Jews gone wild?

Two seemingly unrelated incidents occurred over the last two weeks. The unfortunate violent incident in New Square and the Anthony Weiner scandal seem to have little or nothing to do with each other, besides having Jews involved at the heart of each matter. Or do they?

Those who attended my Shavuos night shiur learned that nothing happens on this Earth without God's will - not even (possibly) what seem to be random evolutionary processes. As the Zohar says, there is not even a blade of grass that does not have the voice of God behind it, saying "Grow!" When incidents occur such as the two mentioned above, we need to try to find a message buried inside and heed that messages well. Jews, especially Orthodox Jewry, are taking it on the chin. The media coverage of these two incidents is incessant and so negative that we must take a lesson from what's been perpetrated and work from that silver lining towards some kind of tikkun.

There is a famous story told over in the Talmud, in Avoda Zara 17a, about a serial sinner, Elazar ben Dordia. Elazar had visited every harlot he could think of or reach. He found out about one that he hadn't visited yet and decided to make the journey. Once reached, she rebuked him sharply and told him that he had no share in the World to Come, whereupon Elazar laid down, cried and repented until his soul left him and died. A voice from heaven then announced "Rabbi Elazar has merited life in the World to Come". Rebbi, the great redactor of the Mishna, wept when he heard this and proclaimed "some labor an entire life to merit a share in the World to Come, while some do it in a single instant!"

The message, I think, is clear: these two incidents are examples of the Rabbi Elazar ben Dordia story in reverse. Anthony Weiner had accomplished much as a politician, had his whole political life ahead of him; all gone, in a puff of smoke, because of a few minutes of indiscretion. New Square is renowned for its pious works - its charity, chessed, and spirituality have few rivals, yet with one extremely brief incident all that is nearly forgotten, at least to the "outside world", at least for now. Or, to put it another way, "yeish mi she oveid es olamo besha'ah achas" - there are those who can lose their share in the World to Come in one instant".

We need to weigh everything we do, everything we say, against the measure of desecrating God's name. We Jews can labor our entire life doing good works and establishing a good name; the memory of those deeds and that good name can easily vanish with astonishing swiftness with one brief word or action.