Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Amazing History of Tu B'Av

[Music] okay everybody it's good to see you and I hope that Tish uh was a meaningful Tish and uh as we always say we hope and we pray that it will be the last Tish that we observe as a fast day and a commemoration of aan next year God willing we should also observe Tish but not as a fast day but as a holiday and uh we'll be around a mile and a half from here I guess around the site of not just the cotel but the BET mikdash itself and uh we will be celebrating the ninth of a as a great great day of redemption a day of of G as I mentioned last week however it is precisely the morning and the aut that we have in the nth of that generates these for there to be a g uh other issues which are of far less importance but they do bother people I won't be talking about a lot I will not be devoting uh too much time beyond the mention to the Ben and Jerry's issue about what type of ice cream uh will be will we be able to eat both in Israel and in America uh some people are talking about boycotts uh I'm not here to endorse anything simply because uh the Israeli distributor uh of Ben and Jerry's is in fact uh opposed to Ben and Jerry's decision so the question always is uh should we hurt him in the interest of affecting you know the Master Company interesting Shila talk to your local Orthodox Rabbi about the repercussions of those types of of of boycotts and the like uh just just want to announce the people that are sponsoring today's Shear uh first we have a sponsorship for no particular reason other than the love of Torah and we're very grateful for that Mark quell and thank you for your support uh AA toor dor and Gabriel may they have a is along with all of the other people that are that are suffering whether from covid or from any other sickness or injury or or or difficulty that they're going through we hope and we pray that our learning should be a for them and finally of Dora Louise and again the young man that we had been praying for for uh so many months who unfortunately did succumb to his illness B Isel Ben schomo May our Torah be in Al uh for all of those who generously sponsor uh the Shi Torah that we're talking about uh normally our subject is of course the par but I am going to digress today to talk about the special significance of the upcoming Shabbat now the actually the upcoming Shabbat is actually a double header because there are two special aspects to the upcoming Shabbat uh the first is it is called Shabbat naku the Shabbat of comfort because it inaugurates the seven weeks of Comforts uh that come after the nth of and we inaugurate it with a from the book of be comforted my people says your God and that's why it is called shabas I know in the United States it's a very famous singles weekend all the Jewish organizations organized in truth though that brings me to the second significance of this Shabbat and it is the 15th of happens to be that uh this Shabbat is the 15th of a and what I want to talk about today is the very very interesting significance of TUF and what it means uh there is a very famous mishna at the end of that says that the day of yam Kipper and the day of the 15th of a are the two happiest days of the Jewish calendar and the mission and the gamar explains we understand why yam Kipper is a happy day and by the way by the way that itself doesn't always occur to people we sometimes look at jum Kipper as kind of they got to fast they got to stand up like most of the day very very hard but no the gamorra says it's a that yum Kipper is a joyous happy day the day of forgiveness the Day of Reconciliation the day of the second chance there is nothing as wonderful as experience God God's forgiveness we're not quite up to Yum Kipper yet we'll obviously be talking about it as we get closer but yam Kipper is a happy day yam Kipper is a joyous day I still remember my Mash in is chass who is an old tment of the Mir Yesa before World War II he spoke in Yiddish but I remember he would literally put his fingers to his mouth and he would say every minute as yum Kipper is as sweet as honey and that's why there's actually a phenomenon maybe you've experienced it that uh sometimes at the end of yum Kipper you know as hungry as we are you know you don't you don't want to end it you don't want to kind of go back to Everyday Life in fact again I don't I don't want to talk too much about jum Kipper right now but I just mentioned one thing that's always very very striking actually it's actually relevant to shma which is also in this coming week's para and that is we know that normally after we say the verse we say blessed is the name of his glorious Kingdom forever and ever and the whole year we say it silently because it is the praise of the angels that Moshe stole from the Angels so it's kind of illegitimate we kind of we don't say it loud not it's not that we're fooling the Angels but we're kind of showing them Respect by not taking their praise and doing it out loud The Only Exception is Yum Kipper on yum Kipper we shout out because on yum Kipper we are all elevated to the level of angels so even in niila and after nilah we say AO malano and after a malano we say shay Isel and we say shame and we still say it three times out loud and then thein says the Kadesh shal that is the conclusion of and then immediately we move to the weekday M and we're already demoted the shma that we say you know 30 second one minute after Nea you got to say it quietly you talk about being demoted like you know a minute before we were still the angels of heaven and after that last CES right in fact we're already talking about may God forgive our sins like what what sin did I commit I mean yum Kipper just ended I'm totally forgiven no already you know we can do a sin in the in the first second of the of the new of the new period so yam Kipper is not even a question to the gumar the gumar says of course yam Kipper is joyous happy wonderful but the gamorra asks and that's going to be our subject what is so great about the 15th of that it was considered to be the most festive day along with yam Kipper so the gamorra gives no fewer than six reasons why tuba of is such a happy day and each of the reasons has different interpretation so it's not it's not such a simple thing reason number one is that Tu was considered to be the end of God's decree on the dam Mido that they would die because of the sin of the spies now how does that work the gumar doesn't really explain it in fact thear just uses two words buter means digging the need to dig Graves ceased on Tu bef but there's no explanation for this so Rashi explains the gamorra based on a medish in a and also thei and here's what it was because of the sin of the spies God decreed