Rabbi Robby Charnoff - Tisha B'Av: Rebuilding Through Longing | Torah Efrat 2026

So everyone, it's an honor to be here and learning with you. My first time in the shoo. It's a really beautiful shel. Seems like a wonderful community. Thank you for having me join you. I don't know what the actual title was that you read on the pamphlets, but we're going to do a different cheer. Um they asked for the titles in advance and sometimes you got to go where your heart takes you. Um, I want to take a look at what's going on in terms of an interesting overlap in terms of the cycle of the parote. What's going on in the parot of the Torah along with the cycle of the year? We have these two cycles and we don't often contemplate the nature of their interconnectivity, what's actually happening in them, how interconnected they may or may not be. And there seems to be if one looks underneath the surface deep connection between the two. For example, even just to think about why is it always that every year we're always dealing with the parot of the Mishkan specifically the building of the Mishkan during the time around around Purim. Beginning of Aayikra is always going to fall out around the time of Pes. Thank you so much. The beginning of a midbar around the time of Shàuot. These things aren't random. Nothing in Torah, nothing in Judaism is random. And as it turns out, every single year, every single year, we read the exact same para. Not a trick question. And also happened yesterday. What para do we always read every single year before? Always. So much so, by the way, and it actually comes out in a fascinating way when we end up offkilter. We end off one week off with it's because of shabot or because of pes. There seems to be no rush for interesting reasons that we can get into another time. There seems to be no rush on behalf of the calendar to realign us. Anybody who's ever put together a weekly newsletter for any organization knows that there's no rush to get back on the same page. We got to figure out how do we do onear and one for but the second that we get to the end of parvarium sorry for midbar because we're on the cusp of safer dvarim then immediately there's got to be a double para to align us because paraim must for some reason fall out on why is that when we think about Shabbat Shabbat has two aspects or two facets to it has many facets, but two of those facets are that it sort of bridges and brings together the two end points of reality, the two end points of history. On the one hand, Shabbat is Shabbat is looking back all the way to creation. And then on the other hand, Shabbat is looking all the way towards the end of days. It's bridging these two extreme opposites. Reaching back to the beginning and a taste of the end. Microcosmically for all of us, it's also functioning in both directions in terms of the week. We're supposed to work for six days. We're supposed to do and on the seventh day we're supposed to enjoy the fruits of our labors. Right? The Gammorrah tells us to shabas literally it means if you don't cook an hour of shabas you won't eat on shabas I'm sure many people are aware of you have to work and cook on shabas to eat on shabas met metaphysically it means that if you work during the week you get to enjoy the fruits on shabas if you work during you get to enjoy the fruits so on the one hand it's looking backwards but on the other hand it's looking forwards and the seeds of the week of what are going to sprout into the realities of the week are planted on the Shabbat before that week. Now, we're actually familiar with that more explicitly two other times in the year. We know that we have the concept of Shabbat. Shabbat is Shabbat before PES. Question is, who cares? Why should we care? Okay, great. Has nothing to do with PES? PES didn't come yet. Why should we care? The answer is we do care because the seeds of pesak are planted metaphorically not basur right are planted metaphorically on that shabas and will sprout during that week. Same thing coming up. We have shabou coming up. Who cares that it's a shabbat before yum kipur because the seeds of yumipur are being planted on that Shabbat. What that means is is that in this past Shabbat we planted the seeds of Shabbat. We planted the seeds of that's a wild concept. That means somehow whatever is whatever is going on with it's already expressing itself in some hidden way already within Shabbat itself. So what do we read on Shabbat? Well Shabbat we read begins a safer which has not as many repeated stories as it gets a reputation for but certainly in the first few parot it has repetitions of stories that we've seen previously in Kumash. One of those stories which is the one in Dvarim is very specifically which story gets repeated anybody know we go back to the sin of the spies. The implication being that itself is somehow leading to is that true? How is that true? So first of all the answer is yes and quite literally. How so? So now let's take a look at the source. Source number one has of many that we will come back to pieces of from the opening paragraph of safer. But if you take a look in source number two the tells us very interestingly what happened when did actually take place. So theukim tell us that the spies came back they gave their bad report and the Jews cried on that night says in source number two relating to the