WEEPING FOR SUICIDE AND DYING DAYS: Weep not merely for those who take their own lives; even more so, weep for those who will one day die [that is, for all who live].
2
העולם מתאונן על הפקרת החיים כעת, ועל המתאבדים את עצמם לדעת שנתרבו ר״ל.אבשנות תרפ״ו־פ״ח מצוק העתים לישראל, ורבים מהם נתמוטטו מפרנסתם, נתרבו המאורעות של איבוד לדעת ר״ל. ואני מוסיף לדאוג גם על החי ההולך. לא המית את עצמו, ומכל מקום מת הוא. החיים נעשה זול והפקר אצלו, לחיות או לא לחיות אחת היא לו.
WORRYING EVEN MORE FOR THE LIVING: The world bemoans the valuelessness of life at the present time, and regrets all those who have committed suicide.5The years 5686–5688 [1925-1928] brought terrible times to the Jewish people in Eastern Europe. Many lost their livelihoods entirely and, as a result, there was a great increase in suicide, may God protect us from such a thing. (May God save us all!) However, I worry all the more so for those still in the living. Such people may not have killed themselves, but they are nonetheless dead in that life has become so cheapened and valueless for them that there is no real difference between living and not living.
3
מתחילה הי׳ היצר הרע צריך, להתאמץ להביא את האיש לידי כפירה בדין ודיין ר״ל, עד שיבגוד בשם אלקיו ח״ו, ולא בנקל ולא תמיד עלתה לו זאת. ועתה התבוננתי וראיתי אנשים שאינם כופרים, והולכים בשרירות לבם, רק מפני האנכי שלהם הוזל והופקר אצלם. ימית, יחי׳, גן עדן, גיהנם, למי, להאנכי שלו, והאנכי הוזל והופקר אצלו, ואינו כדאי לטפל בו ולדאג עבורו. אשר קרך בדרך, קרירות בכל, אף בעצמותו.
DEVALUED SELF: Wayward impulses used to have many intricate strategies to bring godwrestlers to transgress divine commands and defy their [heavenly] Judge to the point of rebelling against their God, perish the thought that such a thing ever happen. Yet now I see godwrestlers who are not at all apostates nonetheless who simply act as they wish, motivated by the fact that their sense of self has been so degraded so as to be worthless for them. [And so it does not matter at all to them] if God ends life or grants it, nor do the concepts of the Garden of Eden or Inferno [exist other than as functions of] their own ego. And that ego, that self, has been rendered so cheapened and so valueless that it is hardly worth the effort to care for it or to worry about it. [And this is what is hinted in the verse at Deuteronomy 25:18], remarking how Amalek “befell them [i.e., the Israelites] on their journey,” [the word for “befell” suggesting by its assonance with the Hebrew word for “cold” that] the great enemy of Israel is coolness [as a sign of deeper apathy] even with regard to the constitution of one’s own self.
אל תבכו לממית עצמו, בלבד, בכו בכה גם להולך ומת.
WEEPING FOR SUICIDE AND DYING DAYS:
Weep not merely for those who take their own lives; even more so, weep for those who will one day die [that is, for all who live].
העולם מתאונן על הפקרת החיים כעת, ועל המתאבדים את עצמם לדעת שנתרבו ר״ל.אבשנות תרפ״ו־פ״ח מצוק העתים לישראל, ורבים מהם נתמוטטו מפרנסתם, נתרבו המאורעות של איבוד לדעת ר״ל. ואני מוסיף לדאוג גם על החי ההולך. לא המית את עצמו, ומכל מקום מת הוא. החיים נעשה זול והפקר אצלו, לחיות או לא לחיות אחת היא לו.
WORRYING EVEN MORE FOR THE LIVING:
The world bemoans the valuelessness of life at the present time, and regrets all those who have committed suicide.5The years 5686–5688 [1925-1928] brought terrible times to the Jewish people in Eastern Europe. Many lost their livelihoods entirely and, as a result, there was a great increase in suicide, may God protect us from such a thing. (May God save us all!) However, I worry all the more so for those still in the living. Such people may not have killed themselves, but they are nonetheless dead in that life has become so cheapened and valueless for them that there is no real difference between living and not living.
מתחילה הי׳ היצר הרע צריך, להתאמץ להביא את האיש לידי כפירה בדין ודיין ר״ל, עד שיבגוד בשם אלקיו ח״ו, ולא בנקל ולא תמיד עלתה לו זאת. ועתה התבוננתי וראיתי אנשים שאינם כופרים, והולכים בשרירות לבם, רק מפני האנכי שלהם הוזל והופקר אצלם. ימית, יחי׳, גן עדן, גיהנם, למי, להאנכי שלו, והאנכי הוזל והופקר אצלו, ואינו כדאי לטפל בו ולדאג עבורו. אשר קרך בדרך, קרירות בכל, אף בעצמותו.
DEVALUED SELF:
Wayward impulses used to have many intricate strategies to bring godwrestlers to transgress divine commands and defy their [heavenly] Judge to the point of rebelling against their God, perish the thought that such a thing ever happen. Yet now I see godwrestlers who are not at all apostates nonetheless who simply act as they wish, motivated by the fact that their sense of self has been so degraded so as to be worthless for them. [And so it does not matter at all to them] if God ends life or grants it, nor do the concepts of the Garden of Eden or Inferno [exist other than as functions of] their own ego. And that ego, that self, has been rendered so cheapened and so valueless that it is hardly worth the effort to care for it or to worry about it. [And this is what is hinted in the verse at Deuteronomy 25:18], remarking how Amalek “befell them [i.e., the Israelites] on their journey,” [the word for “befell” suggesting by its assonance with the Hebrew word for “cold” that] the great enemy of Israel is coolness [as a sign of deeper apathy] even with regard to the constitution of one’s own self.