The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Introduction to Eicha & Eicha

In a moment we'll begin begin to help us transition from the beauty, the holiness, the sanctity, the gula of Shabas to the darkness and to the pain to the sense of loss and grief of Tishabove through the power of song through the power of niggan that will unite us that will bring us together that will move and stir our hearts and that will touch our nishe as our souls. I want to thank the generous sponsors Lenny Khani Grunstein sponsoring entire programming in memory of both their mothers and tambar mashal survivors of the holocaust who rebuilt after darkness and loss. Our remarks tonight is sponsored by David and Ali Steinberg in memory of David Shalom Mosha Mayor who saved countless lives on October 7th by Mark and Jessica Matias in honor of all the IDF soldiers who've fallen on and since October 7th. We're so grateful not only for the sponsorships but for the reasons that they're sponsored. We're truly tap into and touch the themes tonight and tomorrow of this day. So please friends, open your hearts. I know we just filled our bellies. We just stuffed ourselves. We just drank and hydrated. We just got ready for this fast. We're just coming off a shabas, a taste of the world to come. But now we're sitting together low on the floor. And there's so much to be said about. There's so much to mourn and grieve. There's so many things to worry and fear. There's such a reality that we face that brings us together and unites us in this moment and through this pain. So let's express it together through the power of niggan, through the power of song. And before we even begin, join us. Join us as we sing together. shall [Music] the light of God is [Music] shifting. [Music] It's love [Music] Allah [Music] I Are you [Music] the Oh, there's overana. [Music] Shal, brother. Let my shine again. [Music] Yeah. Yeah. [Music] Amen. Oh yeah. God is [Music] Imagine [Music] I am. [Music] Yeah. I love you. [Music] in front of us. >> It's hard to believe that here we are again a year later. Another tishov, another list of tragedies and calamities, of losses, of lives, of worlds. How many times can we gather not just to commemorate the tragedies of the past, to reflect on our condition in the present, and to consider what's going to be in the future. Here we are again. So much has changed in so many ways. And yet the more it changes, the more it seems to seems to stay the same. After 2,000 years of gullos, of exiles, of attempted exterminations, of pgrams and persecutions, of expulsions and devastation. We thought We thought we had finally made progress. We thought we had finally broken through, a miracle of a modern state of Israel, an IDF, a powerhouse, an army of our own. Abraham accords peace with some surrounding nations and countries. We're on our way. Finally, the recognition, the respect Jews in America, other countries of the world after a holocaust, maybe because of the strength of the state of Israel, a world that supposedly had woken up, a woke world, maybe would finally make room for the Jew. Thought we broke through. We could wear our yamakas to work and proudly in the street to participate at the highest levels of government and country. With all the steps we've taken forward, with all the breakthroughs, with each and every one we've been knocked back, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. And so tonight, the holy N'vi laments How could it be? The Jewish people still after so long, after having been through so much, were still so alone and so isolated in the world. And if you look only at this last week, you don't have to look further back from there. We ask that same question. Prime Minister of France, of England, of Canada. Are you out of your minds? Threatening Israel, declaring a Palestinian state, rewarding enemies who are holding hostages. But the nations have turned against us yet again, leaving us bad, leaving us feeling so isolated, so alone. And of course, we're grateful, United States of America and its president and other countries that stand with Israel. But still, it stings so badly. It hurts so much to check a headline and wait and want and long to finally turn on the news one of the million times we check in a day. We're waiting to hear a deal has been reached. Hostages are coming home. An end to hostilities. Finally, some harmony, some peace. Instead, there is the image of a leader of another country saying, "Israel, you're all alone." The media, whatever happened to journalistic integrity? What happened to factchecking sources and pictures before you post them and print them? A media all too eager to run with false images and false narratives, with bias and distortion, with telling lies that leaves the Jewish people and the Jewish state feeling bad. All alone. Jews denied service in Europe. Israelis kicked out of a bar in Greece. French campers arrested and assaulted just for speaking Hebrew. Here we are. So much has changed and so much is better and yet in so many ways it's still exactly the same. We long and we wait for a day. We'll sit on the floor and say doesn't speak to us. Doesn't describe what we're going through. What's this about? Why are we on the floor? Get up. Everything's amazing. We wait and we long for such a day. And yet it seems and it feels because it is. Every year we come back on tishab and we sit on the ground and it's where we belong when we look and think and consider our standing and our place in the world. In the