Melech Ohev Tzedakah u'Mishpat

Last night I gathered with fellow Jews at the Chabad house for Shabbat dinner. Most of these folks are young college and post graduate students. When it came time for the l'chaims a young woman, a third year law student, stood up and spoke about the bombing in Buenos Aires at the AIMA Jewish Community Center. Coming two years after the bombing of Israel's Buenos Aires embassy in which 29 were killed, and 250 were injured, the AIMA bombing took the lives of 87, with over 100 wounded. No justice has been achieved in either case. The Jewish community there continues to speak out, continues to shame the authorities, continues to demand justice in the face of an incident that Argentinian authorities seem content to leave unsolved.

She spoke of a people who, though small in number, have risen up and fought for justice in the past, and must do so again. She raised a glass and asked us to toast that this coming year would be one in which we fought for justice, that though we are not as large as the other nations of the world, that when we speak with one voice we make ourselves heard.

I couldn't agree more.

In her last post before Shabbat, Lemon writes of a young boy who was killed, and another wounded by a pickaxe wielding Arab. Shalom Nativ was 13; the age when Jews accept the yoke of mitzvah, and take their place among the people. Instead Shalom takes his place on the long list of children who have been murdered in cold blood in their own land.

Who in the world is going to demand justice for Shalom Nativ? Will it be Marack, who demands that Jews not even build in their own capital, and considers Jews building homes in their communities the great impediment to peace? Will it be Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak, or Bibi Netanyahu? They seem more interested in committing acts of injustice against Jews in their homeland that fighting for justice. Will it be the world community that is busy funneling money into the pockets of the terrorists who are trying to kill us? As far as the world seems to be concerned, we are the problem...Shalom Nativ brought his death by pickaxe on himself because, after all, he's a living, breathing Jew in his homeland.

If the world sees us, our homes, and our homeland as the problem, then it is up to us, as this young woman in America, some 6000 miles from the place where Shalom Nativ died has suggested, to pursue and achieve justice; for the Buenos Aires bombing, for the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, for the death of Shalom Nativ, and for every other child murdered by the racists of the world that they world ignores with its perpetual silence.

When we daven the Amidah we refer to Hashem as Melech ohev tzeddakah u'mishpat, our King who loves righteousness and justice. On Rosh Hashanah we replace those words with HaMelech, HaMishpat: The King, the Justice.

When the world is silent, we must speak out. As we fast approach the Yomim Nora'im and ask for justice and mercy from Hashem, we are also bidden to seek justice. How can we ask the King of Justice for anything if we are unwilling to act ourselves?

When our blood is being shed, silence is not an option.

Shavuah Tov