VIN recently published an article entitled “How Many Will We Cry for This Bein Hazmanim?”, calling attention to the preventable deaths and injuries that occur from those who behave recklessly when having fun during Bein Hazmanim.
I submitted the comment below, but VIN chose not to publish it, so I am posting it here.
---UPDATE---
After a two day delay (usually comments are published within hours at most, and usually much less) VIN did publish the comment. I wrote to thank them.
Nevertheless, I am leaving this posting here, as I think it makes an important point.
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I cannot know why it was rejected. Perhaps it was simply an editorial decision. But I cannot help suspecting that the editors were concerned about the criticism they might receive for publishing a comment that some readers would label “anti-Chareidi,” or irrelevant to the specific subject of the article.
If so, that reluctance is itself part of the problem.
A community cannot honestly examine itself if even a relatively restrained request to recognize the suffering and sacrifice of other Jews is considered too threatening to publish. נושא בעול עם חבירו cannot end at the borders of one’s own community.
But there is an even more striking contrast here: during the very same Bein Hazmanim when some young men are swimming, hiking, riding ATVs—and, tragically, sometimes losing their lives through insufficient caution—other young men, including serious bnei Torah, have no Bein Hazmanim at all. They are willingly exposing themselves to far greater danger, not for recreation, but to defend Klal Yisrael. That contrast cries out to be acknowledged by any fair-minded person. The article’s complete failure even to mention it is itself revealing.
Here is the comment I submitted but was rejected:
I share the author’s anguish over these terrible tragedies, and I fully agree that far greater care must be taken during Bein Hazmanim. Every Jewish life is precious, and וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם מְאֹד לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם must be taken seriously.
But I found the article painful for another reason. It asks how many people we will cry for during Bein Hazmanim, yet says nothing about the many families crying for soldiers who have been killed or wounded while defending all of us. Many of those soldiers are themselves serious Bnei Torah, who have had no Bein Hazmanim — not because they were now relaxing from a long learning zman, but because they interrupted their full-time learning some time ago as they believe that the Torah requires them to protect Jewish lives. They could have enjoyed an air-conditioned Beit Midrash for the past few months, but they are going over and beyond in their efforts to protect lives when many of them could easily find excuses not to serve.
While some yeshiva bochurim and avreichim are swimming, hiking, or riding ATVs, other young men are deliberately handling dangerous weapons and equipment every day—not for recreation, but to protect their brothers and sisters.
My point is not that yeshivah students should not rest or enjoy appropriate recreation. It is that this article is yet another indication, painfully, how much of the Chareidi community appears to be living in a different universe from the rest of the nation. Much of Israel lives constantly with the war—with fathers and husbands on reserve duty are absent for months, wives and children without husbands and fathers, and families coping with death, injury, and trauma. Yet even when discussing tragedy, the concern often seems limited almost entirely to tragedies within the Chareidi community itself, oblivious to what is going on all around them
Surely we must cry for those lost during Bein Hazmanim. But we must cry at least as much for those who have fallen while protecting us—and recognize the extraordinary sacrifice of those who are still doing so.
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