that anyone that was 20 years old at the time of when they left MIM would die in the desert if you were under 20 you didn't die you were able to enter the land of Israel but if you were 20 you were n in the Gaza yeah that's for men women in all tribes no no no no so so actually it means any any man there there are a few people there are a few people uh that are excluded from the whole decree number one women were excluded from the decree number two shet Ley was excluded from the decree and the reason is the 600,000 number is based on those who were counted in the first tribal census at the beginning of the book of bidor that census did not include Ley and it not did not include women but it included men of all the other tribes who were 20 and up and they died now they didn't die all at once but they died over the course of 40 Years of the desert okay they died gradually now the medish gives us a very amazing way that they died that is they all died on the nth of a every Tish night all of that generation not the people who were under 20 they would dig their they would dig their graves and they would sleep in their graves although I I'm not sure if they slept actually and any nobody died before the age of 60 so every year every ninth of our of anybody who reached their 60th birthday didn't get up the next morning and those who were under 60 did get up now you may ask the question if it was known that only the people who hit their 60th birthday would die why did people under 60 have to dig a grave the answer was it was a symbolical gesture so to speak that the whole generation had to every year real iiz that they deserve to die but God was prolonging their life until they hit the age of 60 so the kbone is although this is a very problematical kbon uh if you go into the mathematics in detail very problematical but the kbone is that over 40 years right if the gazer started for people who were 20 right so every year those who reach 60 so the last year would be the 20 year olds who reached the age of 60 and they they would they would have died the last year again this is very problematical in fact I I've been trying to work out these numbers uh for probably 35 years because the problem is you don't really have 40 Tiss Buffs because remember the sin of the spies occurred in the in the second year so you have a lot of problems but but and again if anyone here has a PHD in mathematics or whatever it is and you can work this out I would appreciate it but but right now I I don't have a complete answer but the theoretical structure of it is everybody died the year they reach their 60th birthday over 40 years now on an average since you have a population of 600,000 who have to die over 40 years so if you divide 600,000 by 40 you get 15,000 on an average that that doesn't mean any given year that was the case but on an average therefore 15,000 people died every year Tish above so it turns out the last year in the desert year 40 now remember in year 40 Roes Aon died Miriam died even earlier than that Moshe is alive still Moshe will be alive until Adar which is the last month because the month the year switch in Nissan so it turns out that going with the average number which may not be the actual number there are 15,000 people of the old generation who are left not counting Ley not counting the women so that group of 15,000 people dug their graves the ninth of and they expected to die that night that would have been the end of it but lo and behold the next morning they opened their eyes and they were alive this is all in the what's going on here they know that God decreed that this generation would die so they figured maybe we we miscalculated maybe it's only the eighth of of so they went back to the Grave the next night and the next night and the next night once it was the 15th of a they saw full moon middle of the month once they saw a full moon they knew that for whatever reason God forgave God gave amnesty to the last group of people that didn't die and that Sim occurred on the 15th of they Hashem canell the decree now toos has a real real problem with this medish because the Tyra itself says over and over again that the only two men of that generation other than Lei who were able to enter the land of Israel were yahushua bin nun and kif but according to this medish a lot more people went in yahushua and KH and 15,000 other people who should have died in the last year so how do you Recon the idea that you're telling me 15,000 again I'm using an average number remember the because I'm simply saying the average people who died every year would be 15,000 but that doesn't mean that was the actual number because you didn't necessarily have the same age distribution but whatever whatever it is uh you can't reconcile the idea of 15,000 survivors based on a Divine amnesty in the last year with the Tyrus statement that only yosua and K entered so some want to say an interesting answer to that some want to say well okay the 15,000 didn't die in the ninth of in other words God did not punish them that way but remember you still have eight months because remember we didn't cross the Jordan until Nissan so there the month of a right so you have think about how many how many months will it be till we go to ER you have uh the rest of a right a el K T shat Adar when mosha dies then Nissan so you actually have 8 and a half months so it could be that the 15,000 people died gradually over 8 and a half months SOI they didn't die on the ninth of a as part of the morim but they did die without entering the land of Israel that Terrace I think is a little difficult because if Lisa they did die then I'm not sure if the 15 should be a day of sim because they didn't die then but who knows they got eight months more of life so that might be a Sim others learn but differently others learn that even in the last year the 15,000 people did die but what happened was this for the 40 years in the desert from the sin of the moram onwards the Shina did not speak to Moshe and what happened was after the last group died and they sat Shiva for the last group now remember if the last group died on the nth of a when would Shiva be over the 15th of the came back to am Israel so according to that interpretation the Sim of is not that people who should have died didn't die but it's a Sim that it was finished and the divine presence came back in other words this is a Lo reown him how to interpret that the digging of the graves was nullified Rashi follows the medis actually it's a medish that 15,000 people who should have died did not die other reim understand that they did die and the celebration of tuav is the return of the divine presence after sitting shiva for the last group of people so be it as it may that must clus is only