Tisha Bav
Feeling the Churban?
I’m too am inured to the Churban.
A child was hit by a car and lost both legs. How tragic! Half a year later his classmates come by to visit. ‘How are you doing?’ they ask. He says ‘I am doing great! I have this motorized wheelchair; with the press of a button it moves where I wish. It can even climbs steps! And on its built-in computer I can play games!’. His friends nodded sympathetically. ‘Nebech!’ they thought, ‘He is even happy!’
His happiness does not diminish his pitifulness. It only means he is inured to it, and has accepted his miserable existence. He is happy with his lot, but his lot is not good.
We think ourselves very happy without the Beis Hamikdash. All that means is that we have forgotten what life with the Beis Hamikdash was.
Perhaps a start is to think of those things we wish for in our lives, and see if they will not be answered by having the Sh’china back amongst us.
We struggle with parnassah, perhaps. When things were as they should have been we were prosperous.
We lack guidance. There may be an illness in the family.
At times we feel spiritually stagnant.
Will having the Sh’china back among us affect these?
Tish’a B’av is a hard day to relate to, for the Churban is abstract. The Medrash relates that Rebbe explained the pasuk “Bila Hashem v’lo chamal” 25 ways. Rav Yochanan explained sixty. The Medrash asks: Was Rav Yochanan greater than Rebbe? The Medrash answers that when Rebbe began speaking and explained the first pshat, the many Churban survivors in the audience began wailing and crying. Rebbe simply could not continue until everyone calmed down. Then he explained the next pshat, and the scene repeated itself. Rebbe spoke the whole day but simply could not get past twenty five. Rav Yochanan, however, lived many years after the Churban. When he spoke, no one cried. So he completed sixty explanations.
Even back then people began to get desensitized to the Churban; this is normal.
Here is a thought: Once there was a company formed with a vision; they had a great idea that was going to revolutionize the way people did business. However they got off to a rocky start, running into trouble with licensing and venture capital. To tide them over, the CEO bought up a few vending machines and spread them over the city. Selling soda and snacks was not what their mission statement had in mind, but sometimes you need to do what you need to do.
The president serviced the machines in one district, the VP in another and so on. However, every year the company held a lavish conference discussing and fleshing out their Big Idea. One year a new worker stood up at the meeting ‘Hey, we are doing soda machines. Why talk about business ideas?’ The president replied ‘True, we are temporarily in vending. But that is not our real business. That’s the point of this convention – that we never forget our goal and fall into thinking we are soda machine operators!’
We gather every year to reaffirm this: we are the nation of the Beis Hamikdash. We get sidetracked and distracted. We even lose track of our mission. But at least we repeat the words: We are the People of the Temple.
What Is Tisha B’av?
The Jews asked Zechariah should they continue to fast on Tish’a B’av, as they had since the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash; the second Beis HaMikdash was just built. He asked Hashem, and received the answer ‘The fast of Tish’a B’av, with the other fasts, will turn to rejoicing and happiness’ – i.e. Don’t fast.
The Gemarah comments that the pasuk persists on calling it ‘the fast of Tish’a B’av’ even as it is tells them not to fast. Therefore, it concludes, both are correct; when times are good – ‘rejoicing and happiness’, when times are bad – fasting, and in medium times although a fast is appropriate, it is not obligatory. Whoever wishes so can fast.
The Rishonim differ in interpreting this Gemarah. Most Rishonim interpret that
that at the time of the second Beis HaMikdash there was no fasting, only rejoicing and happiness. The Rambam, however, in his commentary on the Mishna, maintains that Tish’a B’av, at least, was a time appropriate – but not obligatory – to fast, even when the Beis HaMikdash stood. This was because Tish’a B’av had always been a sad day for us, back from when we were decreed upon to wander the Midbar, down to the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash.
(I wonder why the other commentaries maintain that Tish’a B’av was a holiday during the second Temple period; what did they celebrate??)
At any rate here we face the scene of a people in full possession of their Beis HaMikdash fasting – voluntarily – in mourning. So can fasting on Tish’a B’av be merely in mourning over the loss of the Beis HaMikdash??
