, is not central to all which we do, then we are in 'eretz tamei', far from the Shechina, the presence of HaShem.

"Every generation which does not see the rebuilding of the Temple is as if it were destroyed in it's time." In a generation which has seen a tremendous rebuilding and even flourishing of yeshivas and community institutions , is it not possible that we are being tested? How much of that inner Temple of the 'pintele yid ' is being addressed ? Or do Institutions have a life of their own?