interpreting one out of the six reasons but okay we then come to reason number two and reason number two is connected with the daughters of now you remember the daughters of is they play in two acts the Terra actually discusses the daughters of in two different parot in Paras and in par Mas uh in the First Act is of the tribe ofra of manashe he died in the deserts and he has no Sons uh so uh his brothers claim that they are the rightful Heirs of his property that he's going to get inherit Israel uh because if there are no Sons they claim Brothers inherit the daughters uh claim that if there are no Sons daughters inherit and therefore they are entitled to the land that would have gone to their father Moshe didn't know the den mosha went to God he asked God and God said the daughters of are correct that if there are no Sons a daughter has the right to take over the inheritance and therefore the portion of land that would have gone to salad is going to go to his daughters now that is act one but act two salad's Brothers meaning the the daughters uncles were still not happy because they made the following argument listen the land of Israel is going to be divided according to tribes right you look at maps at in the back of an art whatever it is you know there is the portion of isar and Zan and Nai and Yehuda ruen and God of course on the east of the Jordan but each tribe has its now if a woman inherits property because there were no sons and she's single and she marries a man from another tribe and has children or not what's going to happen when she dies is that the tribal inheritance of manasha let's say is going to go to this other tribe which is defined of course by the father's tribe so what's going to happen is when arell is going to be divided and land is given to manasha let's take this particular case if the daughters of marry a guy from another tribe what's going to happen is in the middle of masha's territory you're going to have whoever whoever they marry and that's going to mean that our tribal inheritance is going to be diluted going to be compromised going to be divided up so that's no good so again mosha asked God and God said ah they're right and this right so lose you know lose some win some they lost act one uh their first argument was the daughter shouldn't inherit at all they lost that one the second argument is that the daughter should not be allowed to marry outside of their tribe Hashem agreed with them Hashem said a single woman who inherits property must marry a man of the same tribe in order not to dilute tribal inheritance so the daughters ofad were commanded that they can only marry men from the tribe of Minasha now this is in the Torah itself but a lot of people misunderstand this hierarchically a lot of people think this is a permanent law but if you look at any list of the 613 Commandments you will not find any Commandment that says if a single woman inherits property of course I mean today it wouldn't apply anyway because we don't have Tribal divisions but even when there was a tribal division you don't find that there's a permanent law that a woman must marry within her tribe and the reason is because this was not intended to be permanent this was intended to be in effect only until yosua finished the dividing up of the land because the point was that there had to be a moment in time in which the tribal units were clearly defined and they were not diluted by Outsiders but once the was completed at that point a woman could marry anybody she wanted now remember historically theuk was completed after 14 years meaning yahushua entered the land of Israel after Moshe died and for seven years they were engaged in conquest and in seven year for the next seven years they were engaged in surveying and dividing and apportioning the land so for those four 14 years a woman that was the rightful owner of property as an heir could not marry outside of her tribe but once the was completed she could she could which means the following if you were to walk into uh in the time of the chatim or even the time of the first temple you would walk into the territory of naftali it's quite possible that large portions of the territory of Neftali belong to a Ruan or a Shimon or a Yehuda and in fact even a Coen or a Ley could be a landowner let's imagine a Coen or ay marries a woman who is an only child so the woman might from another tribe a woman might inherit quite a lot of property and if the Coen marries her and has kids who are kohanim they'll inherit from from them the fact that the Torah says a Coen or a Ley does not have a portion in land just means they were not given a portion in land but they could inherit land like everybody else so according to Rabin tradition there's no textual Source the formal day when the restriction on marriage outside your tribe was abrogated was the 15th of in other words 14 years after we entered the land on the 15th of yosua decreed anybody can marry anybody in fact that actually explains why to be of became uh what is sometimes called the uh je Jewish Sadi Hawkins day if you know s Hawkins uh but it was a day in which women would be uh actually very very unusual today you see that things that would certainly be condemned in uh were were done women would dress up and they would parade and they would be chosen uh as a SP spouses and the like uh it's interesting that um the rich ones would advertise their wealth Etc the poor ones would advertise their or they would say you know uh if you give me the proper jewelry I'll look just as beautiful as the rich ones but one very interesting ritual was that everybody had to be dressed the same so everybody wore borrowed garments so that one would not be able to influence a choice based on fashion or the like but the connection of tuav and marriage is related to this idea that tuav was the day that a woman who Inherited property could marry anybody she wanted and that was a great great Sim when marriage opportunities are enhanced that's something to Rejoice about now the third reason for tuab was also connected to marriage but this is a very very tragic story this takes us to the period of the judges after yua died there was a 300 more than 300E period where there was no centralized King but there were different judges and this was a very mixed period very mixed you I mean you read the book of chatim and sometimes uh lail you think you're reading The Godfather I mean it's full of violence and lawlessness and all sorts of episodes that are quite quite disturbing and in fact there's a refrain in the book of that is stated a number of times in those days is there was no king in Israel is everybody did whatever they wanted now that is not stated in a complimentary way that is not saying oh it was such a beautiful