Tisha B'Av 2023: The Murder of Leiby Kletzky

Today is the very sad day of Tisha above, a day that's so many brutal and horrible tragedies have befallen the Jewish people. It's not a day for motivation, definitely doesn't feel like a day to give motivation, but it's a day to sit on the floor and cry, and if you have nothing to cry about it, you don't feel it. Well then, maybe you haven't heard the following story, and it seems very with the times, is very much what the Kinos are here to do to tell stories, to invoke feelings of destruction and sadness, to cry. How many stories are there of Ta'anai and Amoy-Royim, ta'amidei, chachomim, our shield bearers, being torn apart and burned in terrible ways? But I warn you, the story will probably make you cry and I feel nauseous as I say it. It was July 11, 2011. And little Lebe Kletsky was walking home from camp that day. He was in camp in Barrow Park. He was walking home from 44th Street between 12th and 3rd Avenue. It was the first day he was now big enough to walk home by himself. He didn't need to take the bus. He'd practiced the route before. He had mastered the way home from camp back to his house. But little Lebe Kletsky never got home that day, with panic in their voices, mom and dad, rabbi Kletsky and Mrs Kletsky. They phoned the police. The South Shomrim Division of Barrow Park headed the search, along with 5,000 Orthodox Jews searching for little Lebe, with signs all across Barrow Park. Has anyone seen this little boy, lebe Kletsky? The search led them to the police department, to where they had located the little boy on the surveillance camera, and they saw that little Lebe was talking to a stranger. A very deranged individual, whose name we will not mention, struck up a conversation with this boy outside of a dentist's office, abducted Lebe through into his Honda Accord and now the search was on for this man and perhaps they can still save Lebe. They went over to the dentist's office. The police department told them who they were looking for, going through the records, discovering who it was, sourcing the address of this individual, the police department they show up at the house to an open door of this deranged individual and Lebe Kletsky murdered his body, undetectable, dismembered, torn apart by this crazy man, and the news broke that little Lebe was no longer with us. That's something that you should know about the story. The four thousands of people showed up at his la valla when Mr and Rabbi Kletsky, lebe Kletsky's father showed up at the police department. They were looking at the surveillance camera and they showed on the screen is this your son walking? Father said, yeah, there's my lady. And he was on 44th Street between 12th and 13th and he was supposed to turn on 13th Avenue and as the father looked at the screen he saw his little boy Walking straight up 44th. He did in turn on 13th Avenue and the father screamed out maybe turn, but maybe didn't turn. He kept walking straight and maybe klatsky murdered on that day. How many tragedies have befallen the Jewish people? Who doesn't have some intimate, close connection with a horrible pain that they're going through? Who doesn't have a reason to cry? When we sit on the floor on tish above, we cry, and we cry because all of the source of this pain, this confusion, comes from the lack of a base on mcdush, the lack of clarity. And the Almighty. What does he ask from us? He asks us to turn, the base of mcdush destroyed because of baseless and senseless hatred, because we don't give proper hashivists to the Almighty's Torah, because of our sense of self-worth, of how it's all about us and the development of our own indulgences. The Almighty asked that we turn, we repent and we cry because little labied intern, and we cry and we hope that the base of mcdush will be built and here be on a new. But until that day, what we can do to rebuild the base on mcdush Is to turn, to turn our path, to do repent and to do chuva. We pray that the Almighty should bring the base on mcdush back and that we should know of no further suffering.