story of as it's told in the story of it says that they all cried a cry on that night refers to as a cry of acceptance it was a national sin it wasn't just an individual sin it wasn't just 10 people who sinned But when the entirety of accepted the report of the spies, there was a national cry of acceptance. And in response to that says to that night was the night of and then heartbreakingly continues the Gar and says you cried a cry for nothing. You cried over nothing on the night of this report of the spies. All established for you a reason to cry for all generations. And that reason to cry ultimately is going to be Shabba just to pull it all together. Source number three just I mean we all know that the the destruction of was on Shabba but see it inside the sources. I'm a big fan of being seeing it inside. It says in source number three, it was on that was decreed that we would not go into meaning the sin of the spies and also and both and took place on that night. So we have a clear link now between this para para and its retelling of the story of the s of the spies and it's somehow leading to but there's still a lot packed in there that we still don't understand really itself seems like real overkill a bunch of people 10 12 if you include the ones who even didn't even sit in the first place go into the land bring back a negative report they bring in a report everybody's like oh man we shouldn't go in and then because of that I would say God gets upset Moshe goes and dos for them they get forgiven that that seems sufficient that sounds like there was a hum okay it's really bad for some reason these people can't relate to the land they got to wander for 40 years in the desert and they got to die out I would say harsh god it's a little bit harsh but okay the seeds of destruction for all time itself What was so wrong? What was so corrupt? what went so badly in the context of that it's leading to that it's planting the seeds for just like the shabases just like we talked about that all of these things that they're planting the seeds for what's really happening our day at the surface and just to add a little bit more fuel to the fire so to speak we have um in this para itself also the first appearance of a very key word that's going to be important to shab what's the appearance what's the first word to appear in here in para that's going to be significant for this time of the right that's source number four in per of again clearly making that linkage we have the word for the first time in on top of that we have a shul in many shs I don't know if this somebody told me that there was a whole friend of mine we we spoke to him at chabas lunch um he goes to shul where there's like the whole of the is there's like Jews of all stripes and all types that come to the shul and it's basically dealer's choice for everything for who gets up to the what what is what the minimum are whatever it is whoever gets up that's that's how it goes which I think is fascinating in of itself but fine so that's how they that's how they do it and there was a whole back and forth in the because of this minhag that somebody did this and they were very and some people were very upset about it which is that when this p is read from the bema this past shabas on it's read in the tune of right if you there you heard it we read it in the trump of hinting that it's going in that direction. So what's going on here? How do we understand it? So with that in mind, let's take a look at itself and see if migil can shed any light as to what's going on here between the connection of and what's really so wrong, what's so corrupt here that it's leading to the destruction of the Bik. So if you take a look at verse number five, you have the opening of in this particular instance. I'm not so interested or concerned with the content. I'm more interested and concerned with the structure. If you take a look, the structure I think sort of screams off the page in source number five, which is there's a very particular order that the pukim are laid out in which is alphabetical, right? The first is the second is with a bet and the third one starts with a gimmel gala. Four out of the five pim follow the seder of the alfbet almost sort of. There's an exception. If you take a look, there's two praim. One of them is peric. The other one I believe is parake if I remember correctly. Um but certainly the first one is parakeet because parag if you take a look something goes wrong. I gave you the first one is then and then what went wrong? The Hebrew alphabet goes pay. And yet here it's switched. It's sath and then payin. The and the pay get swapped to become a pay and an the pay moves before the meaning that the Torah is telling us that the normal order of things is that it's supposed to go in pay and somehow a distortion of the natural order is when it's switched to be pay and then question is what's the meaning of that? Well, if you think about those two letters in particular, interestingly, those two letters happen to both be parts of the human body. P and I I meaning again the alphabet is telling us that somehow the natural order of things is Iin I before P mouth and when things get distorted it's P first, mouth first and then I. Cool. But what does that mean? So the Gar explains it and the Maharal explains this very beautifully which is take a look in