world people had freedom it's always making the opposite point it was a hefkervelt it was a world without boundaries a world without limit a world without a a way of of getting people to live with a certain standard very very difficult world and one of the most disturbing stories in the book of schaim is at the very end of the book although some commentaries place it at the earlier part of the sh in other words it's not always following chronological sequence and this is the story of pesh Piva the concubine of giva of or in giva giva was the town in the tribe of Benyamin and the story which is really a horrendous horrendous story on every possible level involves a man who was traveling with his concubine with his mistress you already see you know a bit of a problem there and he seeks lodging in the shaved of bamin he seeks he's not from Benyamin he's passing through and he seeks lodging with his concubine in a scene that is very reminiscent of sedom a bunch of bite thugs don't like the fact that a stranger is being given hospitality and they surround the house just like s and they demand that the stranger be delivered to them for some type of apparently homosexual abuse so the the owner of the house the host plays this game of sadic similar to Lo and says no no no don't uh don't hurt my guest I'll give you the concubine instead so this defenseless woman is given to them that night she is repeatedly raped until she essentially drops dead she dies they didn't kill her in the sense of stabbing her but they killed her by the abuse the next morning she is found and it's amazing on the lentil on the threshold with her hands towards the door trying to get in but she's dead the guy gets up in the morning leaves the house cuz he's ready to start his trip he sees his concubine lying on the ground he thinks she's lazy just sleeping outside he kind of says to her get up we're going that's his only reaction and you have to understand it's not just the benam KN it's the way he's behaving to says get up you know and he discovers that she's dead okay so what does he then do he takes a knife I'm just giving you the facts he takes a knife he cuts her up into 12 pieces and I don't know what federal express he used or UPS or whatever it is he sends a piece of her body to each tribe of Israel and says are you going to allow an atrocity like this to occur and this obviously shook up uh all of the tribes they said something like this has not happened since the very day that the Jews left Egypt this has never happened in the history of our nation and they demanded of The Tribe of Benjamin that they extradite so to speak they deliver the wrongdoers to be Tried by am Israel to use modern terms I'm making a little more modern in my description a crime against humanity that this shouldn't just be a local thing that banites do but the Jewish Nation needs to judge this now again keep in mind I'm not suggesting nor does the narrative suggest that a large number of people were involved in the actual wrongdoing it may have been very very few people but the tribe of binyamin as a whole refused to extradite the wrongdoers and here we have a fascinating political Point ramban explains that Benyamin maintains that only a tribe has the jurisdiction to adjudicate crimes that are committed within its territorial boundaries it was a political point the ramban says that each shet regard or at least bamin regarded itself as a Sovereign Nation so the same way we would say today right uh if a crime is committed in Israel you know the United States can't say oh send the guy back we want to try we want to try him the the crime was committed here so bamin made the argument as bad as this sin was it it was committed here we judge now again those of you that uh are American history Buffs uh may know that this was the very issue that the American Civil War was fought people make a big mistake people uh usually say oh Lincoln fought a war against the Confederate Southern States because Lincoln wanted to end slavery and in the South they were still practicing slavery that is absolutely not true it it is true that Lincoln was against slavery but he was willing to tolerate it uh in the South because Lincoln thought probably correctly so that in a few years it was going to go out of business anyway and he was not going to fight a war over slavery but the reason Lincoln didn't fight a war was because the southern states made a claim that they had a right to leave the United States and become a separate nation that's called secession and Lincoln said that he's going to fight a war over the idea that a a a State can look at itself like a separate country and separate so what happened here is that laav I think the Civil War is an amazingly uh close analogy shavid binyamin claimed that as a tribe they were a separate nation and their only connection to the other tribes was we have a common religion yeah we have a common religion but we are a nation we are not like part of a Jewish Nation we are a sovereign state and for that just like Abraham Lincoln so many thousands of years later the CL Israel fought a civil war against the tribe of binyamin and obviously binyamin was greatly greatly outnumbered but still they were very Valiant Warriors and tens of thousands of people were killed on both sides on both sides but as one would expect shavid binyamin was eventually defeated and they were decimated virtually annihilated virtually extinguished and there's only a few hundred left and to add extra injury all the other tribes took an oath that no man shall give his daughter to a bite to be married so what would have happened what would be that in the normal course of events there weren't enough bite women who survived to allow the tribe to perpetuate the tribe would have been extinguished they would have died out there were only a few hundred left they had no Partners to marry they would die they took an oath the rest of kisel took an oath that no man shall allow his daughter to marry a binyam now apparently for mystical reasons that you know we're not fully conversant with there have to be 12 tribes for the divine presence to rest in Israel even today when we often say oh the 10 tribes are lost that may be true in terms of a kingdom but in CLA Israel every single tribe is represented although we don't know you know I don't know my tribe for example you don't know your tribe unless you're a Coen or a Ley but still every tribe is represented there's a ruen and a shim Etc but if a tribe would be totally annihilated that would affect the celestial dynamics of God's connection to the Jewish people so they felt they faced a real dilemma after they made this oath they realized gee this could result in a total annihilation of a tribe of Israel so