Finding Meaning in the Lowest Day of the Year | Rabbi Akiva Ruthenberg | Tisha B'Av

Thank you Shiman. Thank you to T to any time uh for everything that you do. It's really really unbelievable. It's uh it's hard to believe Shimon that it's 20 years just just like that. You know EMTT and and Bea really start Emmed and Torren time really started um right around the same time. um Kazak as well. And uh it was in these walls uh Briel that we had the zood to to start this uh unbelievable adventure of bringing Torah to so many people within the Queen's community outside the Queen's community and uh it's auding people. It's going to record. Okay. What I'd like to share with everyone tonight today is um a message that really connects to what we are doing here on Shabb. What are we doing? And when we think about it, we're sitting on the floor. We're not wearing leather shoes and we're not greeting each other the way we would normally greet each other. We're not able to learn Torah, regular Torah. And what's the common theme of all of this? We're acting like mourers. We're we're acting like somebody who, God forbid, lost a loved one. And I think it's very important to recognize the difference between mourning and memorializing like when we do a yard site or Yosho and we remember someone that passed away. It could be a great sage like the Arizal who just had his yard sight or it could be your own grandparent and the family comes together and we remember the one who passed away and we do mitzvot in their memory and then the shama goes up. That's not what we're doing today. We are not memor um remembering an event from the past. We are actually mourning today. And I ask you a question. How can you mourn something that happened so many years ago? If anything, we know when a person, a family member passes away, there's supposed to be a period of mourning and then you're supposed to stop mourning. You're not allowed to continue mourning. It's not healthy to continue mourning. So why is it that we continue to mourn thousands of years later? And I think the reason is and it's something that um Salvich talks about and many others talk about as well. And the idea is is that we are mourning because we're not just mourning the loss of the temple. We're mourning the disconnection we we now have with theina with God's presence. the shina, so to speak, is in exile. And it's interesting, we're told through many midashim and sources that Msiach will be born, that the will come. The the redemption will come on this very day. And what is the connection with that? What is the connection? And we know we don't say today. We don't say today because today soon will become a day of a day of redemption. What does that mean? Why is the day of mourning also a day of redemption? And as Rosalves points out, he says we we're not mourning the loss of the of the beta mikdash. We're mourning our continued loss. We're mourning our continued disconnection with the Shina. One way to look at this is and I saw this quote from Rhutner. He said, "The power of Tishb is not in accepting the exile but in protesting it. As long as we mourn, the connection endures. If we stop mourning, God forbid, the relationship is over. We know Yakovu when his son Yseph, he thought he lost his son Yoseph. And what does the Torah tell us? He continued to mourn. He continued to mourn for many, many years. He mourned. And why did he mourn? Because somehow deep inside he knew that his son was still here. And because his son was still here, he didn't want to remember him. He literally felt the disconnection from his son until as it as it turned out, he reconnected with his son. In many ways, this is what we are doing on we are saying no, we will not accept that the schina is not with us. We will not accept that we lost the ba mikdash. We will not accept that our our partner so to speak because us and the we're like a a husband and wife like a spouse. We will not accept that we can only connect to the to God's presence from a distance from there. We want Hashem's presence with us. So much suffering that happened on this day is directly connected to the disconnection that we have with the disconnection we have with with with Hashem. The great rabbis throughout the the ages and many still do this today. They do something called what's they wake up. This is not the daytime. This is the nighttime. They wake up and they say every single day except Shabbat and holidays. They say why are they saying it every single day? We do it once a year and we're complaining about it, right? They do it every single day because it's real to them. Because the fact that the is not here is tangible. It's palpable to them. What was the original event that happened on this day on the spies came back and this was really supposed to be a day of great celebration. They came back from the land of Israel and they were going to come and they they should have said like kh and Yeshua and everyone should have gone into Israel soon after that. And instead what happened? They cried. And Hashem says, "This day turn will turn into a day of tragedy." And unfortunately, it's been a tremendous day of tragedy throughout the the the centuries and and and and throughout the for for thousands of years. It's been a day of tragedy. And yet this very day of tragedy, we're told, is also going to be a day of redemption, of rebuilding. And one level it's because in every difficulty there's an opportunity for growth. But I think there's even something much deeper that we're saying here which is that the actual mourning that we'll do on tishaba will be what will get us out. The fact that we will not accept the disconnection will be our ultimate connection. With this in mind, we can look differently at tishab. We can look at the sadness as a source of connection and is really the catalyst for what we want to accomplish. Raosha Feinstein in his Jewish Mosha is speaking to the same point. He says the very fact that we still mourn today shows the beta mikdash lives in our hearts. There's a famous famous stories throughout history of of non-Jews who experienced the same