Disgraced ZAKA chief Yehuda Meshi-Zahav's final act was just as violent as the others attributed to him. He is cruel toward his accusers, aggressive toward journalists that reported on the investigation into his actions, and the wall of silence he allegedly built around himself. He behaves offensively toward his own family members and is violent toward society in general.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Suicide is supposedly an act of terrible desperation that invokes compassion and pangs of conscience. I have neither. Suicide is murder. It is the corruption of God's image in man.
According to the investigation, Meshi-Zahav murdered the souls of children, teens, and women for years. Deuteronomy compares the act of rape to murder. It is the objectification of another human being, male or female, through their forceful transformation into a tool for the rapist's self-fulfillment. This is the murder of the soul. The rapist stood across from another person but instead of seeing the image of God in them, an independent personality with their own desires and feelings, they saw nothing but a body. That is how they rob their victims of their souls.
When the scandal was first revealed, I found it hard to digest how such extreme good and bad could be found in the same person. How could someone who dedicated their lives to preserving the honor of the dead so desecrate the honor of the living? Does the good stand on its own, or is it maintained by evil and cruelty? The more testimonies were collected, the more I understood that the good inside someone so extreme was really just a reflection of their evil. This image manipulation was aimed at allowing Meshi-Zahav to hunt for more victims and amass power and public status to cover up his crimes.
For years, Meshi-Zahav obsessively worked to forge his stellar public image. When the ugly side was revealed, and the wall of silence was breached, Meshi-Zahav carried out another attempted murder, only this time around, he was to be the victim. Instead of just once looking into his victims' eyes and seeing them and their distress and accepting responsibility for his actions and asking for forgiveness, he chose to make himself the victim, thereby hurting his victims all over again. The cowardly apology he left behind was offensive.
It's easy to criticize the media for hanging people in the public square without a trial. But this story in particular is proof that without media exposure, the assaults would have gone one. After all, the Haredi street, the police, and even the Magen association that accompanies Haredi victims knew of his crimes. Yet they were all left helpless when confronted by the victims' fear of the terror he used to ensure their silence.
On Deuteronomy's comparison of rape to murder, the sages taught that those who learn of rape about to take place are obligated to do everything in their power to stop it, including at the expense of the rapist's life. Witnesses to rape are obligated to fulfill the exceptional duty of taking on the role of judge and executioner. That is not a right, it is an obligation. Meshi-Zahav was a ticking time bomb. The journalists that exposed his actions fulfilled their obligations and prevented the next rape. The complainants, who gathered the remaining pieces of their robbed souls and found the power within them to testify, prevented the next human soul from being murdered. At this difficult and sad time, I choose to be with them.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