listen to this again every part of this story is awful so what they decided to do is look for some group that was not present at the convocation where the oath was taken is there any City that didn't show up and they found a city again a city they didn't show up in other words they weren't Bound by the oath so the daughters ofes Gad married the bites and the tribe was perpetuated but then the question was hey why didn't they show up they were supposed to be there so the Final Act of p is that they murdered the people of yill because they didn't show up I mean what's going on here if they would have showed up that would have been awful they didn't show up but we're going to kill you for not showing up after this whole debacco the last verse in the book of shoftim repeats the sober reminder oh in those days there was no king in Israel people just did what they wanted I it's kind of that's the way it was crazy world crazy crazy world by the way there is a wild wild comment from from a very obscure medish when it talks about the number of people who survived from shavid binyamin there are two different numbers that are given one is slightly larger than the other one a difference of a few 200 and one of the interpretations is the lower number are the survivors who remained in the land of Israel and the difference with the higher number is that a number of bites fled ER Israel and they went to Europe and they sought refuge in Europe I believe don't don't quote me on it directly that the British royal family has a Tre tradition that they are descended from the bites who reached Europe and eventually England when they left ER Israel in the days of PESA in other words there's something in the coronation ceremony that's connected not to Yehuda not to the davidic line they don't claim connection to the davidic line they don't do that but they claim connection to The Tribe of Benjamin and what's fascinating is there is a midic source that would support that I think I'm not a big expert in this I think Dan Brown and one of his D Vinci Code and other type novels I think he uses that that's why they do they do BR uh yes that that's correct there there is an aspect of there is an aspect of of Jewish there and it's based on this med it is based on this medish um the British connection to to Jews is actually quite you know uh there's a beautiful beautiful Shas the first printing of Shas I think it it was recently sold for $5 million um a bomberg Shas Daniel bomberg was a non-jewish printer but he printed the first Shas this was a Shas that was owned by Henry VII Henry VII had a sh now Henry VII as far as I know didn't didn't know Hebrew and you he certainly didn't do doomi uh why did Henry VII have a Shas because um he wanted to marry his brother's widow and the church and well that's why he created the Church of England but the Catholic church at the time told him he's not allowed to marry his brother's widow that's incestuous cuz Leviticus says it's incestuous but then somebody told Henry VII that in Deuteronomy it says that if your brother dies without children uh you are there's a mitzah to marry your brother's widow and he was told there's a whole tractate in the talmud yamos uh that deals with this issue so he ordered sh and he had he had rabbis whatever it is uh to pour over the shot to give him a give him a heter I mean he was a guy he was not bound by any of these Halos anyway so uh the most expensive shot in the world uh valdon Shas beautiful beautiful Shas was owned by by Henry VII so there an interesting connection between the British royal family and uh and Juice in various Ways by the way there's even I know a fellow he's a non-academic expert on Shakespeare he's not no he's he's not in the academic study of Shakespeare but he actually argues that Shakespeare himself was Jewish he say Shakespeare was a Morano Jews were not allowed to live in England when Shakespeare wrote but he has different proofs that Shakespeare was a hidden Jew and shock is actually a complimentary portrait of a Jew who stands up for justice instead of being negative again interesting a um okay so what what does this have to do with the 15th of to get back to the main topic that uh the tradition this is not there's no textual source for this but this was a m that the day that they discovered the daughters of yaves gilad being available for the tribe of bamin was the 15th of and therefore it's a great Sim because that assured the perpetuity of the tribe of Benyamin so that too is connected to marriage in other words we have two linkages between marriage and Tubi of one is that a daughter who inherits property is allowed to marry anybody she wants and the second is that shavid b Yamin became enabled and liberated to be able to get married and that assured the perpetuity of the shet and uh the M was the the tradition was that both of these events happened on the 15th of a by the way this story about the fact that they were so happy that they found yaves gilad not attending the meeting and therefore not bound by the oath and then they punish yaves galad for not showing up reminds me of a story I remember hearing uh in Harvard that is uh one of the Legends in Harvard University that the tour guides like to talk about uh is that in the 1600s of whatever 1640 what happened was there was a big big fire that destroyed the University Library even in the 1600s the Harvard Library was a big big you know for those days a very big library and people were despondent there was nothing left everything that had been accumulated was destroyed so a student showed up shortly after the fire and he had one or two books and he said I have the books that surviv the fire I didn't check them out I took them uh but I just want to give them back now because this is the remnant of everything that's been destroyed so the University was very ecstatic they were very very happy we have something that survived the fire so they said thank you so much but we're expelling you because you took the books without checking them out when I think of the yaves gillad story which of course was a much more drastic story I'm reminded of that story all the time because on one hand we're so grateful for what you did but you're going to get punished for doing it that's exactly what happens with with Yan okay so we covered three reasons out of the six we have three more reasons to go and I'm trying to go in chronological order reason number four this takes us now to the end of the malus the end of the kingdom of the 10 tribes in the book of Kings the book of malim what happens here after King schlomo died as you know the kingdom was split into two very unequal halves 10 tribes established a kingdom in shamon which was called malus Israel and the kings of malus