I don’t care about Tisha B’Av - What should I do??

Let me ask you an uncomfortable question. Have you ever sat on the floor on Ishbub and listened to the kinus and heard all about the crusades and the Inquisition and the Holocaust and the Horban and you quietly thought to yourself like, I know I'm supposed to care, but I just don't. Not because I'm a bad Jew, not because I don't believe, but because for the most part, it's all ancient history. It's another century. It's another continent. People I never met. Countries I know nothing about. I know I should cry. I get it. I I know I should mourn. I got it. I know I should feel something, but I don't. I feel nothing. And I'm tired of pretending. I have a roof over my head. I have food in my refrigerator. My children are healthy. I live better today than kings lived a few hundred years ago. So, how exactly am I supposed to cry over a building that was destroyed almost 2,000 years before I was born? How am I supposed to mourn tragedies that happened in places I've never been to people I've never met? Of course, I'm going to fast. I'm going to go to Schul. I'm going to sit on the floor. But I'm sick and tired year after year of pretending to care when I don't. And if I'm being completely honest, I'm tired of feeling guilty for not feeling what everyone else keeps telling me that I should feel. Well, if any of that resonates with you, here's an idea. Maybe perhaps we've been asking the wrong question. Maybe tishabove was never meant to begin with trying to force yourself to cry over the past. Perhaps it begins by understanding why the past still has everything to do with your life today. Let's start by taking a step back. Let's paint a picture of who we are before we can start crying about what we no longer are or what we lost. Out of all the many traits the Jewish people carry, I think that there's one that stands out more than anything else, and that is our endurance. to be history's punching bag and still be here, to be targeted by empire after empire, villain after villain, and somehow outlast them all. But not just that, we survive. What makes us different is what we do next. We don't just crawl out of the wreckage and limp back to safety. We walk out ignited and slowly piece ourselves back together. We rebuild. Somehow, we take the very pressure that was meant to crush us and turn it into fuel. What was supposed to destroy us becomes the force that drives us forward. Again and again, the Jewish people have refused to stay down. Every exile somehow deepened us. Every tragedy strengthened us. Every setback somehow became the beginning of another chapter. We don't just survive history. We use history to propel us forward. We get knocked down and somehow we come back stronger. Century in and century out. Schlomma's reign it fractures and the kingdom is split. Who rises up? Giants. Amos Misho people that shook an entire nation awake. The first B mikdash is destroyed. Everything is gone. And out of that destruction comes an unbelievable rebuilding of not just walls but of Ezra. A complete reset that would define us going forward. The second B mikdash it falls and you think okay that's it. We're finished but instead an explosion Mishna medra doesn't just shrink. It goes portable. It goes It goes global. It becomes unstoppable. The crusades tried to crush us. And out of that fire emerge ashkenat with depth and discipline. A new kind of spiritual intensity. Spain expels us. What happens? The Arizo. A whole wave of depth and mysticism that still shapes how we think and how we davin and how we live. Eastern Europe is bleeding all over the place. And from that pain comes with warmth and song and fire. A whole new language and connection. The Holocaust happens, possibly the worst devastation our people has ever known. A world erased. And somehow from that darkness, yeshivas rise again, communities are rebuilt. Tyra doesn't just survive. It comes roaring back in America in our across the entire world. Again and again, the pattern repeats. We get hit and something even bigger emerges. But let's pause and ask a question that's rarely asked. Where in the world did that inner reservoir of fortitude and strength come from? With what energy did our parents and grandparents, after persecution of literally the worst degree, rise from the ashes and rebuild our communities bigger and better than before, brick by painstaking brick. Many people look at Jewish history and say, listen, it it's just one long chain of miracles. That's it. From until today, Hashem just swooped in again and again and saved us at the very last second. But is that the full picture? Is that actually being historically honest? I don't think so. Of course, there were miracles. Yes, Hashem split the sea. Yes, man fell from the sky. Yes, the walls of Eureko fell. Yes, the Kashim defeated an entire empire. Yes, against every logical prediction, Kaiser is still here after thousands of years of exile, hatred, survival, etc. But if we stop there, if we just say they were all miracles, we miss something essential. Miracles don't replace people. They respond to people. say, "Hashem chose to reveal his kingship through a people." Again and again throughout Tanakh, heaven waits for human beings