Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: This Generation's Transgression of the Three Cardinal Sins

You see your tomorrow [Music] Okay. Hi everybody. Again, I apologize for being uh for being late. Uh I have three pages of announcements, but only a few words per page. Uh number one, praying for victory for aim and all the fronts of the war as well as the lasting unity of Ami Israel and for all of those whose health has been affected by the war. The safe return of all of our hostages should be very very soon. Rafua Schlma Borak Benfreda Bacha Batara and again lasting unity and safety of AmIrael safe return of the soldiers and hostages. uh the full recovery of all those who are wounded and shalom o Israel aliat nama yishi alo ben ronit rab aron ben mashulam the late husband of Carol Stein and his yard site is the eighth of a uh in memory of William Furam ben Shimon the father of Esther fyer schnitzer his yard site is on the 10th of A he came from Vienna after the unulus without his family came to America alone, joined the 82nd Airborne to fight the Nazis, jumped into Normandy on D-Day. So he left the war zone and then rejoined uh as a soldier participating in the uh defeat of the Nazis. Hashem uh then from Ari is a very dear friend. Uh I know him as a little boy who grew up in my bra. a very very fine member of the Baltimore community and uh recently his father was nifter so he just said my parents were members of our show in Silver Spring and Ryder would spoke at both of their levas it would be very meaningful to sponsor his share lei nishmas s and Emil Bronn Sarah Basim Salman Azriel bin Mosha Lezar um again I could be Mar I could talk about I could spend the whole year talking about them they were a wonderful wonderful couple they were their deaths were separated by several years, but they absolutely were pillars of the community in in Torahim. Uh from my my st standpoint, very very sorely missed. Uh they left a wonderful wonderful family uh behind. And finally, an anonymous contribution was made for the of our hostages to return safe and totally healthy to their homes. Hashem's protection for Kalisel for the gulma vimera venu. Um again obviously we're in the nine days. Uh we are approaching the ninth of a ninth of a is shabis Sunday. It is still possible that we will be z to the bin mikdash. uh and in that case we will not have to fast on the 9th of AP the 9th of A will become a holiday a day of joy and here I just want to point out uh a preliminary and that is kazal do teach us >> I'm sorry okay >> yeah kazal do teach us based on the puss and zakaria that when the gula comes all of the fast days will no longer be fast days that's fine but There will be days of joy. Now one might wonder why does that happen? I understand that once we have a basikt there is no reason to be sad on the 9th of A but why would the ninth of Aav itself become an especially joyous day? What would make the 9th of A joyous when we get back to Ba Miklas? Why would it be more joyous than the eighth of a or the eth of tes? And the short answer is that it is the crying and the grieving that we have over the builds the bas mik. It is the very sense of loss in which hashem sees how much we yearn for his redemption. How much we desire his presence that builds the basa mikdash. So the very shedding of tears in itself will be the source of the gaul. The maral writes that is the meaning of the famous mime kazal that mashiach is born on tishabove. It doesn't have to mean that the actual birthday of mashiach will be on tishabove. Maybe not. Maybe mashiach will be born some other days. But it means that the thing that brings messianic redemption into the world is the degree of mourning and yearning that we connect through tishabove. And that is why tishabove has a double character. Do you know on one hand it is the saddest day of the year. It's a day of mourning, a day of crying, a day of kinos. And at the same time we don't say takan on tishab because it's considered to be somewhat of a festive day. And in fact there are many old men hugim some of which are still practiced uh by certain segments in which the afternoon of tishab certain activities are done besides the fact you don't have to sit on a low bench etc. But there were certain minhagimay that were connected to joy. For example, there's an old min that women would sweep and clean their houses tish afternoon to honor the coming of Mashiach. There was even a minute brought down which is actually against but some gulam didn't want to stop it in which women would wash their hair the afternoon of tish in honor of Mashia. Now that that is actually a very controversial thing because according to the you're not allowed to wash any part of your body on the nth of soakly that was improper but it reflected the inner simka that gul is going to come as a result of our you know even in the kinos it's very interesting thing that uh the kinos are of course the lamentation poems uh and without a translation It's very very difficult. I mean, I remember as a kid these old Kenos books. Uh they're still around. Uh they're not even numbered. So the keynotes are just unbroken. It's like 150 pages of unbroken text. And maybe maybe you know I understood I mean I was relatively young. I understood like every 10th line I saw I I saw some thought that was coming out of it. Uh so the first thing is get a kynos book that's numbered because it's really 45 poems. I mean once you have a sense that it's 45 poems it becomes manageable. So a numbering of kynos itself is extremely valuable even without a