source number seven why in does the pay come before the so what's amazing is does this they just assume that you have an an encyclopedic knowledge of the rest of and that you already know everything that we learned which is that is an extension of and caused by and assuming that you know that then all of this makes sense which is because of the but recognize the jump that it made there. We built up to the jump but the garra assumes the jump is because the why because they're said with their mouths that which they didn't see with their eyes. The mar opens it up as such in a very deep way. He says what's the natural order of things? Natural order of things is how are we supposed to relate to the world? We're supposed to go and look at and examine the world from as objective a perspective as we possibly can. To take things in as they are, to filter them through our mind and our rationality and our heart also, but to process them as objectively as we can. And to share the reality and the truth of God's world and the way that he guides it with everyone else as best as we can. That's how we're meant to relate to reality. What's the distortion? The distortion is when I put my mouth first and my eyes second. When I'm guided in how I see the world by my own internal talk, by my internal talk, my internal agendas, my issues, my hang-ups, my problems, when I take that internal talk and that comes first and then I look at the world based on that reality, everything falls apart. It's a very very big issue. And if you've ever experienced it, it's like it's it's a very powerful thing when you go in with a preconceived notion of how something is going to go. An interaction with a family member, an event, hopefully not a shear, but you come in with a preconceived notion when you walk in somewhere, very often you will in fact filter things through that perspective. You'll literally see what you want to see. And so the issue seems to be that the Moraglin had some sort of internal poisonous agenda that tainted everything they saw in Erit Israel and that caused the entire system to crash. That's why they're flipped. That's why the Moragim are here in part. That's why it precedes Shaba. The only thing they were missing is the content. What was the content of their poisoned perspective? What was so distorted in the way that they saw the world or the way that they saw things that it was so corrupt that it required them to walk for 40 years in the desert die out and that itself is really becomes the seeds of Qurban itself. What was the content of that distorted perspective? We'll pick up with that next time. No, I'm kidding. What was the content of that distorted perspective? So, let's dig into it. Let's see if we can figure it out. The answer to that question comes out singularly in par. What's fascinating about the Mishna Torah? Well, there's many things fascinating about the Torah. My wife is aware of this and she can come with me tonight maybe because of this. I'm not sure, but she is aware of this. We talked about it, which is that she knows that she's not my first love. My first love is safer. I love it. It's an incredible safer. It's so beautiful. It's so rich. It's basically the first ever Muser sefair and Ashkafa sefair. It's Mosher. You know, again, I became a rabbi, so I guess like my my perspective is distorted. Like it doesn't have the greatest pitch which is it's the longest speech given by the greatest rabbi of all time in one book. Feel free to sit down and you know fall asleep to it. But like if you really dig into it it's a very very beautiful beautiful safe. Think about what it is that Mosherenu after leading the Jews for 40 years. Everything that's built up and pent up everything that he was waiting to say and there's sukim that back this up in the end of the as well. But everything that he's been waiting to say and waiting till the end of his life till it built up to a fevered pitch and everything that he was waiting till they were ready 40 years later explic that he was waiting till they were ready comes out in the most beautiful way. This is the merging of God and human. It's it's it's still part of Torah. It's coming from but it's coming through Mosha's mouth. It's coming through Moshe somehow and he's expressing it in almost in a human way that which is super which is sublime. It's a beautiful safer. I encourage everybody to go and enjoy it. Read it. Read it well. Read it not once, read it not twice. In fact, you can read it twice every year with a parish called strikarum. You could do however you want to engage with it, but but read savor devar and really take it in. And so when you do that, you start to notice all of the beautiful flourishes. For example, every time a story is retold, of course, it's not retold verbatim as it was told before. And there are new things that come out with every single one of those retold stories. So when we come to we're told something about Moshe reveals something to us which we did not know in that entirely changes the game but is very oriented and therefore very oriented. And what is that? Let's take a look inside source number eight. This is one of the most painful to me in all of Kum. I shiver every time I read it. It's very it's a very very powerful puk and it's a very frightening puk which is the moragan come back and they give their report and we're