to take the first step. Yes, the sea split, but only after we walked into it. Yes, m came down from the sky, but only after we followed Hashem into a barren desert with no guarantees of food or safety or survival. We moved first and then heaven responded. Yes, PM was filled with miracles, but it also had Esther walking into danger and Morai refusing to bow and Kalisro fasting for three days. Yes, Khaneka had the miracle of the oil, but it was also preceded by real people who fought a real war by ex with exhaustion and fear in their bones who still said we are not letting this end here. Of course, there are miracles in Jewish history, but Jewish survival was never some miracle vending machine where Nissim just drop from the sky when things get bad. It was built quietly, lent relentlessly over generations by ordinary Jews making extraordinary choices to stay Jewish, to keep learning, to keep believing, to keep walking forward even when nothing around them made it easy. And so the question remains, how did we keep going? How are we not giving up at this point? If you look at the statistics of mental illnesses and people who have experienced trauma, people who had to flee their countries, immigrants, people had to spend time in prison, fight in wars, the numbers are staggering. According to the VA, accord around 30% of veterans returning from war suffer from PTSD and are severely mentally impacted for the rest of their lives. According to the National Veterans Foundation, 44% of veterans rely on heavy substance abuse to try, often unsuccessfully, to cope with their trauma. Studies show that 43% of state prisoners and 44% of federal prisoners and up to 63% of local prisoners are diagnosed with mental disorders either directly or indirectly tied to their time in prison and their traumas there. Human beings are simply not built to carry the worst of what this world can car can throw at them. War zones and prisons and bloodshed and displacement. Most people don't walk away from that kind of trauma whole, let alone functional. And yet the Jewish people who have endured all of it are still here. how there is not a form of suffering or historical trauma that the Jewish people have not endured. From expulsions to prums to inquisitions to ghettos to blood labels to force conversions, you name it, we lived through it. And somehow we didn't merely survive. We built ourselves back up in uncomprehensible ways. Every time we were knocked down, we rose again. Often in a completely different place, on a completely different continent, speaking a completely different language, rebuilding from nothing. It makes absolutely zero sense. We were exiled from Arantis, no problem. We go to Bubble, which is modern-day Iraq, a long way away, and establish what becomes one of the most foundational centers of Tyra in history. We were pushed into Persia, modern-day Iran. No problem. We build spectacular communities, engaged in trade and crafts, and even positions within the government. We're sent to Rome. No problem. We become merchants and physicians and craftsmen and bankers. We build massive, vibrant Jewish communities full of tyran life. We get sent to Spain. No problem. We usher in the golden age of Spanish Jewy producing giants like the Rambam and the Ramban and the Rajba and Isra while Jewish scholarship and poetry and philosophy and medicine and commerce flourish like almost no other point in all of Jewish history. We're expelled from Spain. No problem. We move into the Netherlands and we help turn it into one of the strongest economic centers in the world. We trade in diamonds. We build financial networks. We established deep Tyra communities. We were pushed into Poland and into Lithuania. No problem. We completely transform Eastern Europe into a beating heart of Tyra. Yeshiva spring up everywhere. We have the Raman, the Mar, the Bach, the Taz, the Shak, the countless other giants who are illuminating the Jewish world. Then them Kalminiki. No problem. We move to Russia. We rebuild in Russia. Then comes the programs of Russia. No problem. We've rebuilt again. New yeshivas open up. New communities emerge. Jews cross. Oceans begin planting Tyra in America, in England, in South Africa, Argentina, Australia, beyond. Then comes the Holocaust. 6 million murdered. Thousands of shores destroyed. Hundreds of yeshivas wiped off the face of the earth. It should have been the end of us. But it wasn't. No problem. Survivors arrive on shores all over the world with nothing. There's no money, no home, no families, nothing. Yeah, within a few decades they rebuild Tyra on a scale the world has never seen before. You have Lakewood, Benbra, Ushal, Muny, Brooklyn, Antworp, Gates Head, Montreal, Melbourne. Communities rise from the ashes. Yeshiva filled with tens of thousands of bak. Tyra printing reaches levels unimaginable in previous generations. The Soviet Union tries to suffocate Judaism. No problem. The iron curtain falls. Jews return to Tyra. new communities, yeshivas, but they met us flourish throughout the former Soviet Union. Every generation predicts our decline. And yet, every generation watches us build again. That is the Jewish people. You knock us down anywhere on Earth and before long, you'll hear the sound of