translation and then get yourself a translation. We have heart scroll is probably the best one. Uh there are actually some very very excellent Hebrew translations of Kenos that one should get in which the very difficult poetic words are given a more straightforward translation and uh Kenos has a number of authors but the main author was the great great religious poet Rabi Lazar Hakalier who wrote a lot of the pim of rashana yam kiper sukus rashesh most of it we don't even say but it's in the makers certain and and the like and Rabar Khal has a very very complicated style. He brings in many many midrussian uh but unless you know the medish you wouldn't know it from the kina. So the commentaries have to tell you oh this is based on this medish this is based on this gamorrah this is based on this teaching very very fascinating limit but the point I want to make is this Rabi Lazar composed probably 60 or 70 kenos for tishab but in our books only 20 of them made it meaning some congregations said other things but the standard kinos has 20 kinos of khal But if you look at the very early Sedorim for example the sitter of Rome called the moxer of Roma going back to the 1300s uh and that has all the kinos and everything else. You actually find that after you finished the kinoshal wrote 11 pakim of like I'm not going to call it kinos of that's a contradiction but 11 poems of comfort dealing with ga dealing with mashiach 21 kinos of aos and then 11 kinos thank 11 kos of called pure and they were actually said tish above morning and later some kahilos move them to tish above afternoon and eventually what unfortunately happened was they dropped out entirely if you were to ask me where can I find the pure nama well rest assured I've been searching for it a very long time uh I found it in makaroma makaroma is like old old old moxer that's on Hebrewbooks.org. I mean, it's not you can't get it in a bookstore or whatever it is. So, it's really a little sad that this concept of pure dropped out of tishab but l it's part of it. Even if we don't say it, it is part of it. And that's the idea that through our mourning, through our yearning, we become closer to God. You know there's a famous expression I think I think it's from Shakespeare uh absence makes the heart grow foundonder and of course by the way there is a a theory that Shakespeare might have been the equivalent of an English morano some actually say Shakespeare might have might have been Jewish uh even though Jews were not allowed to live in England at the time but he was like a hidden Jew his portrayal of Shillock whatever different I have a a friend I know in West Hartford who's kind of obsessed with the idea of arguing that Shakespeare is Jewish and he's written books on it and and and and the like. Uh but absence makes the heart grow foundonder. Some means the paradox of life that sometimes the further you are from someone, the more passionate is your connection. And therefore the three weeks and the nine days and the ninth of are all about feeling our distance from God. But as we feel our distance from God, we're actually closer to him. He cries with us. He cries over our separation from him. We cry over our separation from him. And that crying creates a closeness. One way of visualizing this is if you're on a circular path and you're leaving a certain point. As you get further and further from that point, you actually get closer on the other side. Right? I'm moving away from a point, but I'm getting closer there. That's what it is. The paradox of closeness through distance. Well, Futner was one to ask when he made aliyah or lived here for a while. Is there anything someone had the ask him is there anything he missed about? And his response was he missed the yearning to come to cuz you know you take things for granted right taking things for granted. When you're invar that's when you have this great yearning to come and the challenge we have to have is to have that yearning even when you're here already and that is why tishabove will become a festive day a joyous day because all that we invest in the yearning to be connected to God is going to be the source of our joy is going to be the source of our redemption. As Maral said that is the meaning of Mashiach being born on tisha on tishabove you know there's a a very nice observation from Rabbi Salvichek maybe do salivic in which he points out that if you look at the trajectory of private mourning if god forbid somebody loses a a parent or a relative so private mourning always starts off very very severe and gets progressively relaxed with the passage of time. So the shiva is much much stricter and then 30 days and for most relatives that's the end of the aut lenient. So you start off very very strict and you get progressively more lenient till the ais vanishes. When it comes to the public morning for the bikdash the opposite is the case because we start off with the three weeks which are relatively lenient. No haircuts, no music, no weddings and even that's a according to the law of the Garra. There's virtually no morning at all connected to the three weeks and then you get the nine days and then you get the week of the ninth of a which this year there isn't because tishab is Sunday but the week of the nth of is more than even the nine days and then you get and the crescendo is then tish you see the movement is the opposite when it comes to private morning I go from the kamur to the when it comes to the morning over the B mikdash I go from the cow to the kamur why is that so so he said that's because the function