told in paral in source number eight it's also in source number one on the other side of you refused to go up into and you rebelled against the word of hashem your god and you cried out in your tents and you said here carefully Out of God's hatred for us did he take us out of Mit to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. What a frightening perspective. The Jewish people at the time thought that they accepted the report of the spies. What did it mean to them? What was the perspective that they were carrying? WHAT DID IT WHAT DID THE SPIES DISTORTED PERSPECTIVE THEY BROUGHT BACK IN VERY WHAT DID IT WHAT emerged from them? What did it bring out in them? What did it validate inside of them? It's what we knew the entire time. God is a god of hate who guides the world with hate to a destination of ultimate destruction. That's where the Jews were at at that moment. That is the incredibly destructive worldview, perspective, internal talk that emerged in the context of but that all of accepted and reflected because it was their own. That God is a god of hate who guides the world with hate to a destination of ultimate destruction. And what's wild about that is is of all generations, this generation saw God that way. the generation that God came and brought 10 plagues on Mitro took them out with his love. So much so what holiday do we celebrate for you? Not a trick question. This is a are you still awake at 8:00 at night when I'm giving a shared question. Where are we coming out at Pesak time? YOU SEE PESAK? WHAT DO WE DO? Pesak night. We have the seder. What do WE DO ALL SEDER NIGHT? WE TALK ABOUT HOW WONDERFUL IS. WE SPECIFICALLY TALK ABOUT the of that he's giving, that he's caring, that he's loving, that he cares about us so much. So, and I want to acknowledge the fact that I am not doing the Ramban justice. We could do a whole hour just on this Raman. It's hard to say what's the most important foundational or well-known Ramban and Kamash, but this definitely is a candidate. I'm giving you three lines of what are around five or six paragraphs. I recommend seeing this Ramban inside in full. It's a very powerful Raan. I'm not doing it justice. But to see just how powerful this is, take a look at source number nine at the end of me trying the Ramban says he gives his tucked away in a ramban all about fillin. Very interestingly, it's all the way at the bottom. He gives a few paragraphs where he basically gives his treat on why the world was created. I don't know why he tucked it away that way, but it's amazing. See inside there it's well worth it's worthwhile. He says he says there are many many all the time. And then he says the goal the intent by all of the we should believe in God and appreciate to admit that he created us. He says that's the reason for the whole creation of the universe itself. There's no other reason for creation. And has only one reason why he cares about things down here, why he cares about us that we know he exists and and to thank for creating us. That's it. We're here to recognize God and thank him for all of the wonderful things he does for us. This generation experiences what the Raman has commented on. They experience not seder nights. They experienced the pes that we commemorate with and songs and different Torah and of and we leave Mosha because we don't want to distract from focus on and they come out and their perspective for whatever reason that we are not going to be able to get into tonight. Their perspective is so distorted they get to a place that is out of hatred for us that he took us out of his god of hate who guides the world with hate to an ultimately a destination of destruction that couldn't continue. Just noting the time. I know that there's Marv in here at 8. So I want to make sure that we So we will end on time in order to not we can't mess with Marv. Um I'll check my phone just to make that we get the time right [clears throat] to I suspected the follow a lot of this bas from my Rebby Ramos Luban. I strongly suspect the following and I think the midrash that we're going to learn backed it up 100%. which is if this is so fundamental in terms of the roots of having this reality of a distorted perspective and specifically a distorted perspective of the fact that was a god of hate who guides the world of hate which by the way if we don't have mikdash we must still be struggling with till to this day and I don't think that that's a far cry I think that's a stretch at all certainly there are Jews around the world who do see god as a god of hate the fact that the secular world incorrectly identifies the god of the old testament as the angry venful God is really interesting that that's the perspective of that's the type of God that you find in that's the perspective on a superficial level that's the easy way to relate to it that there are so many kids who when I teach in yesh is seminaries now you know they see God as this you know angry old man with a long beard holding a thunderbolt in his hand waiting to get you when you do an a vera and first of all it's not God second of all it's a votara there's a lot of problems with seeing God as Zeus right but there's like we have this we have these images in our mind that really do reflect that reality on a more practical level a more fundamental Not just you know waving off the easy cases where we have