another base being built because that is who we are. The world expels the Jewish people from a place and somehow that same place often declines and spirals out of control and within decades becomes irrelevant. while the Jewish people pick themselves up and dust themselves off and rebuild their world somewhere else. Where does this resilience come from? How is it that thousands of years of trauma, the kind of trauma that statistically speaking should have broken us long ago, didn't it didn't absolutely obliterate us? What in the world is our secret? I believe the answer can change your entire tish and I mean that for real. The answer explains is sitting right in the Tyra itself. Right after the terra delivers the inai the terrifying bone chilling list of curses and destruction and exile and suffering on a scale almost too overwhelming to process. You'd expect from the Tyra silence or some form of closure in the Tyra. Perhaps some sukim of yourim or sukim reminding us of the love Hashem will always have for us. But instead the does something unexpected. It gives us the thunderous and then immediately it moves on to huh not to comfort not to consolation to the laws that allow a person to donate his monetary worth to the mikt as a donation. And you almost want to stop and ask what is that doing here? After everything we just read after the devastation, the collapse, the image of a nation torn apart, this is what we talk about next. technical valuations. How does that make any sense? But maybe that's exactly the point. Maybe the Tyra is not changing the subject. Maybe it's answering the question. The describes what can happen around a Jew. Reminds you what can never happen to a Jew. Maybe the Tyra is screaming, "Yes, your cities can burn. Yes, you can be exiled and broken and scattered across the world. Yes, you can go through darkness that no other people will ever have to endure. But there is one thing that Tyra wants you to know right there at the lowest moment imaginable. That your value does not change. Not when you're strong, not when you're broken. Not when your world, not when the world respects you and not when the world is cheering you on, cheering on the burning of your cities. Because your worth was never given to you by the world. It was given to you by Hashem. And remembering that is the antidote to the this perspective changes everything because when a person loses his comfort he can survive. When he when a person loses his home he can rebuild but when a person loses his sense of worth he's finished. So the places right there after the and says no matter what happens don't lose that. Don't lose your inner worth. Don't lose the fact that you're not a citizen of the world like every other citizen of the world. You're a soldier in Hashem's army. That is the engine behind the Jewish people. That is how a nation walks out of destruction and builds again. That is how people who should be psychologically shattered and obliterated somehow stand up and create worlds. Not because they weren't hurt, but because deep down they knew we are still valuable. And a people that know that can never be destroyed. every other nation on earth, every other ideology, every other civilization that ever rose and fell. At the very bottom of it, when you strip all the flags and anthems away, it was built on one simple thing. We want to live a good life. And the second that particular ideology stops developing and delivering a good life, the second it costs too much or it hurts too much or it asks too much, people quietly walk away from it. That's what a consumer does. A consumer sticks with the product as long as the product works for him. We were never created to be consumers of Yiddish. Consumers ask, "What's in it for me?" We were created to be soldiers on a mission. And soldiers don't negotiate with the battlefield. A consumer quits the moment the price gets too high. A person with a mission doesn't because a mission was never built on comfort. It was built on conviction. That is the secret of the Jewish people. We don't run on comfort. We run on purpose. We run on pride. We run on the absolute certainty that the rabbi placed us in this world for a reason. So go ahead, burn our cities, destroy our homes, drive us into exile, strip away all our money, take away our country, scatter us to the ends of the earth. You'll still lose because you misunderstood what we are. You think Judaism is our address. It's not. It's our mission. And you can't burn down a mission. You can't exile a mission. You can't imprison a mission. You can't kill a mission. We are here until Hashem's light reaches the entire world. And we don't have a plan B. We were never here to be liked. We were never here for applause or for credit or for a world that pats us on the head and says good job. We are here to spread light. And we do it whether the world notices or not. Whether the world says thank you or not. Whether the world says anything at all. Whether the world even remembers where the light came from. So let me take you back. Let me show you the world we were dropped into because you can't understand what you were what you handed this world until you understand what this world looked like before we handed it to them. Picture