of the mourning is different in the two cases when a person suffers a private loss normally they are devastated their life is shattered they feel they have no way of going on uh they feel they want to give up their life sometimes so aut is a gentle way of gradually acclimating you to be able to resume your life. So for seven days stay at home people come to you and then la you put your toe in the water you go out a little bit more a little bit more the laws of aas are very therapeutic they're designed to give you a sense of healing in a gradual way so you could eventually rejoin life. That doesn't mean the pain ever completely goes away. But what happens in private ais hopefully hopefully is that the pain becomes compartmentalized. That's really how you go on with life. Meaning yeah it's there. It's there but you put it in a certain place and and you're able to go on and you're able to be productive. That's extremely important. I'm not going to say hala is all about psychology. There are many many aspects besides the psychological but there is no doubt about it that hilosis is a very very powerful psychological mechanism to help people deal with loss loss because of death and the like fact I remember quite graphically uh it was like it was in my sh but before I became the rabbi like the week before I was going to be the rev of a shaw um a man who had married a non-Jewish woman and had a son from that non-Jewish woman. So, the son was a guy, but the son converted. The son tragically died at the age of of 10 or whatever it would be. So, it was a bit of an awkward was the first Levia that I had to officiate in in my shell and it was kind of an awkward situation. The mother is not Jewish, etc. Yeah. And the one thing I remember very very vividly and know of course obviously I I spoke to the mother too but I remember that at the end of the funeral and it was a little sad and I still feel guilty that I didn't do more uh the father sat down beginning Shiva and people surrounded the father and they remember that the mother was all by herself and she simply because you know Shiva was not her ritual per se and she was leaving, you know, she just left. You know, that was the end. It was a funeral. It was the end of her son's funeral and that was it. And it made me realize besides the halas, of course, she doesn't have to sit Shiva. That's not the issue. Uh she's a non non-Jew, but the idea is that how therapeutic Shiva is. Now, that's the private mourning. With the public morning, it's exactly the opposite. We don't need to be taken out of our devastation. How many of us, and I include myself, are so devastated over the loss of the Basa Mikdash that I can't go on. Right? I'm thinking that would be a new excuse a yeshiva student could offer why he didn't come to Davening. Uh I couldn't come. I couldn't come to Davening this morning. I couldn't get out of bed. I'm overwhelmed with the destruction of the base mikash. I can't move. Well, try that. But, you know, it's not going to work so much. I mean, I I read a rabbi once recounted that um he saw some members of who were extremely very very sad during the nine days. And he went over to them and said, "I know this is a such a sad time, but bezras Hashem, there will be gula. There will be redemption." And they said something like, "Well, we're really upset over the Yankees losing the game yesterday." Uh, or another story, this is a actually a very, very great story. This was written by um an Orthodox university student in Germany in the 1800s. 1800s like you know there were unlike Russia Poland there were Orthodox Jewish students who attended universities that was our Persian Shita Torah. So uh he he has a Jewish roommate, two Jews, two Orthodox Jews and Tishabove is a long afternoon. So they're playing chess again. I mean you know I can't blame them. It's a long afternoon. So, uh, they're playing chess, waiting for the fast to be over. And as they're in the middle of their chess game on Tishabove, there's a knock on their door. And who's at the door? Their Protestant German professor, very rigid, tall, thin, ramrod thin, wearing a black suit, very devout Christian. And the person says to them, he says, "I am so sorry to come to you on your day of bereiement, on your day of sorrow, but I just want you to know that God will bring you redemption and you should not cry anymore because good times are going to come." And the this person writes later, he says, "He was so embarrassed. He was so embarrassed because this professor obviously felt much more strongly about tishabuff than they felt and he took from them. He says they were just waiting, you know, the fast was long. They were just waiting for the fast to be over. So they're playing chess to kill some time and here you have a man who is broken up with grief over the suffering of the Jewish people. So the point is going back to Abselves, I'm just adding some stories as I go on. Going back to Absel of Aging, we don't need to be taken out of our grief. We need to be put into our grief that maybe by gradually increasing our restrictions and our limitations perhaps will move into a sense of loss. We don't need to be taken out of our loss in which in which case you go from the to the cow. We need to go get into our loss in which you go from the cow to the kamore and Rafik says that is why the trajectory of AOS moves in that particular particular direction. Okay. So uh some something to think about. We just don't know. You know the Gmorrah the medish the medish in is the book of lamentations and there's a whole medish on the