last nearly two years we've seen miracles for which we have to be eternally grateful. Mamish miracles. Miracles of a pager episode. Miracles of the defeat of Iran. miracles of wars won on so many front, but along those miracles have been massacres. And every time we win on one front, it feels like we're losing on another. And our arch enemy Yamahir from his grave is seeing his plan play out. the sacrifice of all of his people. Let them die of starvation. As long as Israel will be alone, as long as the world turns on Israel, Yeshua Bad, Israel and the Jewish people, wherever we are, once again, once again, we feel so alone. As we gather tonight, there is still so much to cry for. Tomorrow is 667 days. 667 days that hostages have been held and tortured. And we're seeing the horrific images, emaciated hostages, what true starvation looks like. We think of their families. Every day they're waiting. They're praying. They're wanting every day. They can't stop crying. The mother of one of the hostages was supposed to be with us to she and her family were coming to Florida for some respit to get away. But she couldn't come because it turns out Kamas lost contact with the captives of her son. His condition is worsening. Who knows what could be at any moment? So, she couldn't leave Israel. They're sitting there waiting. And how many more of those hostages have we lost since we sat on the floor last year at Tishabove? Last year, we heard the words of Rachel Poland Goldberg. We joined the hostage families hoping and longing. And yet, so many of them are now bereff and bererieved. days. Could we make it one day? Not knowing the well-being and the whereabout of our beloved family member. days the world has come to a stop. Since last tishabove, nearly 50 soldiers since last ceasefire, I should say. Nearly 50 soldiers, hashm have been killed. Each a world unto themselves. Each a son, a grandson, brother. Many cases a husband, a father. For each of those worlds, each of those families, each of those ripple effects we cry. Since last tisha, 50 soldiers have taken their own lives. for the that is the trauma that they've experienced, they've endured, those namas that were extinguished. For the 4,000 soldiers who've been diagnosed with PTSD since October 7th, for they for them we sit on the ground. How could we not cry? For Jews who are scared to live or travel around the world who are afraid, we cry. For university students afraid to walk on their campus as a Jew, the cry for a poll that came out a few days ago that shows that Mandani is leading Governor Cuomo by 17 points among Jewish voters. For those Jews, we cry. So disconnected to the Judaism and Jewish story. For those in this room and across this campus and everywhere who are fighting a diagnosis and illness, physical, emotional or mental, spiritual, for what they're going through often in private and quiet and silence for what they're fighting, what they're battling. We cry for those who find themselves another tisha going to sh without a spouse who are waiting to find their basher who are longing to break out of their loneliness. For those who desperately want to know the feeling of not being able to go to a because there's a baby they need to watch, children that need to be fed. to be put to bed. For those who badly wish they couldn't be here because they were holding a child in their arms, yet another year, another tishab for those not sure how they'll keep the roof over their head or pay their next bill. who live with the daily fear and concern for the shalom himself. We say in Monday and Thursday owes Hashem your strength is being held hostage. Your strength is in captivity. who you are and what you can do, what you can unleash if you want. And yet instead the world is wondering and doubting the God of the Jews. Where is he? Those who believe in God in this country, the numbers are going down. His power and his might is held hostage. And for him we cry. We cry for the kabonos, for the mistakes and the bad judgment. How many relationships since last tishov have dissolved? Marriages have ended. Relationships have been damaged. Many bad decisions did so many of us make. The hurt, the pain that we caused others, the loss of potential that we forfeited about ourselves, the missed opportunity. For those we cry, there's so much pain. Every misrepresentation, every distortion, every bias, every lie, it all stings and it aches. It hurts so bad. So we ask a why and how are we still here rabbis tell us that the way out of asking is to finally begin to answer the question of where are you the same letters different pronunciation a famous medish a famous insight we've spoken about it many times before but can also be repunctuated a little differently can be a co where where almighty is the sense of co you promised us he promised us we'd numbers the stars in the sky and yet a recent statistic emerged the Jewish people are still at a smaller mber than we were before the Holocaust. We've not yet recovered that loss. 80 years later, we've not yet grown in our numbers. What happened to the What happened to the What happened to the Hashem? Where are all the co Hashem? Your love, your affection, your protection, your promise. Where'd it go? Where is it? Why are we here feeling so alone and isolated in some ways so abandoned suffering the consequence of your withdrawing from us a co where is the co where is it we didn't have to wait for tishabove to feel the pain of being a Jew every time we turn on the news is another story