thing. They came into um they came into the Jewish community and I I believe there's a story with the emperor of Austria and he came in and he said um what's happening with these people? Why why why are they crying? What's happening? And he said, "Oh, because they're crying about an event that happened 1500 years ago, 2,000 years ago." And he said, "If they're still crying for that, I can guarantee they'll get it back." According to many commentaries, even during the second temple, there was a concept of tisha. I was surprised when I heard that the first time, but there's there's that during the second temple when we had the beta mikdash, they still had an aspect of tisha. Why? Because we know that the second temple was not the same as the first temple. A majority of of Jews did not come back to Israel according to most historians. Majority did not live in Israel. We didn't have the miracles like we had during the first beta mikdash. We didn't even have the auron kesh the aon actual ark in the holy of holies. And they felt in the second temple the disconnection from the what they used to have in the first temple. all the more so what we have today. There's a verse invar that says a very very powerful verse that says Hashem tells us I place before you life and death good and bad choose life. I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about this verse. What does it mean to choose life? And I saw this powerful story that took place with the kadusharim who was the grandfather of the first grebi and his son his son he lost literally all his children in their early childhood and adolescence. And the father of this fas was got married. He was able to to have a child. and he had a daughter and he was very sick and the harim goes over to his son believe his name was Morai he goes over to him and he says I want to tell you an idea when the Torah says choose life this does not mean that there is one path which is choosing life and make the right choice he said is a constant choice. Every day of your life, every moment of your life, you have an opportunity to to choose more life, to squeeze more life, to make better choices. Every moment of your life is a choice. And the story goes that he was so inspired by this idea that he got better and he had this fas. And as we know, was a great Jewish leader, was a leader not just of but of really a Polish jewelry in the late 1800s. And says, you know, if you look at the end of that verse, it says, "So your children and grandchildren will live on afterwards." And he said, "I am only alive because of this idea that that my grandfather taught my father." We know Mosha Feinstein very famously talks about he was bothered tremendously and so many people who lived in the lower east side of Manhattan at the same time as he did in the 1930s 40s50s and he was bothered tremendously because they sacrificed so much to keep Shabbat and mitzvot and yet their children often didn't continue on that path and it bothered me. You don't understand why if their parents sacrificed so much would the children not continue. This was before the the law laws that that that made you know Saturday into you know um not a work day and you couldn't be discriminated for working on Saturday. And these people at textile businesses and they were they were fired every week. they lost their job and Moshe pointed out he said because is not enough to make the right choices but it's the way we make the choices that we want our children to continue afterwards choosing with joy choosing with excitement how you make the choice makes a very big impact again on this idea of of choosing says says that when a person chooses life, this idea of it's not a one-time choice, but it's a daily choice. Rab Jonathan Saxs pointed out, he said, "Choosing life is not about grand declarations. It's about the quiet heroism of small daily acts of faithfulness." Many of you are familiar with Victor Frankl the psychologist who did did therapy in the concentration camps and he wrote his book called man's search for meaning and he has a very famous quote where he says you cannot choose what happens to you but you can choose how you respond to what happens to you and I believe this is what the Torah is teaching us in this concept of of choosing. I heard a really powerful story from Rabbi Afran Waxman. Rabbi Frian Waxman said that there was a man by the name of Rav Gadul who was in the concentration camps, survived the war and became a Mashiach in the Gary yeshiva in Israel. And the story was told that there was a man in the same barracks as Rabbi Rav Gadul. And this man became very despondent and full of despair. And unfortunately many many thousands and tens of thousands of people died in the concentration camps just from despair as we can know all imagine. And the man was lying on his mattress and he was saying pretty loudly at night in Yiddish he was saying I want to die. I want to die. And nobody knew what to do. Rabado gets out of his bed, walks over to the man, faces him, looks at him, and everyone's expecting him to console him, to try to make him feel better. And he looks at him and he goes, "Okay, die already. We're trying to sleep." And this is a great rabbi. And the place was shocked. No one knew what to do. And the man was shocked. How could this great rabbi come and tell him that? And he keeps saying it to him. And after a few moments, the same man starts to yell. Also in Yiddish, I want to live. I want to live. And he's yelling and yelling. The same man who a few moments before was saying I want to die is now screaming I want to live and he this person said about himself the only way he survived the war was because Rav Gad forced him to say I want to live and I think that there's no greater message that we could take today on Shav in a time where you just turn on the news and you get depressed before you even hear the news from Israel from here from there the anti-semitism, the negativity around us and unfortunately a lot of negativity in our Jewish world as well in so many different areas and ways and it's very easy to become despondent to become