book of lamentations. You know, the ninth of Aav is a day in which we're not supposed to learn regular Torah subjects because that brings us joy and happiness. But there's a lot of stuff we can learn. We can learn about the we can learn the book of the book of Job. Uh we can learn a we can learn the med of a we can learn in the Gmorrah the stories about the base mikdash. You can even learn the laws of mourning the laws of a uh right those things are permitted. So in med actually gives a story that rebanan would recount I don't remember the numbers but he would recount many many many when he would go over the destruction of the temple he would recount many many bad events now the garra I'm sorry not the medish asked the question raud hanasi who is much closer to the he would recount many fewer events. So, how could it be that Raokan who was later remembered not well he didn't remember personally but he was able to record many more tragic events than Rebi and the Medish gives a very powerful answer he says Rebi was so close to the that as he was recounting the events it broke him up after he just said a few events he became so distraught he was not able to go Rabi Yokohan already had enough distance that he was able to tell a more complete story without breaking up. Rebi could not give the whole story. Those of you well I mean those of you that have uh parents or or family or grandparents by now who survived the Holocaust, who were in concentration camps, uh it's very very common. All kids who grew up with Holocaust parents know how the parents very rarely I'm generalizing but for the most part they very rarely talked about their experiences to their kids simply because they couldn't they couldn't the pain was so great they couldn't allow themselves to go there wouldn't be able to go on demedish describes that is what Rudahanazi was like that he he only started describing it and he broke Ravioan was able to be more clinical and go over all of these things. So it's an interesting point that tishabove is of course about mourning about ais but another aspect that we sometimes pay a little less attention to is tishabove is also about chuva. It's about repentance and returning to God. In fact, it's interesting if I could be a little historical here as well. You know, if you look in the the very earliest sitters that we have, the Sidurim of Ravaja Gaon and Raon, which is a little later and these are Sidurum that come from the 800s or the 900s way before Rashi, you know, and the like. You actually see a fascinating thing that the lurggical addition that they used to say in tisha was not kinos. They did not in the s of sadone. There are no kenos for tishov. But what are there solos prayers for forgiveness with the 13 like like we say before rashash shana and during muva. In other words, solos was the original prayer of ninth of a with the 13 principles of mercy which highlights that tishabove was seen as a day of chuva returning to god but it's ultimately very much connected because there is a passage in the talmi that says every generation in which the ba mikdash is not rebuilt is as guilty as the generation in which the BA mikdash was actually destroyed. Meaning, you might have thought, well, those earlier generations were very sinful and bad, so God destroyed the temple. We're not so bad. We don't have the merit to get it back, but but you know, we certainly wouldn't have caused its destruction. That's a mistake. What the to shi is saying is if you don't get back the basa mikdash it is as if you are actively destroying it. It's being destroyed. It's being destroyed. It's as if the basikdash is being destroyed every single day. Now why is that an important thought? Because when khazal say the temple was destroyed because of x y and z that has to mean that the x y and z is still here. Because if the x y and z is not here if we would not be guilty of the same aos that caused the basik even if we're not so righteous. In other words, you don't have to be righteous to get the temple back. You simply have to remove the reasons that caused its destruction. Right? So, so when say the B mikdash was destroyed because of and we'll we'll go over the because of in a minute. It's a because of that's now. It's not only a because of that's then. So, in this connection, let me go over some of the uh the very well-known kazal and add a few comments. Let's first talk about the two reasons that are given. I mean there are more than two but I'm going to focus on two reasons that are given for the destruction of the first B mikdash on the 9th of A by the Babylonians and that is reason number one are the worst of aos they were guilty of a desor idolatry gilarayas sexual immorality in murder the worst of the worst of the worst these are the three aos which A Jew must give up his life before he transgresses. And the first B mikdash was because of but then there's another which seems to be much less of a sin. The first BA mikt was destroyed. the first and it's clearly the first that it's talking about because they didn't recite the braos before Torah learning. It doesn't say they didn't learn, they learned. They didn't recite the braos over the Torah learning. So the question is number one, okay, that's not that's not hically proper. But the truth is there is a makus. The Ramban says there's a Torah commandment to say before you learn Torah. Most opinions say it's only anyway. But is that such an a for which there'll be a Bikash? And number two, why does the Gammorrah have to identify the seemingly lesser a of not making blessings over