In the aftermath of יום הזכרון and יום העמצאות, it is worthwhile to contemplate the emotions of this year, and specifically the price we have paid as a people to defend our land. Before we arrive at an approach let us discuss two questions:
When describing the prohibition of אותו ואת בנו the Torah says, "לא תשחטו ביום אחד - you shall not slaughter them on one day." It seems, though, that there is an inappropriate use of the plural form in תשחטו. The איסור is for any single individual to shecht אותו ואת בנו ביום אחד. Why, then, would the Torah speak to the plural rather than the singular?
The בעל המאור at the very end of מס' פסחים asks why we do not say a שהחיינו on the מצוה of ספירת העומר. After all, we say שהחיינו over most other time-specific mitzvos, like שופר, לולב and מגילה! The בעל המאור suggests that there is no שהחיינו because without a קרבן עומר, we are unable to perform the mitzvah in its complete sense, and that diminishes from the שמחה of the מצוה. However, Rav Soloveitchik points out, this answer only works if we assume that ספירת העומר בזמן הזה is only a מצוה מדרבנן and is connected to the קרבן עומר. The רמב"ם, though, understands that ספירת העומר is not bound to the קרבן עומר and is still a מצוה דאורייתא nowadays. How, then, would the רמב"ם explain why we don't recite a שהחיינו on ספירת העומר?
Often, the עבודה for us is to feel pain. There are undoubtedly times for introspection and times for self-improvement, but before any of that, there is an avodah to feel. The greater the tragedy the longer it takes to absorb and speak about it in a meaningful way. Perhaps that is why after the holocaust nobody spoke about it for decades.
Moreinu v'Rabbeinu Rav Mayer Twersky shlit"a made this point in the context of understanding the Rambam in the third perek of הלכות תשובה. The Rambam lists those who do not have a חלק בעולם הבא, and among the list are those who are פורש מדרכי הציבור. In הלכה י"א the רמב"ם writes that this does not mean that a person has violated עבירות. To the contrary, "אף על פי שלא עבר עבירות", one is considered to be פורש מדרכי הציבור if he lives his life outside of the context of the rest of כלל ישראל. In the Rambam's terminology, if he is, "לא נכנס בצרתן". Our עבודה when thinking about the families of our fallen soldiers is simply to be נכנס בצרתן. Rav Twersky pointed out that some Jews do this viscerally. There is no thought process or program to it. They just feel. Those of us who have not yet achieved that מדרגה are supposed to be מתבונן, to contemplate and focus on the tragedy, until we get to the point that we are נכנס בצרתן. That is our עבודה - to feel the pain of others.
We are familiar with the הלכה that when we are מנחם אבל we do not initiate conversation. This is fascinating because Chazal derive from the passuk, "והאנק דום" that silence is an indication of mourning, which suggests that the comforter is also in mourning. Essentially, we sit there silently to express to the mourner that we too are mourning - עמו אנכי בצרה - and through that shared experience of mourning the אבל finds a small amount of comfort.
In the context of a different tragedy, my brother, Rav Avi Lebowitz shlit"a, pointed out that we cannot yet fully internalize the magnitude of the tragedy and react properly to it for another reason - the tragedy isn't over. There are still so many people in hospitals; there are still so many families that don't know if their father/brother/son will ever return home, and if so, will he ever return to normal life. There are so many whose lives have been altered in a way that one cannot recuperate from. It is just too early and too raw. As my friend Rav Warren Cinnamon said, sometimes we need a little נשמע before נעשה.
Rav Soloveitchik explains that we do not recite a שהחיינו on ספירת העומר because שהחיינו is recited when we have arrived at the destination - והגיענו לזמן הזה. The very nature of ספירת העומר is such that we are making it clear that we have not yet arrived at the destination, rather we are counting toward the destination. There is a process we must go through, and we can't skip steps. In recent years we have been enjoying access to the very best of our homeland, seeing unprecedented growth both in ruchniyus and gashmiyus, feeling that we are at the doorstep of the final geulah. But Hashem told us that there is no שהחיינו during ספירה - we aren't there yet. We haven't arrived at the destination.
Rav Zalman Sorotzkin points out in his אזנים לתורה that the גמרא חולין דף פ"ב derives from the phrase לא תשחטו in the context of אותו ואת בנו, that, "מלמד שאם שחט ראובן את האם ואחר כך שחט שמעון את הבן והתרו בו לוקה" - if Reuven shechts the mother animal and then Shimon shechts the offspring after being warned not to do so, Shimon receives lashes. Imagine two men - Reuven and Shimon - that are not brothers and have never even met each other. They don't even live in the same city. Shimon has this beautiful animal to shecht and it promises to provide his family with a delicious veal dinner. Yet, because Reuven, who he doesn't even know, has shechted that animal's mother, a normal neutral and benign action, he has generated a potential איסור דאורייתא for Shimon. Reuven has impacted Shimon's avodas Hashem and forced Shimon to modify his behavior. This highlights, Rav Sorotzkin says, that the actions and circumstances of one Jew impact every Jew.
Rav Yisrael Reisman shared an idea from Rav Gedalia Schorr on the piyyut of לחי עולמים that we say on ימים נוראים. Each phrase in this piyyut is comprised of opposites; for example, we normally say that "סייג לחכמה שתיקה", i.e. when one is engaged in דיבור it signifies a lack of דעה, and yet the piyyut mentions "הדעה והדיבור" going together. A similar combination of opposites is found in the phrase, "ההוד וההדר" - hadar is outer beauty (esrog is described as a, "פרי עץ הדר" because it has a beautiful exterior but has nothing to look at on the inside), while hod is inner beauty, as we see when Rashi explains the words, "כי קרן עור פניו" to mean קרני ההוד because it was an internal glow that emanated from Moshe Rabbeinu. We often find these qualities to be mutually exclusive. When two middos don't typically go together, their combination is only found לחי עולמים - in Hashem - but not in us. Only Hashem can have ל"ג בעומר together with a terrible tragedy and make sense of it all. Only Hashem can fully reconcile having a יום הזכרון and a יום העצמאות at the same exact time. We are incapable of feeling the depth of both of those emotions simultaneously. We are left with the simple task of feeling a Jew's pain.
Ironically, the greatest source of comfort is the pain that we feel. I recall how on the day after the Meron tragedy a few years ago, all day Friday I was fielding phone calls and some people just stopped by my office, to do nothing other than to cry together. To paraphrase the expression - "there is nothing as complete and whole as a broken people". It is precisely this ability to feel one another's pain that will bring about the ישועה that we so desperately daven for. B'ezras Hashem we should all see the day of הוד and הדר, the full glory of the final steps of הגיענו לזמן הזה.