Dr Judith Guedalia

The Deer Hunter, is an anti-war movie about the loss of innocence as seen in three American friends - steel workers, who are soon off to fight in the Vietnam War of the 1960s.  One of the most frightening and horrifically memorable scenes is when drunken enemy guards holding the three, play "Russian Roulette" with one of the friends. This is regarded as the ultimate gambling  "game" (NOT TO BE ATTEMPTED!) is played by putting a single bullet in one of the chambers of a gun and spinning it, then pulling the trigger- not knowing if the chamber being fired contains the bullet will actually or if the chamber will be one of the empty ones.

The movie came abruptly into my consciousness today, the first day of the new month of Adar. It is about preparedness for life and the base primitiveness and cruelty that mankind is capable of exhibiting.   It goes against so much of Jewish belief and behavior and yet I recall it because of the events of the same day, (evening actually), one year ago.

In the Yeshiva world and here in Israel particularly, we take the joyfulness of the month of Adar seriously.  After all, it is the countdown to Purim, the holiday we celebrate when Haman-the-evil's dastardly plot of against the Jews of Shushan was overturned and Haman and his sons were hanged for treason against the King of Persia. 

The heinous plot was devised to occur on a date which was, on the face of it happenstance - a gamble, as if his planned killing was not planned, but just a matter of luck, the casting of "lots."   It was with this knowledge that on March 6, 2008, eve of the month of Adar, a former Arab driver of the students of the Mercaz HaRav Kook Yeshiva high school struck. 

He knew, when decked with guns and bandoliers, he barged into the Beit Medrash (study hall-library) on a clear evening last year, that the boys would be there, unsuspecting and waiting for the joyful Purim program to begin.  He became a killing machine murdering eight and maiming a number of other boys, ages 14 to17 whose sin was being in yeshiva and, of course, for being Jewish.

We - the psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, of Shaare Zedek Medical Center's ARAN trauma team - were waiting in the ER, having been informed that a mass terrorist event was going on.  We waited for much of the night, only to tearfully discover that a very few wounded would come, the majority of the wounded were dead. 

Some of the physically and emotionally wounded told horrific stories of how the shooter aimed at his friends and found the gun was empty, reloaded and then proceeded to kill his fellow students. The boy was crouched near another student when the terrorist pointed his gun at him, pulled the trigger and the bullet didn't come out of the chamber.  The terrorist moved to the spot where he had more guns and left the boy alone alone with this "Russian Roulette" memory seared into his psyche.

This year almost to the day, eight-day-old Avraham Shapira ben Yitzhak Dadon joined the covenant with Hashem and Bnai Yisrael.  This new Jew was named after the holy head of Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva and is the son of the man who located and killed the terrorist. 

Ronen Medzini of YNet quoted the heroic dad as saying: "We hope to gain strength from the terrible event we experienced here and sanctify life with the blood of the victims."   More poignant was that the mohel (circumciser) was none other than Tzemach Hirschfeld the father of slain Yehonadav Haim Hirschfeld HY'D, who is quoted as saying: "this is a very special occasion for me - to circumcise the son of the man who shot the terrorist who murdered my son, and all this just a week before the first anniversary of the attack."

Tags: Adar | Russian Roulette