Israel which were usually not a very good lot of people they were mainly from the tribe of Ephraim so Ephraim was the dominant Kings in malus Isel and the southern Kingdom which was much smaller all you had were two tribes Yehuda and binyamin they were under the davidic monarchy but but of course they hadim and the B mikdash that's called malus Yehuda malus Isel sometimes those kingdoms lived in peace with each other and there were other times that there were Wars between malus Yehuda and malus Isel now y benat was the first king of the Breakaway malus Isel and he didn't want his subjects to go to Yim to the Basa mikdash to bring carbonos so like East Berlin and West Berlin he prohibited he had guards that did not allow people from his kingdom to go south and he set up in bayil he set up Golden calves he set up his own own zahav to replace the worship of Hashem in the B Mikes and this went on for several hundred years the last king of malus Israel was a man HOSA Ben aah and HOSA B A decided he was going to allow free immigration he took away the Border guards he allowed people to go south to Yim to the B mikdash he took down the and that's a great can go to the B mikash they can worship hasem tremendous s the m is that was on the 15th of of now the gamorra asks an obious Kasha on that he did such a wonderful thing but he's the last king of the 10 tribes in other words what happened San the king of Assyria came and destroyed the northern kingdom more than a hundred years before theban well wait a second if he did such a wonderful thing a Mitzvah like that why would his kingdom get destroyed exactly then so the gorah gives a very very powerful answer because he took away the guards he took down the golden calves he says anybody who wants to go to the temple can go to the temple and nobody went all the years that people didn't go even though God knows the reality anyway they had an excuse we can't go there are guards they they'll kill us but when all the guards are gone and all the doors are open and you still don't go the sin is great L greatly greatly magnified again this reminds me a little bit of what psychologists call the Stockholm syndrome that is sometimes uh a kidnapping victim a victim can literally be brainwashed sometimes what kidnappers do the people who hold these people for 20 years whatever it is they'll sometimes open the door and say you want to go go you're free to go walk out the door and the person doesn't they can't you know hundreds and hundreds of years of the brainwashing of aod Zara has its effect but nevertheless it was still a Sim because there was the potential of going when God gives us a potential to serve him that is joyous again think about this in contemporary terms it's an interesting point you know the accessibility of studying Torah to day is at the greatest level it ever has been meaning to say no matter what your level no matter what your education no matter how proficient you are in Hebrew or in Reading sorm you can find let's say on the Internet or live you can find shurm you can find all level classes you can find translations everything is available in a way that was never available even you know 30 years ago right people who became by cha 30 years ago didn't have the wealth of resources that we have today so that's something to be really really happy about but you know when resources are made available that also magnifies our responsibility to use them if 50 years ago somebody said oh I couldn't learn gamarra because you know there really wasn't that much there Sino you know that's not such an easy translation to you use but today you you know it's harder and harder to have excuses for all for all of us I I include myself you know it's all there for you so so the truth of the matter is just it's what the is saying that he made the B mik available to people but if they didn't use it they now become much more accountable than they otherwise would be okay so again I'm I don't want to lose track or so I think I gave you four reasons and now we've through four reasons for 2bf and I'm trying to go chronologically the fifth reason already takes us way way ahead to the we to the okay it's fine yeah to the destruction of the second temple the second temple was destroyed by the Romans between the years 68 or 70 in other words that's actually Aus what the year was the standard historical account says 70 some say according to kazal it was probably 68 but whatever it would be but around 60 years after the destruction of the temple the Jewish people broke out in a new revolt and this was the famous or inFAMOUS Barba Revolt don't confuse it with the initial War the initial war against the Romans which was from 66 to 70 culminated in the destruction of the basa mikdash the Bara Revolt is after that and what's very very interesting is Bara was initially very very successful uh he liberated some 900 Villages from Roman hands he minted coins you can actually buy a Bara coin they're not it's not inordinately expensive RAB AKA thought baru was the mashia and actually that's a fascinating uh issue that deserves a whole talk on its own uh was RAB AA wrong or was he right that bar could have been mashia but the generation wasn't ready how how do you understand this because the truth of the matter is r aa's support of Bara uh resulted in a Monumental catastrophe for for Israel uh because eventually in fact by the way there was some archaeological evidence that RAB AKA authorized the rebuilding of a third B mikdash under Bar's leadership and on the Temple Mount there is some evidence of at least a foundation being laid a foundation after the year 70 connected to the baroka Revolt but eventually hadrien retaliated with overwhelming force and this was the Calamity at betar which is not modern day B but B was on the Mediterranean coast and the gamorra gives numbers for the Jews that were killed at betar that are much much actually the numbers are in the millions all right the mam say that these types of numbers might be exaggerations but still this was a devastating catastrophic defeat and and I want to make a point that a lot of people don't realize we often read about the Romans not allowing Jews to learn Torah do mitzvos and killing Jews we doing mitzah one has to know this is the aftermath of bar not the aftermath of the the Romans did not destroy the temple for religious reasons the Romans destroyed the temple because the Jews were rebelling against Roman rule and the didn't want that to happen theim were actually pacifistic and the Romans destroyed the temple to kind of put the Jews in their place but after they destroyed the temple although that was a tremendous tragedy and many Jews did die Jews were allowed to practice their religion if you want to learn Torah