the Torah when you have the absolute worst of the worst of the worst? I mean you're telling me they did the worst and then you add on a smaller vera and they didn't watch my makronum you know you wouldn't you wouldn't you wouldn't combine them in that way why are they combined so the great balusra of lapyan offers a very fascinating explanation reconciling these two things and that is the actual aos were auror But when asked the question inim or actually when the puss says why was the land destroyed and God has to answer they didn't say the blessings over the Torah this is a question on top of the question and that is the following we believe that Torah elevates a person Torah spiritualizes a Torah brings a person closer to God. So the question is this, how could Jews who learn Torah be guilty? sin. We know what the sin is. But the question is how do they come to that sin? I mean an example I'd give you uh is let's say you you're learning in yeshiva and you have a very good morning seder 4 hours of concentrated learning then you have an hour break or an hour and a half break. So you go into town, you do some rapes, pillagages, bank robberies and murders, but you make it back in time for afternoon seder. Unfortunately, the well not not in the world, but but I'm saying but actually sometimes that is actually the portrait of these serial murderers. They they kind of have a a normal life uh and then they they do their killings in the breaks. But >> yeah, well yeah, Asa might be an example. But the question is, doesn't the Torah do anything to you? How can you learn for four hours and then rape, pillage, and murder in your break? So this is where comes in as explaining that even if you learn, it's not going to change him. Do you remember the beginning of in the beginning of David towards the end of his life is shivering. He is cold. He is being covered with blankets and the blankets do not give him warmth and kazal say why was he punished with the blankets not giving him warmth because he didn't treat clothing with disrespect when when sha is pursuing him and at one point sha went into a cave to relieve himself he left his coat his cloak outside and David Melik was close enough to kill him but he cut off a piece of the cloak and then he showed Sha from a from a from a hilltop. You see, I was this close to you and why do you look at me as your enemy? But Khazal say the cutting of the garment was a sin. And he who treats clothing with disrespect will not get benefit from clothing. The clothing will not give him warmth. Things you treat with disdain, things you treat with disrespect, you will not get benefit from. So if uh a wife sees her husband throwing around his clothes, you know, she could tell him this this. So Revelia says, if it's true that if you treat garments with disrespect, the garments will not give you benefit. If you treat the Torah with disdain, the Torah will not elevate you. It will not sanctify you. So the concept of not making blessings over the Torah means they didn't treat the Torah as a gift. They learned Torah because they felt they had to, but they didn't feel it was precious enough that it merited Abra. So Rellia's point is when the Gomorrah says the B mikdash was destroyed because they didn't make blessings over the Torah, it doesn't mean that that was the sin that caused the destruction. The actual sin that caused the destruction was a zara. But how could they be capable of those sins if they were learning Torah? Answer, their attitude towards the Torah was not one of gratitude, love, respect. And therefore, the same way if you treat garments poorly, the garments don't give you warmth. If you don't love and respect the Torah, the Torah will not change you. And therefore, yeah, you could have a good morning seder and then rape, pillage, and murder in the hour and a half in the afternoon. Now, this is uh actually sadly an important message for us, and that is obviously a Jew has to keep the mitzvot. That's for sure. But we have to endeavor in our lives to keep the mitzvot with enthusiasm, with joy, with passion, to look at them as a gift and a privilege and not a burden. Because if we look at them as burdensome, it's not going to change us. It's not going to elevate us. It's not going to transform us. just like they were capable of doing. So this attitude is a very very big deal. Uh again it's you know Feinstein you know there's an old saying so hard to be a Jew and Ravosha Feinstein used to say maybe with some exaggeration that that ruined a whole generation of the children of European immigrants because if the message that they hear over and over again is how hard it is to be a Jew then when they're in a free country they can think well why do I have to be one I'm hearing every single day how hard it is. uh pesar and shabasar and of course in those days when when the saying originated it originated at a time in the United States when it was very hard to be a Jew much harder than the Harvard undergraduates who are crying because okay well okay I mean it's not I I I have Rahman but I I do have Rahman for what college students are going through uh on American campuses u but you know okay it's not the Holocaust it's not it's not the Holocaust and it's not even what Jews went through in the 1920s when they couldn't get jobs and and the like. So, as difficult as things might be, uh, when the saying it's hard to be a Jew, was coined, it was very hard to be a Jew. And yet, Mosha Feinstein said that kind of poisoned the message that was being communicated to the next generation. And that is why