On Monday afternoon, a little before
2:00 pm, I was driving to pick up my son, Yehuda from school in the Bayit VeGan
neighborhood of Jerusalem. I passed by Shaarei Zedek Hospital as I usually do
and everything was quiet. A few minutes later, on our way back, there were fire
engines entering the main entrance of the hospital. When we were back home, I
found out that around 2:00, the ground opened and swallowed up three cars that
were parked in the parking lot. Nobody was injured.
People asked how this disaster came
about out of nowhere. However, it turns out that there were already warnings
from geologists in 2019 before they started working on the new road, Highway 16
that the area was weak and that blasting to build tunnels could damage
buildings in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, they still got the green light to
go ahead with the project.
The day after, the road next to the
hospital was closed in order to investigate some of the cracks to see if there
was another sinkhole waiting to happen. Cars were rerouted and the traffic was
unbearable. By Thursday, the road was back open as they didn’t find any
imminent problems. Will this be another hazard waiting to happen?
Some commented how ironic it was
that this happened the week of Parshat Korach where after Korach’s rebellion,
we read of his punishment (Bamidbar 16:31-32):
As he was finishing speaking all
these words the ground beneath them split. The earth opened its mouth and
swallowed them and their houses and all the people that belong to Korach and all
of their possessions.
In verse 34, we read the reaction of
B’nai Yisrael:
All of Yisrael who were around them
fled from this uproar, for they said, perhaps the earth will swallow us.
Rabbi Chanoch Heynech HaKohen Levine of Aleksander, Rebbe of Ger
(1798-1870) asks: Why did B’nai Yisrael call out and flee if they knew that the
earth opening up was only a punishment for Korach and his followers and if God
wanted to reach the rest of the nation, he could find them anywhere and open
the ground to swallow them up?
He answers that according to the midrash in Parshat Beshalach, Yitzchack
passed down to his children “HaKol Kol
Yaakov” the voice of Yaakov, the power of prayer and calling out to God when
they encounter a dangerous situation. Now that they saw the punishment they
called out to God with prayers and supplications as they did not want it to
happen to them as well.
We can learn some very important lessons from the reactions of B’nai
Yisrael:
If you are in a potentially dangerous situation, move out of the way.
Calling out in prayer is important as well as calling out to make sure
that justice is done.
Those who live in the area near Shaarei Zedek have complained of feeling
all kinds of effects from the construction of the new highway including
buildings shaking, cracking and issues with plumbing. This is the time to cry
out to the authorities before something more dangerous occurs. What happened in
the Shaarei Zedek parking lot was miraculous in that nobody was hurt. We can’t
rely on miracles and we have to make sure that with proper planning, we avoid
the next disaster.