to sit down with somebody say no no I don't think you got god right there which is think about how many times in our life even by ourselves if we're honest with ourselves we said you're supposed to be good how could you do that whether it's do that nationally whether it's somebody who's reaching back and struggling with the holocaust whe they're struggling with October 7th whatever it may be I'm not giving edge to those that's for sure or a person looking back in their own life seeing us in the family loss of a relative personal challenges challenges kid challenges whatever the case may There's anger and resentment and issues with God. And we haven't resolved all those yet. And that's okay. But to recognize that's what we're trying to fix, that's what we're still struggling with. That that's part of the road to redemption is to be able to struggle with and overcome those realities. To be able to reconcile with a God who I don't always understand and try to understand him better, to come together with him, to understand him, to relate to him, to build that connectivity with him that I don't see him that way, that I don't struggle under the surface with that resentment and that anger. It's very much so wrapped. But if that's what is the issue in the desert and that's what leads to the and that's what leads that's why we still have no mikdash I expect that it has to be that it goes back all the way to the beginning and lo and behold I strongly suspect that I found it in the story of ganed as well take a look inside source number 10 we have the story of everybody's familiar [snorts] goes and tries to convince to go and eat from the fruit he says something very strange Strange. He says in source number 10, if you eat from the fruit, you won't die. Because God knows, the day you eat from the fruit, your eyes will open. You'll be like God knowing unclear what the snake was trying to make with its pitch there. What the issue that thought was, what she thought that it was going to solve, why God would care one way or the other. That entire is very strange. I'm not sure that Rashi totally clarifies it on the surface, but Rashi does bring out a layer that I think is significant for us. And he says, what was the pitch of the snake? Take a look at source number 11. He says he doesn't God doesn't want you to be like him because every craftsman doesn't like somebody who's like them. If you've got a pizza shop on Main Street and somebody else opens another pizza shop on Main Street and I was the Jedi rabbi at Queens College and we had many pizza shops on Main Street, right? You open up another pizza on Main Street. It's inevitable that the person who had that pizza is going to hate the person, the other person who's doing the same thing as them and basically edging it on their territory. The claim of the snake according to Rashi is God's got a claim on whatever territory God's got to claim onto RA knowledge, whatever it might be. He doesn't want you edging in on his business. But look at the language there in Rashi which jumped out at me. God is really a god of hate. Really, he hates you. He doesn't want you to be anything like him. He hates you so much that if you became like him, he'd hate you more. And he hates you now, he doesn't want you to be like him at all. But planting that seed of doubt of hatred already within the context of Adam and Kaba that that's why they couldn't eat it and that's why they shouldn't take from the what validated that for me is a wild midrash a midrash that points out and claims the following. It says that that I basically lied to you which is not really fair because for me to kazal to argue with me I can't go back and forth they were so long ago but Kazal just called me a liar. To be fair they're sort of right and I'm sort of right and we can meet in the middle and shake hands. How so? I told you a while ago that the first time that the word appears in the Torah is invar says yes ish. There is an earlier time where the letters al appear not as but rather as which is in this story. And look how the midash frames it so beautifully. Source number 12. Everything that happened to that also happened to what happened by God brought him into he brought him into a beautiful land and gave him mitzvot then he violated those mitzvot and so he threw him out and exiled him and he lamented on Now there's an earlier that earlier is in a place of hate, a distorted view of and that's paralleled in going into an amazing land messing up and needing to be exiled in order to figure out what's going on. And that's the second half of the mid. Take a look at let's finish reading it out. He goes through I won't read it. I didn't underline it but some fine he brings us into he is we sin. we get thrown out. And then again, this is the issue and it's been there since the very beginning. This is what we're struggling with. This is what we're trying to get over. How much time do we have? See if we can pack a little bit more in. We'll still end on time. I want to add a little bit more. This is one of the reason why I struggle with this because this year I usually give before par, but we're still leading into Shab. On the other hand, I don't want to leave you on such a downer because there is no next time for us as far as I'm aware. Unless I want to be back next week, which is totally fine. I'm happy to