the children of the uh World War I post World War I uh uh immigrants largely became non-religious almost 100%. I mean you're talking about maybe a very very small percentage remained faithful. That that's called the lost generation. that generation of the children of the World War I, preWorld War I slightly post World War I uh almost have no affiliation. They're not even reformed. I mean, basically at some point they got intermarried and they have disappeared from Judaism. Uh that's why young Israel, you know, people like in the world in particular, people like to knock or Yes, knock young Israel. Uh but one has to recognize the vital role that young Israel played in reclaiming a small percentage of those youth. I mean uh young Israel started precisely in that period of time because the older Scholes were European immigrants etc. And the young generation just weren't going to those synagogues at all. And young Israel created uh congregational singing. They created more controversially social dancing. Okay, I don't want to get into the justification of it, but they created different mechanisms that with all of its failures managed to bring at least a small number of people to be religious and observant Jews, passing it over to the next generation. So, young Israel has a very an extremely important role in what you might call pre-ashiva America, meaning after World War II, it was a different type of thing. Then many yeshivots were started. Kolum were started uh etc. But prior to World War II there was there were a few. There was Torvidas and there was um uh Wuh but not that many and there weren't that there were not that many day schools for sure on the elementary level. So Young Israel was one of the main things that kept orthodoxy alive. So even though people like to knock it, in fact I know a rabbi kind of a modern Orthodox rabbi who told me with some truth, some sad truth, he says the sign of his success is when his students no longer talk to him because he's too modern. Uh meaning like he made them religious but then they go to yeshiva and they become you know so observant. Huh that guy, you know, I'm not going to talk to him. He's too modern. So he said, "I know that I'm successful when they don't talk to me anymore." Right? And that's uh Young Israel is kind of that way. Young Israel produced many many religious Jews, but now for many of the people that it produced, they say Young Israel is too uh too modern or not not religious enough uh for for me. Okay. Um but okay, I don't want it autobiographically. I mean the truth of the matter is I myself as a young person was guilty of this to some degree and I myself as an older person suffered from it in the other direction. So what goes around comes around uh as the saying goes I experienced uh to this day uh people who will not talk to me because I'm too modern and I was guilty of that behavior when I was younger. So it's it's interesting mid mida in that in that particular way. Okay. Now those are the two aots that are connected to the of the first temple of the first temple and then now I just want to add a certain thing though how well I know how we we can relate to the second idea because that that's the idea of passion and joy in divine service but how do I relate to the first idea meaning okay maybe there's a lot of stuff in my life I got to correct but I don't worship a vodara I don't do gilorayas I don't do meaning what is the utility of thinking about those aot if those are not the aot that we're doing which I'll get to okay that of course for sure there's a lot to work on there but is there a is there any type of connection I have to the aos of so the truth of the matter is it may be so that in a very literal sense we're not guilty of those sins but in a symbolic way we actually are for example kazal say anyone who gets angry is as if they are worshiping idols right so anger is considered to be a form And as the balatana explains, that is because if you're angry, you're not believing that God is running the world. Cuz who are you angry at? I'm angry at you because you hurt me. But if I believe that nothing comes to me unless God decreed it. Then how can I be angry at you? Am I angry at God? Then I'm denying that, you know, God makes decisions that are righteous. So anger is a vodora. Humiliating someone is described as murder and we talked I think last week about the negative power of speech to destroy a person and guilas even if a person doesn't have sexual intercourse with someone but we certainly are you know bombarded with all sorts of sexuality in advertisements on the internet social media and the like and kazal actually say here hura Improper sexual fantasies can be even more injurious than sexual behavior. So lisa maybe we're not guilty of these aos in the most literal way. But there are many aspects of these averos that we still struggle with even today. We struggle with anger. We sometimes let our words humiliate people, hurt people, crush their spirit. And then there are sexual fantasies that go in the wrong direction and the like. So yeah, we do have a shas we do have a connection to a gay. But there's maybe a deeper point in which we're still connected to those aos and that is Rav Saddok actually explains that these aos are symptoms of deeper spiritual illnesses and even if I don't have the symptoms I may have the illness a asymptomatic illness we know that Peryos tells us that the three Great destroyers of spirituality is kina which is jealousy which is lust and kavote a desire for honor and ego gratification says what they take