In Memorial: Yossi Kohn

 

BS"D

One Lesson of Meron for NJ: Life at the Precipice of Death vs. Death at the Precipice of Life

23 Sivan 5781 °° 3 June, '21 °° Parshas Shelach

by Binyomin Feinberg

As NJ residents face a primary election next Tuesday (see also https://www.jerseyconservative.org/blog/2021/5/27/religious-girls-targeted-by-a-harrassing-idf-draft-office-text-salvo-again ), NJ proponents of the "Reproductive" Freedom Act (S3030) continue to advocate for that radically permissive abortion bill. As explained elsewhere and previously, S3030 would expand the mass-killing of preborn babies, and further enable human-trafficking in NJ (see also https://www.jerseyconservative.org/blog/2021/5/20/do-you-support-njs-s3030-the-abortion-amp-human-trafficking-freedom-act ).

For the Jewish community, the timing may relay a crucial lesson. We have just been rocked by the tragic Lag Ba'Omer catastrophe in Meron, Israel (just before 1am Israeli time on Friday April 30), in which 45 pure souls were taken from us ba'avanosainu haRabbim (in wake of the multitude of our sins). At the beginning of this week, marking the passage of one month after that fateful night, Jews around the world heard about the greatness of these 45 boys and men. One of the boys, Yossi Kohn OB"M (21) of Cleveland Ohio, was eulogized by his Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Dienna, in Monsey on Sunday afternoon. Yossi was truly an exceptionally caring young man, who - both in life and death - put others first. One eyewitness reported, in a letter to the Kohn family, that Yossi, at the precipice of his own death, as bodies were laying on top of him, noticed a boy under him. Yossi then expended his remaining energy to lift himself off of the boy to enable that boy to be saved, while Yossi himself was unable to save his own life.

Contrast that - saving the life of another at the precipice of his own death, with the polar opposite that we're seeing in NJ today - the attempt of further escalation of the blight of abortion on whim, bringing death to those on the precipice of life.

Please remember Yossi when you vote on Tuesday. That includes all of those in communities in Bergen county, NJ, who are also suffering the tragic loss of one of their own, Donny Morris, OB"M. May our advocacy and actions for Life, moral values, and holiness - against the many anti-morality candidates warring against both (and simultaneously seeking to buy our votes via education funding, as indicated in the recent PR of "Teach Coalition NJ") - serve as a merit for additional elevation of those aforementioned lofty souls in Heaven. 

May their memory serve as a communal blessing, until the Ultimate Redemption

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