depressed by all of this. But I believe the Torah is giving us a message. On the lowest day of the year, on the day of tragedy, on the day of suffering, the Torah is giving us a message. Choose life. You have a choice. You have a choice to choose life. You have a choice to bring a little bit more life into your life. You have a choice to bring a little bit more meaning into your life. Each of us that is alive today that is here today has a choice and the way we make those choices and the the life that we live through those choices makes the biggest difference. I think one of my themes that I talk about on tishab is at least for the last few years I've talked about touched on at least a journey that I've personally had with um this thing because I think one of the biggest choices we have today believe it or not is how we deal with this. This is a very powerful tool. It can be used to create great things and it also can be used to create the most unhealthy, disconnected lives that unfortunately we're seeing more and more and more of today and the data is coming out more and more and more of how damaging these devices are. I just saw a new study that came out that children who get smartphones before the age of 13, the likelihood of them having depression later on is much much much higher than people who don't who don't. And this is not a problem just for children. This is a problem for adults. This is a challenge for marriages. This is a challenge for so many of us in our life. And one approach we could take is what can we do? It's addictive. I need it for this, so I use it for that. But I believe, and this is just an example, but it's a powerful example, that the Torah's message to us is choose life. And if you choose to use this device in a way that's more full of life by watching what you look at it by creating protections around it by not allowing it steal your precious time that you have with your children and your spouse by forcing yourself to create rules where you leave it in the car where you leave it away where you you put it away. I've talked to the EMT couples about about different strategies. None are perfect of of you know, one of the strategies I've used is is I tell couples when you go on a date together who best to both leave your phones in the car. But if you need to bring the phone in, the one who's less addicted has to leave it in. Okay? Has to leave it in the car. I'm sorry. The one who's more addicted has to leave the phone in the car. And what is accomplished by this? It creates connection. But we have a choice. We can use these devices for Torah anytime and learn so much. So many literally I was on Torah any time last night. Shimon, you kept me up till 2 2:30 a.m. last night. I was I I couldn't stop. There's so much amazing information, so much goodness. And at the same time, these devices can steal so much from our lives. So the message is choose life. Every moment you have you have a choice. to speak lush and har to say a little juicy gossip to to do something you shouldn't do make that choice to do it and I would suggest and it's something I've suggested before but I want to emphasize this again that the best way to make good choices is not to rely on your willpower at the moment because if you rely on your willpower at the moment you most likely will fail okay at least if you're like me okay you most likely will fail On the other hand, if you set certain rules, certain parameters, certain things that protect you from that, you're much more likely to make the right choices and keep to the right choices. Just an example, something I accepted on myself almost two years ago, Pes year and a half ago. I accepted on myself not to use my phone for news because I found myself just being way too connected to the news. And I cannot say that I'm 100% perfect. I'm probably about 95% that, you know, 5% of the time I I, you know, I I end up looking at news. But my total news intake went down by probably 98%. And this is because I didn't tell myself I can't look at news. I just said I can't look at it at the the device, the same device that's in my hand all day. And if I have to choose to go look at it, let me go look at it. And that decision made a really big impact on my personal life. And I think we all can do this in our own way. Just in closing. When we look at the darkness and we say how can I build from this darkness? How can I not like as Hutner said not accept the morning but protest the situation with with with the galut that we're in today. When we embrace the darkness and say I'm not afraid of the darkness. I'm going to fight to see light in the darkness. I'm going to fight to bring theina back. When we take that approach, the very day of tishav will become the day of redemption because it is the day that we refuse to give up. That was the day that allowed us to find the true redemption in our personal lives and collectively. together. How do we do this? We do this by trying to connect to the trying to connect to Hashem's presence realizing the distance that we have and by making choices difficult choices but making choices to live the most meaningful life that we can live to live a life that's full of that's full of life that's full of meaning that's full of purpose And as as um go back to Ravkuk RVuk says inshua he says true tshoua is returning to the source of life. Every moment we realign our will with the divine will we are choosing life a new. Every moment every moment that that we align our will with the divine will we are choosing life a new. And to quote Rabbi Saxs again, he says, "To choose life is to affirm meaning in the face of absurdity, to continue the journey even when the road seems dark." So on tishab we cry but we continue. We choose to remain in a relationship with Hashem. We choose to keep going. We choose to keep going. We choose to find meaning in the darkness. We choose to turn the darkness into light. And in this we are doing we are finding meaning and this should be our last and we the the next is should be which is which we we take the darkness and literally turn it into light. Thank you.