a person out of the world they destroy your world. So here's Rabuk's correlation. Jealousy when it manifests itself in its extremity could lead to murder. Indeed, uh most murders if you factor out terrorism and war obviously if you're talking about just criminal murders uh tend to be not to strangers. They tend to be people that you know. It's often a family fight uh in which someone is jealous of something sometimes jealous of someone's sneakers or whatever it would be they murder. So once again even if I'm not aim but kina is the shyish of so I may have that root that I have to work on. uh tya is lust obviously that is the shyish of giloas. Now cavote is the shyish of idolatry. That's that's a little more subtle. But here the message is what is idolatry? Anything that you elevate in your life above the worship of God. Right? So if a person elevates their ego and their comfort above serving God, they're guilty of idolatry. Who's what idol are they serving? They're serving themselves. There's something called self idolatry. So Rab Saddak's argument is that even if I'm not guilty of the technical aa of a zara, I have ego in ga. Even if I'm not guilty of the technical agile, I have tyas. Even if I'm not guilty of the literal sin of I'm guilty of jealousy. So when I go through and I connect to the of the and I think about the reasons for the what is my job to try to rectify those reasons. And as we said, once enough of us try to work to eradicate those reasons, the temple gets rebuilt automatically. You don't need a special merit for the beta mikdash. You simply need to correct the flaws that caused the so reflections or meditations that we can think about in connection to the first bas. We now come to the second basin mikdash and very very very very sadly it actually is a much easier not easier to do but it's more obvious a much more obvious to make cuz I'll say that the second bas destroyed by the Romans exactly 490 years after the destruction of the first 490 day 9th of a late afternoon most of the temple actually burnt on the 10th of of but they the Romans set fire to it late afternoon of the 9th above which by the way is interesting paradox I'll just throw this out for you to think about I had mentioned before that after Mina is when is a little more lenient and we reduce some of the mornings. If you think about it, based on when the temple was actually destroyed, one could have made the opposite argument that the yut should intensify after Mina because it's after Mina that the actual temple was being burnt. Okay, I'll leave that as a question to ponder. were more makeo but in terms of the history of it after was this of the actual base. So here say that if the first temple was destroyed because of the second temple was destroyed because of needless groundless irrational hatred between the Jewish people. Josephus who wrote a history. Josephus was literally an eyewitness testimony uh an eyewitness to all of this all of this. And Josephus is a controversial figure. He was a Jew. On the other hand, he's kind of like Benedict Arnold. He went over to the Roman side and he's actually writing this history from his vantage point on the Roman side of things. But he claims and you know again I don't dismiss his claim entirely that he was trying to protect and defend the Jewish people from the other side and again he's complicated. I I think there is some truth to that. on the other hand uh he was living in Titus's house as Titus's house guest you know so it's a little little difficult to reconcile everything of someone who was a very complicated character but he actually records and in light of Kazal I think this is an accurate recollection that there were waring factions of Jews who were fighting against each other for control of the city and they were shooting arrows from opposite sides of the basikt over the heads of the kohanim who were ducking the arrows in order to bring the corbanos in the last weeks of the basikt and he quotes Titus Titus who was the general who later became emperor but Titus was the Roman general who ordered the destruction of the basiktas Titos right the kinos talk about Titos entering the keshak dashim that Titus said Josephus quotes him as saying you know Maybe we don't have to destroy the temple. If we just hang around long enough, the Jews are going to destroy it themselves. Now, any quote that Josephus says, you have to take with a grain of salt. But the truth of the matter is in light of this actually makes sense. That was the situation. Now, the big problem with is who hates for no reason? I mean I I mean I if I ask anybody are you in favor of says no I don't believe I should hate people for no reason but the people I hate I have plenty of good reason for I mean who who is going to have right I hate this person he's the arab he's a moik he's an enemy of Torah I hate this person because he's parasite. He doesn't participate in the defense of the Jewish people. You'll notice I'm being an equal opportunity uh disperser of of hate. Uh that's notam. I got a real good reason. The answer ultimately is that even the reasons that we think are good are not valid. They're not valid. You don't hate. You disagree. You argue the point, you discuss, you debate. Of course, um avat doesn't mean you roll over and compromise fundamental principles. Jews have a very long tradition of arguing. That is what the Babylonian is about. And of course even before the tomat we argue we discuss we debate sometimes we compromise and sometimes we can't compromise. That's 100% true but that doesn't mean it