you want to wear to Fain you want to keep shabas you want to keep koser I don't care I mean the Romans didn't care that's your private business do what you want when we talk about the anti-religion decrees of the Roman government that is not the aftermath of the destruction of the temple that is the aftermath of betar because hadrien was frankly sick and tired of a second major Revolt remember the Roman Empire was a big Empire and he didn't expect the Jews to revolt yet again so he says I'm going to crush these people once and for all so for example the death of rabi Akiva because he was teaching Torah we read about it on Tish his his flesh was uh scraped away with iron hooks that's after Barba not after theban B mes and in fact Jam was became a Jews were not allowed to live in jush it was turned into a city in honor of Jupiter the Roman uh God small J it was called Alia capitalina and Jews were barred from the city for several hundred years several hundred years not just like the 19 years 48 to 67 several hundred years the cardo in the old city is remnants of the Roman Alia capitalina and the only thing the Romans allowed was every tishu they allowed the Jews to walk around the walls of the Old City to mourn the destruction of the temple and therefore the custom that still exists today to encircle the walls of the old city that is actually and Truth is the Romans the Romans started the custom but that was an old old minog of am Israel going all the way back all the way back now kazal teach us that the Calamity of betar also occurred on the ninth of So Not only was the first temple destroyed and the second temple destroyed but betar was destroyed now here's the thing hadrien did not allow the hundreds of thousands of corpses to even be buried that's how much he wanted to crush the Jewish spirit so they walk outside and they see piles and piles and piles of corpses and the guards the Army the Roman army did not allow them to bury those corpses and hadrien thought that the corpses would decompose and create stink and everything and lo and behold a miracle happens that the bodies didn't decompose for 3 years the bodies were not buried and they didn't decompose but 3 years and a week after the betar massacre the betar massacre was the ninth of a 3 years later plus a week which is the 15th of of the har betar were given a burial because hadrien realized he wasn't going to make his point anymore I mean he what he thought would happen didn't happen and for the Jewish people would look at this miracle and they would see the Divine Providence so he figured put them in the ground already you know I'm not going to be able to make the points I wanted to make and therefore the fourth the fifth Sim of tuav is the har betar we're given qu did you want to say yeah the source for that never heard that Romans allowing the Jews to come Circle yeah that is that SCE uh yeah there is a source I could send it to you but there absolutely is a source for it that that is the m for this now again I'm not saying I don't want to say necessarily that the people that are doing it today are necessarily connecting to that Source I don't know but it is a very very old Minag to walk around the walls of yam on tishu again today you know for security reasons it might be a little difficult although I understand a large crowd uh did go even even this year uh you know so I'm not advocating for pro waran but but certainly it can be traced to a very very early uh early time uh in honor of the fact that the massacred Jews of betar were given a burial the added an extra blessing to Bening batan originally had three blessings the first blessing is Haan Sak thanking Hashem for sustenance that was comp opposed by Moshe the Second Blessing is thanking hasem for Isel Allah that was composed by yahushua the third blessing is asking Hashem to bless the davidic monarchy Yim and the B mikash that was composed by David H now obviously not in the wording that we have today today we pray for a temple that was destroyed it was a different wording but it goes from and that was the end of Bening after bet they added the fourth blessing God is good and God does good that the bodies didn't decompose M we were able to bury them this is quite extraordinary because you would figure we're so grateful to God that we can bury the hundreds of thousands of people that died I mean one might have had an opposite idea I'm pretty angry at God for having all these people killed you see you see you see the Jewish perspective on things that even when there's unspeakable unspeakable tragedy we try to see the kindnesses of God even in that tragedy in fact uh this is a very big deal to people and rightfully so uh one of superimposed on the awesome pain of the Holocaust is the additional pain that so many of the victims of the shaah were never brought to a Jewish burial there is a certain psychological closure when one can bury their loved ones in a respectful cover Dicker way and you see this that the day that we were able to bury the arug betar became a joyous day for us even though it's in the face of an unspeakable tragedy so that is the fifth reason now the sixth reason is this the sixth reason is that wood in ER Israel was in very short supply during much of the second temple period part of it goes back to the Babylonians who deforested large parts of er Israel and the Romans even did worse the Romans even did worse uh people describe parts of the Galil were literally rows and rows and rows and rows miles and miles of date PS that the Romans cut down now wood was a major commodity that the B Mikes needed quite often because wood was used every single day so every time they were able to cut enough wood for the betam mikdash was always kind of a joyous day that we managed to get our wood for the year now the allowed wood to be cut for caranas for the whole year only during the summer months because the rest of the year the wood might be moist and if the wood is moist uh it may develop worms and and and not burn very well so they would only cut the wood in the summer when it was hot and they stopped cutting the wood the 15th of the 15th of was the final day of wood cutting for the coming year and that was a great Sim now why did they stop the 15th of again the climate may be a little different today because of global warming or or Whatever Whatever It Is by the way just as an aside I for some reason I am making all sorts of unsubstantiated observations tonight um no global warning warming I don't want to oine but I just want to say one thing I remember in the 1970s that you shal on a summer night would be chilly chilly chil that you'd have to wear a sweater I I remember this myself uh I don't experience that today meaning whether it gets a little cooler