it. April sits on a throne in Egypt and no one dares question him because he isn't just a king. He is a god. And gods don't answer to anyone. Across the entire ancient world, kings could take a life with a wave of their hand and they call it justice because they were the law. There was no higher court. There was no wrong big enough to touch a throne. Picture a courtroom in Bavl under the code of Hammurabi where the punishment for the exact same crime changes depending on who you were. You were wealthy, you were innocent. You were poor, your head was chopped off. That was justice for thousands of years. That was the best system the world had to offer. Picture Sparta, a newborn baby examined at birth. If he's too small or if he's too weak, too imperfect, the wrong gender when you wanted a boy or a girl, it was left on a mountain side to die. Not in secret, not in shame. By law, this wasn't a single ancient, there wasn't a single ancient civilization that would think twice about it. Mercy wasn't a virtue in that world. Mercy was a weakness. This wasn't for some cruel, barbaric 100 time period. This was how the entire world operated for thousands of years. You didn't like the gender of your child. You killed your child. Picture Rome at the height of the glory. The top 1% had money and freedom while 99% of the people in the entire Roman Empire had zero rights whatsoever. The rich had colosums packed to the rafters, roaring, cheering while human beings are torn apart for entertainment on a Tuesday afternoon. That wasn't the underbelly of Roman civilization. That was the centerpiece of Roman civilization. That's what who that's who they were. Picture a world with no chabas. There's no day off. every single day the same grinding wheel forever because no civilization on earth had ever told humanity it was allowed to stop. None. Picture a world where if you sinned that was it. You were marked forever. No path back. No chuva in their myths. Even their gods sin and they couldn't escape fate. So what chance did a broken human being have or of ever becoming someone new? That was their world. Picture a world where there were no orphanages, where there were no soup kitchens. There was no organized charity. There were no hospitals built because every human being is created in the image of God. If you're weak, you disappear. If you're poor, you starve. If you're sick, you die. That was the world. And into that world, Hashem placed a small, powerless, enslaved nation at the bottom of Egypt and said, "You, you are going to change all of this." And we did. Every time a king anywhere on earth answers to a law instead of standing above it. You know who taught the world that? Us. We said that first. When the entire ancient world thought that kings were gods who answer to no one. Every time this world insists a human life has value. Even if that human is poor or broken or forgotten. You know who taught the world that? Us. We were teaching the world that while it was leaving babies in forests every single day off, every weekend, every pause this world takes from grinding itself into the dirt. You know who taught the world that? Us. We are the people who taught the world what it means to rest properly. Every time someone believes people can actually change, that a mistake isn't a life sentence, that a person isn't just their worst moment. You know who taught the world that? Us. We handed the world the idea that a human being can become someone new. In a world that believed that no one could ever really change, we were the ones who introduced that concept. You know who took a world that mocked Hashem, that sped on Hashem, that ridiculed Hashem, that made idols of gods, who were the antithesis of Hashem? You know who took such a world and made monotheism the most popular belief system on planet Earth? You know who did that? Us. It is us who taught the world about Hashem, who spread his name across the world. Us. You know who taught this world morality and mercy and rest and forgiveness and hope and love and kindness and charity and justice and compassion? Us. We dragged it kicking and screaming out of coliseums and off of mountain tops and out of from under the boots of kings. And this world took every single gift, built entire civilizations on top of it, and then instead of thanking us for the gifts that we gave them, rounded us like cattle and killed us out of jealousy. And we never once demanded the credit because that was never the mission. The mission was never make sure they know it was us. The mission was make the world better whether they thank you or not. Be a light whether anyone's watching or realizing it. That is who we are. And perhaps that's why we cry. We cry because we were never built to be dragged into a pit of consumerism. And yet somewhere along the way, many of us climbed in anyway. We cry because some of us don't feel like a soldier in Hashem's army. But a consumer, like all the other pathetic consumers on earth, endlessly chasing another thing to consume. We cry because we want to feel like soldiers in Hashem's army. And sometimes we don't. We cry because every terror victim is a reminder that our job isn't finished. We cry because every cancer patient dominating for one more year