Unless things change a whole lot
in the next few weeks, we will one again be going through the days leading up
to and including Tisha B’Av, the Ninth Day of the Month of Av, the saddest day
on the Jewish calendar. Year after
year, we take time to reflect on our condition in the Diaspora, and what this
long, seemingly endless exile is supposed to teach us, while awaiting the long
sought for Geula (Redemption).
There is an interesting anecdote
recorded regarding a meeting between the prophet Jeremiah and the famous Greek
philosopher, Plato. Jeremiah was
mourning the destruction of Jerusalem ,
and Plato engaged him in conversation.
Impressed with Jeremiah’s great wisdom, Plato asked him “I do not understand
how a sage of your stature can weep so bitterly over something that is over and
done with. Surely, what is past is
finished with, and your concern now ought to be solely with the future, and how
you can influence it. What possible use
can there be in all of this weeping?
Jeremiah answered, “I cannot give you a proper answer to your logical
question, for you will not understand it.”
Was Plato not right? And surely now, 2500 years later, is it not
time to focus on the present and the future, and to let bygones be
bygones? Can we never forget? Can we never forgive? How can we spend three weeks of every year
going into greater and greater mourning, culminating in a day of fast and
sadness after all this time?
In fact, one of the great blessings
that Hashem grants us is the ability to forget painful memories. “Hashem has decreed about a deceased person
that they should be forgotten from the heart” (Sofrim 21). If it was not possible to forget, if the pain
of losing a close relative or friend remained always as immediate as when the
loss first occurs, we would be immobilized, unable to cope with life. It is a blessing that while we always carry a
memory of a departed loved one, we are able to remove the pain of the loss from
the forefront of our consciousness.
Nevertheless, this general rule does not hold here, as expressed by the
famous verse in Psalms, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand be
forgotten!” We are bidden never to
forget! The sages, by instituting all of
the Halachot surrounding these three weeks, made sure that at least during one
long period of the year, and several other fast days year-round, not to mention
the requests in our thrice-daily prayers, that we would constantly remember and
never forget to mourn for Jerusalem.
The Slonimer Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom
Noah Barzovsky, zt”l, wrote a fascinating essay on this subject, in which he
noted that central to Tisha B’Av is the idea that we are not to make our peace,
ever, with the fact that the Bais Hamikdosh (Temple) was destroyed. To never allow ourselves the thought that we
accept the post-Bais Hamikdosh world as the new, normal; as the permanent
reality for us as Jews. The Bais Hamikdosh
was destroyed for many reasons, some more well known than others. But that was never meant to be its final
disposition. The day that we stop
hoping that the Bais Hamikdosh will be rebuilt is the day that its destruction
will really be irreversible.
This basic thought ought to
permeate all of our concerns in life.
We struggle with our problems, with our kid’s education, with our
personal growth, with financial problems, existential problems; we look at the
contemporary scene both here in Israel . We look to the pundits and “wise men” who
have this or that solution to intractable problems or who point to this or that
occurrence to explain the crux of our quandaries, and forget that the main
problem is none of the above, but rather it is the fact of Golus – our distance
from Hashem and his Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
For it is surely true that no matter how many problems we solve here in
America and regardless of how much we grow in our spiritual lives as Jews, we
will have a huge gaping hole in our spiritual lives as long as “we have been
exiled from our land, and we cannot fulfill our obligations in your great &
holy House . . . ”
Why are so many Jews distant
from their spiritual roots? Why are
there so many terrible, endless problems between groups of Jews? How are we ever going to be able to resolve the
great issues that divide us, when those matters are based on such fundamentally
different outlooks on what the Torah is, what it means to be Jewish, the nature
of our Jewish obligations, and how flexible can we be about adapting them for
modern times? What will it take to allow
myriads of Jews who have no idea of the beauty of Shabbos, Kashrus, Torah
learning, and Jewish living to even have a real glimmer of what they are
missing? How will the great problems
surrounding the Land
of Israel
And most of all, how will all of
us ever be able to finally arrive at a place of closeness with Hashem; when we
will be able to always feel the indescribable joy of His closeness without the
inner contradictions and pain and difficulty, and existential loneliness, that
we so often feel in our spiritual quest?
To quote the timeless words of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, in his ode to the
Jew in Golus that we say on Tisha B’Av:
“Zion
In this most beautiful elegy,
(beautifully re-translated), where the aching longing for a reunion with Hashem
in Jerusalem is expressed without equal, we begin to sense just how much we are
really missing in this long Golus, comfortable as we may be.
These longings for that
rebuilding are the building blocks of the eventual edifice. Although in many ways, Judaism teaches that
what one does (actions) are more important than what one thinks or believes, it
is nevertheless true that “The longing to perform a mitzvah, or to engage in a
spiritual pleasure, is even greater than the pleasure itself.” The active awaiting of its rebuilding, the
tears shed over its absence; the effort to not assimilate into the surrounding
culture and its alien values, but rather to strive to retain our uniquely
Jewish selves, these are what will eventually bring it back. Every tear shed and every sigh over its
absence, and what it means to us today, is another element in the building.
Thus, says the Slonimer Rebbe,
the period of the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha
B’Av are a period of crying, but a positive period: a crying that is part of
the rebuilding process. A cry of hope,
of longing for a better future – an expression from the depths of the soul that
we will never be satisfied and complacent in our spiritual quest until we have
achieved total Teshuva, back to the closeness with Hashem that once was and is
still potentially possible. “Hashiveinu
Hashem Aylecho VeNashuva - Bring us back
to you Hashem and we WILL return, renew our days as of old! ”
This longing is something that
is so very precious to Hashem, as the Zohar states, “A person that raises their
voice to cry about the destruction of Hashem’s house, merits to have it said
‘together we shall sing’.” As Reb Levi
Yitzchok of Berditchev said regarding the verse in Eichah, “You will surely cry
in the night, and her tear will be on her cheek, not receiving comfort from all
those who come to console her,” the tear remains on the cheek because they make
a great impact in the heavens if a person truly cries regarding the Churban -
destruction. The tears are not for naught,
they are the lubricant that allows one to move higher and higher in one’s
spiritual quest.
For each of us then, we
certainly must face life with a happy confident attitude. We must take time to enjoy our growth, to
celebrate our Jewishness, and to sing with the joy of being fortunate to be engaged
in building our spiritual lives inwardly, as well as in our families and
communities. But we must also take the
time to mourn a little inwardly; about all the potential that is there, that is
not yet being fulfilled. Only thus will
we continue to grow, and look forward to the day that our inner sanctuary will
be fully built, heralding the time of Moshiach, speedily in our days.