Looking through the Kinos it seems we are doing a few things:
asking for the geula, yearning for Tzion.
realizing the state we are in: far from Hashem, our nation, land and honor.
realizing why we are suffering, so that we may profit a lesson thereby.
mourning the past, crying about our pain and loss.
Perhaps the experience of our yearly Tish’a B’av, in the aggregate, is assimilating our collective national experience into our consciousness, becoming wiser and more experienced. There is a world of difference between a man of experience and a novice. They may have taken identical courses, or the novice may even have the advantage of more recent and updated training. Yet no one hesitates in choosing the man of experience. He has developed judgment, knowledge of the field and practical hands-on ability. Wisdom cannot be obtained from a course.
One personality factor we as a people need to generate is experience, wisdom and depth of field. We need to integrate our collective experiences and give them meaning, learn from them and develop from them.
Many of us are comfortable and happy. Perhaps we are happy because we do not know what we lack, much as a blind man is cheerful. Indeed, why mourn, awake old losses and make ourselves uncomfortable? Why – Because we have not yet given up the fight! We still keep hope. We want to return to what we have been. To do so we need our goals, – and the desire to reach them, – alive in our breast.
But even more; by remembering our history we gain experience. A. Our past makes us proud – we were sacrificing in the Temple when Queen Elizabeth’s cannibal forefather lived in a cave. B. We feel secure, because we realize that we are an undying miracle. C. We realize the transient nature of friendships and alliances with other peoples and powers, and D. we know the destructive power of internal strife. We preserve our experiences, for it makes us wise. It will make us a happy people, one able to focus on real goals, and to ignore the trivial.
Rabbi Pincus z”l suggested that inasmuch as according to the Rambam we have never celebrated Tish’a B’av yet, therefore the celebration will be in Moshiach’s time. What will we celebrate?
On Tish’a B’av Hashem appears to us as a ‘bear in ambush’ (-Eicha). He puts on a mask of anger and aggression. That mask is a partition, and allows Him to draw close. Just as when we look at the sun we need a blocker, so that our eyes not burn, so too Hashem puts a partition in order to draw close to us. The mask of Tish’a B’av is so great, – Hashem SEEMS so far away, – because He is really so close. That closeness will be celebrated when it’s a time of Shalom.
He Haw
Did you hear of the guy buying ten kinos? He wanted to demonstrate his absolute faith that Moshiach will come this year by throwing out the kinos after Tisha B’av, so he was buying for the next few years….
The Tisha Bav Celebration
Tisha B’av is a Moed, a holiday. Perhaps this means that it will eventually be a festival when Mashiach comes. Either way, what’s so jolly about the Beis Hamikdash burning down? Perhaps we will have a new Beis HaMikdash, but what’s to celebrate?!
The Rambam (censored in many editions) says that Christianity is alluded to in Daniel “also the children of the violent among your people shall lift themselves up to establish the vision; but they shall stumble” He says that no stumbling equaled that which Christianity brought upon us: millions of Jews were murdered, the rest scattered across the globe, our national honor blasted. Truth was exchanged for falsehood, and most of the world worships a false G-d.
Yet Hashem has seen fit to cause Christianity despite all its evils. His thoughts are not like ours. He has created a culture where Moshiach can arrive to. When all mankind talk of Moshiach, some claiming it is J.C. and some arguing, and when people discuss if the Mitzvos are binding today or not and what they mean, then when the true Moshiach arrives the entire world will turn to him in an instant. They are primed. This translates into the entire universe serving Hashem, He reigning supreme.
Sometimes great tragedy will be recognized as wonderful and purposeful. Indeed, we cannot see any good in the Churban. It is all black. But His thoughts are not ours. He knew that the ultimate redemption of the world needed the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. And although we neither can nor ought fathom why, we will one day drink champagne over the Churban. We will celebrate Tisha B’av as a Yomtov, even in times of Moshiach!
©2013
kollel parshah | Tiferet Ramot 83-21, Jerusalem, Israel, 97290
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