or not it's certainly not chilly in the summer so clearly there has been some climate change in Israel again I'm not necessarily connecting it to any greenhouse effect I don't know I'm ignorant about it but I can say that in yam the summer nights have changed I think that is a simple disputed observation but okay but be it as it may uh in the time of kazal at least they basically said that from the 15th of onwards the nights are getting a little bit longer and the height of the Sun the height of the summer is past and it gets a little cooler and as a result the wood is not as dry as it otherwise would be uh so therefore this 15th of was the last day for the cutting of what and that was a Sim because basically we have enough wood for the coming year because it was never a clear thing because wood was uh comparatively hard hard to get because of the extensive deforestation uh that was there okay so these are so I've given you tonight six reasons for the Sim of the 15th of but if the Romans deforested why would they need the wood BAS and was not EXT I mean are we talking no no no you have to understand uh that the the Romans were ruling over Eric Israel uh for for more than 200 years or 150 years when we had a basa mikdash so they deforested it even before the Corbin they deforested it in the years of Conquest remember that the the the war that precipitated theb B mikdash was a war revolting against Roman rule again it's again it's worthwhile to repeat that the were against that war it's very interesting if you compare the stance of the Kim in the first Jewish War With The Stance of rabi aiva in the bar Revolution you see a very different position theim in the first war were pacifistic they actually did not want to fight against Rome and they said if we don't fight against Rome they'll let us have the B of Mikes yeah they oppress us they do all these other things but we can keep the base on mikdash by the time we get to RAB aiva he took an opposite very opposite approach maybe he felt there was nothing to lose although there was actually plenty to lose uh RAB AKA was an active supporter of the bar Revolt you can write a very interesting book on this exactly like uh different rabbinic views regarding the military opposition to Rome and why was there a change between the first war and the second war or maybe RAB AA himself was a kind of a unique position maybe he was not the majority position even in Bara we don't necessarily have a big list of sages who supported bar I mean basically the gamor records rabi AKA was the supporter these are very very interesting questions and one of the things that's interesting to me is you know when you learn gamar and Yeshiva or whatever did you think of all the rabbis did was learn all day they sat in the base of Med I mean you see they were deeply deeply in involved in these political issues of life and death this was not Ivory Tower stuff uh they were really really involved in this and uh in in many ways it's very very fascinating in that in that way there's no record of any disagree with there is well there only one Rabbi who's who's who's relatively obscure I think he's only mentioned in that one context when RAB AKA said bar mashia so it mentions another Rabbi y Ben tort who's mentioned only once who says to RAB AA grass will grow out of your hands before Mas will come but is Yan B Tora the majority consensus or is RAB aka the majority consensus or is there a consensus at all I really don't know we just don't have a record okay just give me another three minutes and I and I'll finish up so here I want to just share with you a final thought which I wish I would have had a little more time to develop and that is I gave you a list of six tra six Simas of the of the 15th of let me compare it with another list of five tragedies of tishu and let's compare the five to the six you'll see a very interesting pattern tragedy number one of ninth of a that is when the Jewish people cried when the Morin brought back their reports and they cried the night of tishu so God decreed that the generation will not ENT into the land tragedy two destruction of first bikes tragedy three destruction of second B Mikes tragedy four destruction of betar in the Barba Revolt tragedy five Y and this is also after betar yush was plowed over with salt to destroy its fertility now what I want to show you is that each tragedy of tishu is kind of compensated for by a Sim on the 15th of as if to say that God is giving you a Sim tragedy one [Music] theim one is the on the on the 15th of the gazer of the maragam was finished either the 15,000 people that should have died didn't die so the 15th of takes away the punishment of thein tragedy two is the destruction of the first temple now we know that the first temple was destroyed because of the three worst of AOS but the primary sin was AAR that that is the worst of the sins so the firstan is a but the 15th of celebrates although it's earlier than theb little non chronolog non chronology celebrates a nullification of idolatry because took down the agel and allowed people to go so Hashem gives you a nullification of idolatry the second B mikdash was destroyed because of hatred polarization dissension but the two that's why six and five match but the two marriage that the daughters of that that a woman could marry out of her tribe and shavid bamin can marry right opportunities for marriage are the opposite it builds Bridges it creates Unity so in a sense if the ninth of is hatred and polarization and divisiveness two Beav this is where you get two of the two events of marriage and two Beav are a celebration of unity andus the fourth tragedy of Tish destruction of betar compensated haruga betar are given burial the fifth tragedy the destruction of the fertility of er Israel by plowing the city Tu have celebrates that Hashem gave us a fertility by being able to get the wood that we needed what's the overall lesson as I said earlier Tu of is getting up from Shiva it is the seventh day from Tish seventh day getting up from Shiva is a very important symbolic gesture because God says yes you mourn you grieve you got to remember but then you get up and you try to regain your life and move forward forward and move ahead from tragedy not forgetting the tragedy but keeping it in the back of your head so you're able to be productive in serving God and therefore we get up from Shiva because every tragedy of Tish is compensated by a Sim in the 15th of that moves in the opposite direction of that tragedy so as they say this Shabbat is is a special Shabbat Shabbat of the 15th um may we be to experience the of sh and the of in connection of course with the K Shabbat which is always very very wonderful and holy so thank you and have a good week [Music] my