that hits us and punches us right in the gut. The world, the media, elected officials, influencers and grifters and podcasters, media personalities, it's so lonely and it hurts so badly. There is so much pain. What 19 1956 still in the shadow of the Holocaust trying desperately to recover from the brutal murder of 6 million a real genocide Zatsaw shared the following insight that he later published in Kodo fake. He asked if the dispersion of the Jews around the world, the diversity of all of our minhagam, our customs and our languages and our ways of life of spreading and diversifying and exiling us along the diaspora all around the world. Has that caused the Jewish people to cease being one? Asked, "Is the Jewish diaspora one or not? Are we still a we? Are we still a we?" And he pointed us to tells us raised the dilemma. He asked a question. Someone's born with two heads. Which head does he put the on? Someone's born with two heads. And the Gar records he tried to dismiss it was such an impossibility. Why you raising such nar? Could it be? Is it real? Is it hypothetical? Gar asks, someone's born with two heads. Which one do they put the fillin on? Does he receive one inheritance or two? Is it one person or is it two? What's the what's the right to answer the gamar's question? Someone born with two heads, are they one or are they two? It's a simple solution. Pour boiling water on one of the heads and if the other one screams in pain, then the two-headed man is a single being. And if not, if pain is caused to one head and the other doesn't feel it, doesn't respond to it, doesn't cry out from it, then they're two individuals folded into one body. The RV writes, "As long as there's shared suffering in the sense of there's unity. No matter how spread out we are, no matter what language we speak, no matter what culture, no matter what way of life, as long as we continue to feel the pain of the other, we are one." This has been described by some as the pain that you're feeling. That pain is peoplehood. The pain we feel. Every soldier's beautiful face when those worst words in the English language released for publication are announced. That ache, that pain for that family, that pain we feel feeling alone in the world, misunderstood, abandoned. That pain that we're feeling is peoplehood of lublin writes in sadic odal something that could easily be misunderstood and in fact was so controversial that several additions of the safer don't include it goes from the giml to n it leaves out nandal that the most foundational principle of being Jewish is to be a yid to be a Jew. It's not what you do or what you know or how you live. It's who you are. Ayid Yehudi, part of our core identity, the essence of who we are, something we can't detach from. To be a Jew. How do you know if you're a Jew? How do you know if you rise to this level of describing the essence of what it means, the foundational principle of our people is to be a Yid is to be a Jew. Of course, being a Jew is about and faith in Hashem, observing his Torah and his mitzvah. And we'll talk tomorrow about how we find ourselves in this place because we've abandoned or become insincere or mindless about so much of that life that we're meant to live. But it says shame is says the foundation the core of yahadus is to call yourself a yid is to call yourself a Jew to call yourself a Jew. And so my dear friends, as we begin, if you're feeling the pain that I've been describing, that pain is called peoplehood. You're a yid. Congratulations. If it stings, if it hurts, if you can't stop checking the news, if you are driven to want to go to Israel at the next possible time, if you look around at your neighbors and friends and you feel and you see their pain, if you desperately wish you can introduce them to their spouse or help them have that child or bring back that loved one, overcome that illness. If you're feeling the pain, not with sympathy but empathy in a way that hurts your heart, That's the icker yadus. It's the core of what it means to be a Jew. The pain that we are meant to be feeling for the next 25 hours, that pain is people. And so, yes, we've been alone for 2,000 years. And it turns out for the last 80 we've just been alone even in a crowded room but alone all the while. Our standing in the world, our condition in the world, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We're still alone. But if we can lean in tonight and tomorrow, if we can feel not only the collective pain of Jewish history, not only the calamities and the magnitude of the numbers and the massacres, but if we can hone in on a particular person, a neighbor, a family member, a friend, local here in Boo, wherever you are, our brothers and sisters in Israel, if we can genuinely feel their pain and shed a tear on their behalf and on ours, If we have each other, if we feel the pain that is peoplehood, then in fact we're not alone at all. That's our mission and mandate. That's what we're trying to do tonight and tomorrow. That's how we go from sitting on the floor to getting up and pivoting to aim into a period of the sitting on the floor is because we're alone. But the the comfort is knowing that pain that we're feeling as people. May there be no more pain and no more sorrow. No more reasons to sit low to the ground. May there be no one and nothing more to mourn and grieve. But so long as there's pain in our world, let us feel that pain of peoplehood so we can finally get off the ground. Hashem, sing and dance together in yushi.