accommodate, right? But as far as know, we're not meeting next week. So, what do we do about what goes next? What do we do with now that we know that this was the huge destructive reality of paratim and the issue of this distorted perspective is what caused the exile from Ghana, the inability to go into Israel and ultimately the destruction of the Ba Mikdash. This is only the first para of safher devar meaning it's setting the stage for what safer devaram needs to address and the rest of safer devaram is going to set out to address this question because let's go back to the very beginning of what we spoke about this evening we said that there are two cycles here that overlap every single year para dev is on and we know that and those of us who did know that focus on that and so we don't process the next piece If has to fall out on Shabbaz then by definition every single year must be on again when you start watching the overlay layers and layers and layers of meaning to unpack excuse me every single year. I mean there's no other option it has to be. It always is on what's the meaning of that? How do we understand that? How do we understand? We're going to do as much of that as we can in the three or four minutes. Not all of it. will do some of it which is if you follow it what's actually happening it's not just shabas because shabas was the beginning of a process what process at the beginning of anybody know actually louder >> the it's not one week of it's actually seven weeks of and not only is it seven weeks once you know that it's a seven week process that we have seven weeks where the are all about it's designed in that gets us all the way to Rashashana and Rashashana takes us to through the tokip and takes us to Sukus and Sukus takes us through to to um Hosa and then and then some meaning if you understand that there's an unfolding here that's starting at Shabas and going into and you realize that what's happening here is this process of the year is opening up what's going to unfold over the entirety of designed in all the way through Russ all the way through all the way through is only going to end up and wrap up on one second. What do we read? >> No, before that though. What do we write before that? What's the divine this process which begins on and unfolds in the cycle of the year and culminates in has to be so because it's the beginning of that unfolds over this entire same time period and itself wraps itself up on par is identifying the problem Mosher over the course of the rest of Devarim is unfolding The answer the answer that lies somehow in the meaning which we can't get into of the reality of issues of chuva how to return to how to relate to and I again I encourage you all open up your eyes and take a look and look deeply into the especially in particular those types of that are just him pouring his heart out you see the emphasis on the emphasis on the emphasis on our relationship with it's no longer yes there are part in the middle to deal with technical mitzvot and there's reasons for that but it focus on the bigger issues of the mitzvot of our relationship with the of loving God with your whole heart and your whole soul which doesn't appear anywhere else in all of these things emerge here in these part in this it's trying to draw us back and help us repair that relationship with to build that relationship ultimately to get to what to get to which what do we say that what holiday are we saying that it wraps up on saruk sukot What do we do in Sakote? We build a house where we go and live with God in it for eight days. A house of kaduca that's separate from our worldly reality to a supernal reality separate from physicality where we relate to a kadesh pro. It's all about again you start to I could go on for hours about stuff. When you go when you when you just look at what's happening at the surface, it's all building up. It's all culminating. It's all moving in a particular direction which is how do you connect to a kadesh pro reconnect with him create a relationship with him of love that he is a god of love who guides the world with love to a destination of love. That's the reset of the rest of safer that culminates in us coming together with in that onkot in the incredibly heightened short. They're so short that they pack such a punch. They're such short because you you need a whole week just to take in the help us understand what it means to relate to a kadesh come to a kadesh live with a kadesh and experience a kesh both in mikdash and in the end of days. For those of you who are interested in learning more, I do have a WhatsApp group where at least for my alumni, I post these sharim uh by para two or three a week um with their source sheets. If you want, you can find me afterward. I'm happy to, you know, add you to the to the group if you want to follow along with the Shereim. Um if not, it was great to have an opportunity to learn with you. Hope that you enjoy it. I hope that you both take in the opportunities to recognize the brokenness with our relationship coming into the Shabba to admit it to ourselves wherever we're holding on our inner levels on Shabb itself and then to move to a place of and chuva and connection to through the rest of this process when ultimately culminate in more importantly culminate in the end of days and our return to in the mdash and everybody