Tisha Bav Event: Lamentations איכה ישבה בדד By Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz In Memory of Shaul ben Tzvi

it's good okay we are starting again sorry about that all right so today we are celebrating the holiday of tish above and as we know tish above on one hand is the day that we commemorate the morning and destruction of both temples but we also know that tish above the day when the mashiach is born so before we begin i'd like to dedicate this class to the memory of shaol benzvi who is a very very special human being we're celebrating his second yard site his yards is actually on tishomov he was the president of the jewish community in argentina helping jews go to israel he was a strong supporter and a lover of the land of israel he actually visited israel over 25 times he helped many jews move and settle in the land of israel he supported local jewish activities and schools in argentina where he lived and he infused his children his grandchildren his great-grandchildren with a love for hashem a love for torah and a love for mitzvot and we see it evident by his daughter who lives here in fort myers miss shelley and the children and so knows his child his his grandchildren and great grandchildren that they have a tremendous warmth and love for judaism and their constant commitment and consistent support for jewish activities here in fort myers both in our chabad house in the school and in the educational programs in our school and that comes obviously from all the tremendous love and warmth that he shared with his family about jewish judaism and jewish education so we're going to begin first before we actually read the um lamentations just going to talk a little about um why on tishaw we read lamentations so we all know that god gave the jewish people many many gifts one of the gifts that god gave us is that he gave us prophets and the prophets prophesied god's word now they told us beautiful and happy things and we're grateful for that but also they came to tell us messages we didn't want to hear and jeremiah was a wrong a young prophet and he actually came to tell us the prophecy that god is upset and god is telling the jewish people through the prophet jeremiah that if we do not repent god will unfortunately bring the destruction of the temp of the of the temple and chase the jewish people out of israel the jewish people did not want to listen and not only don't want to listen they actually um attacked him they like like modern day protest they threw him into a dungeon um when the babylonian king came in he took him out so and he wanted to give him everything and take care of him jeremiah was still dedicated and his love for the jewish people was tremendous he went back to try to inspire them to repent and turn to hashem and that's what we're going to be reading tonight in the prophecy of jeremiah about him reaching out to the jewish people um to inspire them to turn to hashem and as he told them you know god had you turned to hashem before the destruction we wouldn't have to have the destruction and the end of the lamentations the last verse which we'll say all out loud we say hashivainu that we tell hashem give us another chance turn back to us and then we will return to you and let's renew our bond as if obviously nothing ever happened and we're once again reunited again in a beautiful way so that is lamentations that we're going to be reading tonight before we begin so i just want to talk about um a little about the lamentations from a kabbalistic perspective because on one hand the lamentations begins and it starts off and it says which speaks about how the jewish people are saying hashem how is it that we're sitting alone and which is interesting is that we are sitting today unfortunately just like then we're alone we're sitting alone we're not necessarily in shul we're not part of the community many many communities around the world around the world were sitting alone and even for example in the temple in israel and by the western wall we all know that there used to come thousands tens of thousands of people would come there to pray and to to to turn to hashem and this year there's a limit of only a thousand now a thousand is a lot but it is not what it used to be also it's buddhad you see that they set up little like groups it's very very alone it's isolated and that's really what we're living uh today and i guess the question is you know why is it yeshua but how is it and why is that we're sitting so alone whether it's in homes or in small communities just be a family or even a minimum amount of 10 people in the in a social distance setting so we're technically all alone even we're together we're still alone and the question is why is that so what's interesting is that san marzadek which he actually goes to the whole book of echa and gives a beautiful positive spin on everything that it speaks about in the book of echa we're not going to go through the whole echo right now the positive spin but just a few ideas that he says and that's as follows he says what's the whole idea of echo so is actually made up of a word which is four letters as you see aleph yud khaf the second letter the good we all know relates to the ten commandments it relates to a tense we wrote the aleph is the first letter which means it's even above the tendency road so the first two letters represents something very very high and very very sp powerful and that is the aleph which is again above the tennessee road the youth is the tennessee road ten commandments and the huff hey represents malchus which is known as the lowest sphero and the whole idea is to constantly create a union between the highest energies down to the lowest energies now and that's really our job in gullus our job in gullis is that sometimes we're we're living in such you know challenging places where it's so dark but the idea is to bring in the powerful beautiful light into this world so the arabic explains an acidic discourse and he says like this the truth is that gullis exile is one big test what it means a test the test is a simple test the question is are we looking for hashem or did we get we forget about hashem and very brings it out by where it says in the uh in lamentations we're going to read tonight so what does it say it says that we're sitting alone in this big city we are like someone that lost a spouse so the rebbe asked a simple question almana is the right word an almond someone that a widow a widower what does the idea kit