The consistent negligence and recklessness of Chardeie People during Bin Hazmanim

 

by Yehuda Dov

The news clips are laconic, but they reveal a story of consistent negligence, ignorance and shocking indifference to human life.

Today’s news started with a search for a father and his six children who had gone missing in a Negev Wadi. For the uninformed, it should be mentioned that Israel is currently experiencing a heat wave not unlike those in Europe. In many areas, temperatures have crossed 40°C (105°F), and in the northern Negev they are even more extreme. It is more than ill advised to take a hike in such conditions, it borders on lunacy. Within two hours or so the body loses liquids and starts dehydrating, and heat stroke is another possible danger in the blazing desert sun. Nobody can carry the amount of water required to stave off these hazards, and even the IDF prohibits training in such conditions.

Fortunately, after the family failed to show up at the end of their route, the worried mother called rescue teams in and they managed to locate the group, exhausted and dehydrated but alive. 

The next news item, broadcast the same afternoon, revealed a less fortunate outcome, but a similar lack of respect for safety precautions. A 2-year-old toddler at a villa in central Israel had drowned in a pool. This has happened before, but repeats itself far too often. There should be no situation in which a pool is not locked with a high lock if children are around. Parents must know that if the child is anywhere near the pool, and even if they have other young children, they cannot let go of them for even a second. If they cannot control the children, they mustn’t let them into the pool.

The child was taken to hospital in critical condition, but doctors were forced to declare him dead. A 16-year-old boy is also in serious condition after drowning last week, but at least he was in a public pool with a lifesaver, who managed to extricate him before his condition deteriorated further.

The day’s tragedies were not yet over. In the evening it was reported that two young men had overturned in an ATV southeast of Jerusalem. One of them was lightly injured but the other bore the brunt of the accident and was declared dead at the scene. 

The two young men, like the others from the previous items, were charedi, and they join the litany of accidents and mishaps which always seem to befall the community during the Bein Hazmanim period. Even more tragic, the victim in this case, a student at the prestigious Ponovezh yeshiva, was due to get married in the coming weeks.

The real issue here is hubris. People who have never ridden an ATV or only done so on rare occasions have no business riding it out on rugged, steep desert ridges. People who rarely take trips and hikes think that they can consult a map, plan a route and go out in all weathers. People who have only a bathtub to worry about at home rent villas with pools and sometimes rely on an irresponsible older child to take care of his younger sibling.

It is high time that the Torah community, so aware of the value of life and of what can be done with every minute of precious time granted to us by Hashem, makes a concerted campaign to educate people on “V’Nishmartem L’Nafshoseichem”, including all the numerous examples from bitter past experience, and may we set an example for safe vacation activities and not wild, dangerous or extreme pastimes.