is a reminder that the job isn't finished. We cry because every drop of Jewish blood that's ever been spilled from Harina until this very week is a receipt for a bill that has not been paid off yet. That is why we cry not simply because a building burnt. Not simply because our nation was exiled. We cry because somewhere along the way we forgot who we are. We forgot our mission. We tell ourselves, "Listen, I never met the people who watched the Bikash burn. I don't know anything about them. I don't know their names. I don't know where they lived. I don't know what they looked like. I don't know what they did for a living. I don't know what kind of parents they were. I know nothing about them. I don't know what the dreams they carried. How can I care about them and their destruction? I'll tell you what to care about. One thing that they died as soldiers in Hashem's army. And if I'm brutally honest, I'm not always sure I wake up feeling like one. I wake up feeling like an ordinary person trying to get through another day, another meeting, another errand, another paycheck, another week. And tishop of comes along and shakes me by the shoulders. And it reminds me, you're not ordinary. You're carrying a mission that began with Aramov. A mission that prophets died for and that kazal lived for and that Jews crossed oceans for, that yeen walked into gas chambers with schma on their lips for, that people gave up careers for, and our brothers, our brethren did everything for. How dare you think that you're just another guy? We cry because every terror victim reminds us that our mission isn't finished. We cry because every soldier who never came home, every widow, every orphan, every Jewish soul that gave everything so that this story could continue reminds us that the mission isn't finished. The mission relies on us, not the rabbis, not the rashivas, like we are all tasked on a mission to show the world the light of Hashem. And our mission has no plan B. And maybe that's what tishabove is asking of us. Not simply to mourn people we never met, but to become the kind of people that believe we could that they believed we could be. Because the greatest tragedy isn't that the B mikd is gone. The greatest tragedy is when a Jew forgets that he was born to help rebuild it. I'd like to leave you with a gimmar in braus that should shake you to the core. It says that since the day the Bameikdash was destroyed, every single night of the year, Hashem roars like a lion and he cries out, "Woe to my children who have lost the Bamedash." Woe to my children who have lost the Bameikt. Hashem is, so to speak, mourning the loss of the Bameikash. But there's an obvious question on this. If Hashem is mourning the loss, why does the Gumar say that Hashem roars like a lion? Shouldn't it say that Hashem cries? Shouldn't it say that Hashem weeps? Why does it say that Hashem roars when it comes to destruction of Islam? You don't know the answer. The answer is because Hashem is teaching us how Jews mourn. You don't sit and cry. You roar. A roar is not the sound of someone who has given up. A roar is the sound of someone who refuses to surrender. A roar is grief that still believes. A roar is pain that refuses to become despair. A roar says, "You knocked me down, but I'm still here." Lions don't apologize for existing. They don't ask permission to stand up. They don't whisper, they roar. That's what Hashem is telling us every single night. Don't just cry over the roar about it. Answer it. Answer it by becoming the people you were created to become. Answer it by refusing to let the mission die. Answer it by carrying my name into a world that keeps trying to forget me. That is what tishb is. It's not a day when Hashem gathers his soldiers together so they can sit in ashes forever. It's the day he gathers them together so they remember who they are. So yes, we cry, but when we finish crying, we roar. We roar because we're still here. We roar because the mission is still alive. We roar because the bdash may be gone, but the army that was chosen to rebuild it is still standing. So this tab, don't sit on the floor confused. Don't sit there wondering what you're supposed to feel. Don't go through the motions simply because that's what Jews do on this day and everyone else is doing it. Sit on the floor and feel the weight of the Horbin. Feel what it means that a people created to carry the name of Hashem. A nation chosen to bring his light into the world can slowly begin to see itself as just any other nation, just any other people, just another guy in the subway trying to get through another day. That is awa. We are not merely mourning of a mikdash that burnt 2,000 years ago. We are mourning a mission that sometimes sits buried inside of us. A flame that was meant to illuminate the world hidden beneath comfort and distraction and ordinary life. So yes, cry for the bush, cry for the crusades, cry for the Inquisition, cry for every Jew who died carrying his mission. But then we roar and we ensure that the that we fulfill that mission. We roar and make sure that you know you aren't ordinary. Roar as you carry the light of the into a dark world because that is the we have the power to rebuild. So we cry and then we get up and we roar.