For What it’s Worth: Warren Hecht

Before I get to the main part of my column, I want to give an update as to how my guinea pigs, Squirrel and Squeaky, are getting along. Before Chol HaMoed Sukkos, I tried to put them together in the same cage. It didn’t work the first time since Squeaky was attacking Squirrel. But my wife wanted the second cage gone ASAP (read: before Simchas Torah) so I tried a new tactic during Chol HaMoed when I put them together again and it worked. Although they have their moments, they are getting along.

This year, Yom Kippur was from Sunday night through Monday night. That had an impact on what I am writing about, due to the deadline to submit an article for my column. Therefore, most of the column was written before the holiday when I was in Yom Kippur mode.

The pain of seeing what has happened to our Israeli brethren has not subsided. I can only imagine the pain and anguish and fear that those in Israel are going through. It feels like a mass shivah. The media, including CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, have broadcasted one horror story after another. In two instances, the person being interviewed, including the father of an eight-year-old girl, said that it was better to hear that their child was killed than taken captive by Hamas. This shocked the interviewers. I learned that the Talmud says that being held as a captive is worse than being killed.

With every contest there has to be a winner and a loser. Sam Berger may have won the election, but both candidates were winners. It was a big kidush Hashem that both Sam Berger and David Hirsch did not engage in personal attacks and stuck to the issues. I would be surprised if they were not under pressure to engage in demonizing the opponent with baseless attacks. Unfortunately, that is what politics has become in this country. It is a sad state of affairs that we have to acknowledge candidates who treat each other with respect and accept results of an election. It used to be a given. I would have liked to see a higher turnout from the frum community for the special election. The small turnout may make Berger vulnerable to a primary challenge by candidates in other communities in the Assembly district when he runs for a full term.

In my last column before Sukkos, I addressed the 50^th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. I did not expect that fifty years later I would be writing about another war against Israel. It appears I was not the only one who was surprised. Just like 50 years ago, it appears that Israel was unprepared for this attack. An Israeli spokesman compared it to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. There were also other parallels. The attack was started on a special day in the Jewish calendar. In 1973 it was Yom Kippur and this time it was Shemini Atzeres. The Yom Kippur War started on October 6 and this war started on October 7.

It has been 22 years since the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the courage of those on Flight 93. It is hard to believe that it is now one generation later; those who were toddlers and those born post-9/11 have no recollection of the tragedy. This year, just like in 2001, it was during the time that we were saying Selichos. If there is any incident which encapsulates the idea that there are no guarantees we will last through the next year, it is 9/11. If you had told someone on September 10 what was going to happen the next day, they would have thought you were crazy. Imagine a small group of individuals hijacking four planes and then bringing down the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.