For many of you, at least those who were either born after 1960 or are not conspiracy theorists or history buffs, you might be scratching your head. “What’s a grassy knoll? What does it have to do with a slanted roof, or Covid for that matter?”
Topographically speaking, a grassy knoll is a small, low hill with a rounded top and gentle slopes covered in grass.
But for those of us who lived through the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and relived all the questions, pictures and theories in its aftermath, a grassy knoll means so much more.
President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas as his motorcade passed a grassy knoll on Elm Street on that fateful day, November 22, 1963. According to the commission that bears the name of the chairman, Justice Earl Warren, the shots supposedly came from a lone sniper, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was perched some 175-200 feet away on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository.
Of the three shots fired, according to the commission, one struck the president. It exited through his throat and mysteriously made a left turn. It struck Texas Governor John Connaly in the back, some six to ten inches away from its original trajectory.
The Warren Commission findings were immediately rejected by various conspiracy theorists and, by now, the majority of Americans, who have frequently claimed that the required level of marksmanship would have been virtually unattainable and the required firing rate (5.6 to 8.3 seconds from the first to third shot, depending on whose estimate one believes) impossible for the World War II surplus bolt-action rifle that Oswald supposedly used. Hundreds of questions were prompted by footage on a homemade film, taken by Abraham Zapruder, a Jewish Russian-born fabric patternmaker whose family immigrated to the United States from Ukraine in the early 1920s. His film was acquired by the FBI and bought by LIFE magazine, which agreed not to print or release the pictures of the actual strike. The release of the film much later led to many questions. Many witnesses and ultimately hundreds of detractors claimed that at least one of the shots came from the “grassy knoll.”
Scores of books have contradicted the Warren Commission’s report that concluded that the shots came from above and behind the target from a bolt-action rifle in the Texas School Book Depository, shot by a lone gunman, Oswald, who acted without any partners involved.
Oswald was killed a day later by a shady, mafia-connected, nightclub owner named Jack (Rubinstein) Ruby, and thus he was unavailable to shine some light on the findings. Ruby died later in jail.
The words “grassy knoll” became symbolic of conspiracy theories that others were involved in the assassination, and the term has since come to mean any conspiracy theory.
I am not sure if the term grassy knoll will ever be replaced by “slanted roof,” but certainly, questions abound about how the Secret Service could allow someone to get on to the roof, not notice his presence there, and ignore scores of reports of a fellow nearby with a gun. Director Cheatle remains elusive, and I am sure that after her testimony, there will be more questions than answers.
After months of trying to get Mr. Trump to drop out of the race through every type of legal maneuver, from court cases to FBI raids and ballot exclusion, missing what should be an obvious would-be assassin certainly raises eyebrows.
In a media-driven America, if one shares any narrative short of the prepared statements given by the official commentators anointed by the major networks, he is labeled a wacko. Except if the conspiracy theory matches the narrative of the extreme left. And thus, the usurper of democracy is demonized to the extent that a lone gunman – who was still wearing his mask a year after Covid was over – could have succeeded in his attempt to save the union.
If not for the miracles of Yad Hashem, Mr. Trump could have suffered the very fate that Mr. Kennedy suffered some 61 years ago. This time, it would have been both spontaneously and equally grotesquely captured not on some shaky, blurry, homemade 8-millimeter film, only to be released later and censored not to show the kill shot, but would have been projected live to millions of viewers across the world. Very frightening.
Obviously, the recent exit of President Biden from the presidential race was preceded by many questions, which of course were called “conspiracy theories” by the would-be backers of the current dropout: The insistence of an early debate, where they knew he would fail miserably. Allowing him to finally have an unscripted press conference, where he would ultimately blunder once again in embarrassing fashion. Indeed, his calling President Zelensky “President Putin” and praising his choice of “Vice President Trump” was the exact recipe for the disaster that we all now know.
Maybe his sudden bout with Covid, the third such encounter, was also orchestrated. It could be that if he did not want to go, they would have made sure that Covid got him to bow out. After all, Covid got him into the White House. Why shouldn’t Covid get him out?
Am I offering too many theories? Life is filled with questions. We have questions in faith every day, and we have nisyonos in emunah and bitachon. But we have an anchor, because we know the ultimate answers.
In the days before the establishment of the State of Israel, the Haskalah movement swept through Eretz Yisroel and established educational institutions that masqueraded as traditional establishments, luring chareidi children away from the traditions of their parents. Through philosophy and debate, they introduced these students to re-examine their beliefs, and many left the fold.
Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld fought hard to maintain the faith and traditions of the old yishuv, trying to dissuade families from removing their children from yeshiva and sending them to these gymnasia institutions.
One Simchas Torah, Rav Sonnenfeld gathered a group of young men who were contemplating leaving yeshiva and asked them a very poignant question: “After davening, we say the pizmon of ‘Ein K’Eilokeinu.’ If you examine the paragraphs, you will find it quite odd. There are four statements. They read as follows: ‘There is no one like our G-d. There is no one like our Master. There is no one like our King. There is no one like our Redeemer.’ The next paragraph asks four questions: ‘Who is like our G-d? Who is like our Master? Who is like our King? Who is like our Redeemer?’ Shouldn’t the questions be asked before the answers are given? Why is the order reversed?”
Rav Sonnenfeld told the boys a story of a guide who led a group of tourists into a deep, dark cave. There were no lights. He took them in deeper and deeper, through many twists and turns. Suddenly, a few members of the party panicked. “How will we ever get out?” they cried.
“No problem,” said the guide. “Follow me!”
In a few minutes, the guide was back at the entrance to the cave with a relieved group of tourists.
“How did you make it out so fast?” they asked. “We thought we would be trapped in that labyrinth forever!”
The man smiled. “Actually, it was simple. I tethered a rope to a rock near the exit. I held the rope throughout our journey. As long as I was anchored to the exit, I had no problems!”
Rav Sonnenfeld explained: “Asking questions such as ‘Who is like our G-d? Who is like our Master? Who is like our King? Who is like our Redeemer?’ can be very dangerous. But if we emphatically declare the answers before we begin our journey into the world of questions, then we will be safe from spiritual harm!”
In Yiddishkeit, despite the questions, we know the answers. Our faith in the words of Chazal and the tenets of emunah in the Ribono Shel Olam keep us anchored despite the difficulties. And that is comforting.
In the world of mortal kings and presidents, politics and government, there are no anchors, just a lot of questions. And that is unnerving.
Just saying.