almana like like or whether it's it is or it isn't what's this care like and rebbe says here you see that the truth is that even though we don't have the temple but the truth is not because we really don't have it it's really a test and because it's a test that's why it says like because it really is just a test hashem is trying to test us to see whether we are looking for him or not looking for him now why does hashem do this because the truth is that the greatest prize comes unfortunately after we go into velos like we all know when originally when god created the world so he put us in the garden of eden he put the first man adam into the garden of eden and he was there to avoid all the shamrocks to take care of the garden and then unfortunately he was chased out of the garden so you would think that said he's chased out of the garden it's over but no because we kept on searching for god we kept on turning to god we ended up receiving the torah which is obviously much greater and much more powerful because we know according to that in the garden of eden even though they were able to get to get to the essence of god but in kabbalah it's called the only able to reach the level of mammalia on the other hand through receiving the torah we're able to reach hashem on a much deeper level on the level of what of slave of kalaland now so therefore they they we chase that they're going to have the torah and the same thing also he says then we came to the then we went to try him to egypt we went and we received the torah we went into israel and we received the first temple but it was destroyed we chased that at the land of israel and we know we got the second temple and the second temple was longer it was built for many more years and it's also bigger and stronger so we got something greater because of destruction and this gullis and everybody says the reason why this golis is so strong and so dark that sometimes we don't even remember to turn to hashem and the reason why the goddess is so strong is to remind us to turn to hashem and because the prize of the third temple is going to be even greater and even stronger and the real question is how could we be successful in always remembering in gallus to turn to hashem and this way will we connect hashem in a real deep way and rabbi says it says over here it says in the same in this first verse of echa what is means on a spiritual level hamas means when we reach the level of humility when we have humility that's when we'll be able to reach the greatest places and as we know the ruby says that moisture obey now we know in the torah it says he was the most humble person that existed but nevertheless maestro vayner looked into future generations and he looked into our generation and he was humbled of our generation because he said look a generation no temple no israelis glory so many challenges so many struggles and they're still even though they're sitting in their homes even though they can't be together in shul even though they can't have but even the western wall they can't have everyone can come together and this one is sitting here and this one's sitting there and you have to wear a mask and social distance and all all with all those restrictions what do we want we want to cleave to hashem so the what the rebbe explains is that the prophet is saying that when we sit bothered and this one is here and this one is there but nevertheless we're still looking with humility lamas humility we want to turn to hashem was envious of our generation so let's hope and pray that we're going to read now i'll read it in hebrew we sent out links everyone has it in hebrew and english we sent out a spanish link you can read it in spanish i'll read it in but the important point of asia is to read the message of the prophet and the goal is that we should hopefully connect to the idea that we want to have a relationship with hashem it's all about having a relationship with hashem and not god forbid getting lost in exile in all the distractions that's out there and we should make moshe rabeno continue to make moisture bainu envious and proud of our generation that in our generation that even though we have all the challenges and all the struggles and bothered yes everyone is isolated but still we're committed and connected to learn torah and most importantly to connect to hashem and the last verse that we're going to read tonight from lamentations we'll read it together we'll read it in a song it says that hashem is going to return we ask hashem to return to us and then we will return to hashem and we're going to renew our bonds together so i'm going to start reading follow along in hebrew and english and spanish whichever language you like and hopefully we'll connect to the message and we'll all return to hashem in a beautiful way okay so we begin it's a special song that's sung only on tishbov yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] easy [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] name [Music] my let's hope uh hashem hears and heard our prayers and uh we won't be a yoshi everyone's sitting in their own place wherever they are we'll all be reunited together we'll all go together with mashiach no to your miraculous already in this tish above and we'll all celebrate with all the jewish people around the world in a beautiful way a great tish above with the birth of a revealed way and the moisture of ana will look and say yes this is the generation that was sitting all over scattered but nevertheless they wanted to do tishoba they wanted to connect even though they were here they were there they found ways youtube to get everyone together and to celebrate in a beautiful way so once again thank you all our community a great community for constantly wanting to connect hashem and learning and studying and doing mitzvot and i want to thank the dulceret's family for dedicating this memory of sol ben sv may his soul be elevated by the torah and the midsole everyone does in their memory and we should only continue to do great and beautiful things together so i want to wish each and every one of us that we say in pesach but should be hopefully before the shona haba we should all be together in miraculous tissue what we know is on one hand it's uh it's a fast day but on the other hand it's also yandev so we can also we can wish each other not tonight but tomorrow afternoon which will get young and we'll all celebrate in a beautiful way hey thanks so much for joining us for our tishrov event