degenerates into hatred. I can look at a person or I should look at a person even if their ideology is totally different than mine and I can deeply believe their ideology is flawed and erroneous and even dangerous but I can still respect their integrity of trying to find a good way in life even if they're mistaken and this is a very important avod which is very difficult particularly in this in the state of Israel which you separate the idea from the person just like Bura told Rabbi Mayor hate the sinner I'm sorry hate the sin and not the sinner I can hate the idea or or learn from it either way that doesn't translate in hating the person and of course doesn't just mean active hate It also refers to coldness. It refers to indifference. It refers to clickishness. It refers to the idea that we have our group, whoever our group is. And if you're not in our group, you don't quite count. It exists on all levels of politics and it exists in children's playgrounds. Goes from the highest levels of power to the lowest levels of the classroom or the playground. Someone told me a story of um kind of a very religious kindergarten that was right next door to I think a secular kindergarten public school kindergarten. I mean and there was a chain link fence separating the two playgrounds. But what happened would be that kids would talk to each other between the links. So the school decided to put a big heavy black tarp over the fence so there couldn't be any communication between them. Okay. I I mean listen I I I don't want to be guilty of sin myself. This is puts me in a very uncomfortable role because I I can understand the argument. Bad influence is statue. 5-year-old star 5-year-old bad influence. Okay, bet. But at the same time, what's the message that's being communicated? These are not real Jews. These are not kids you should ever be connected to. I've mentioned a million times so please forgive me for mentioning it a million and first the mishamay as water reflects the face that you show the water. So too the heart of man reflects that which you show. And uh the meaning is I look into water. Whatever face I show the reflecting water is the face that I see. I smile at the water. I get a smiling face. So too I show a person love, respect, legitimation, validation. They're going to feel that way about me. I communicate to them that they're nothing or they're a malik or whatever. they will feel those negative feelings about me. Part of why religious secular conflicts never get diffused in Israel, other places too, is precisely because each side looks at the other as a demon. So you look at me as a demon, that's how I'll look at you and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. If on the other hand we could look at each other with respect and even with love then we would get that love back too. Now people say well let the other side start with that. Why do I have to start with that? They should start with that and then I'll respond. The answer is like same thing with marriage right there's always the case you know marriage counselors say do this is well why do I have to do let let the let her do it first. The answer is somebody has to be the adult in the room. That's the way life is. Somebody has to start. Somebody has to be the adult. And if you are a believer in Torah and you are a believer that these are the imperatives of a Torah Jew, then you start you make the first gesture in whatever way you can make that gesture. So I had to fetch a little bit to explain how is relevant for us even today and you know hopefully I shared with how it is but very very sadly very tragically I don't have to really explain how is relevant today because it is very very very obvious that we have it we We have it. It's infected us. It's killing us in many, many ways. For a short time, a few months after October 7, the great dark day of great tragedy to the Jewish people. But the silver lining in that tragedy was that for a short time we seem to have been overcoming all of those blockages to our unity. If you remember before October 7, remember before October 7, uh Israel is being torn apart by and people don't even remember this although it's coming back a little bit, judicial reform. NO's proposals for judicial reform. Now that sounds like a no an academic political issue. You have to remember uh people were talking about businesses were talking about leaving the country. Uh there were some people on the left who were talking about civil war. They looked at this as something your mama would make a civil war over. Uh there were soldiers in or in Miluim who were threatening not to report to me. They did report but some have said I don't know that maybe that emboldened kamas into thinking there there would not be a response. You know it's like the kumar says the later sorrowos make you forget the earlier sorrows. People don't realize the turbulence that was existing in Israel before October 7 domestically. Then October 7 happened on Simasa and then we realized you know we better stick together or we will as uh Ben Franklin said we have to hang together or we'll be hung separately and for a while there was a shining period amidst the great tragedies of war in which religious secular we all came together because we were facing a common enemy that was trying to destroy destroy us and we have to be together because there are not too many others that are for us in the world. But what happens is as the war goes on and on and on and on and people get exhausted and when people get exhausted they revert back to their old habits. And therefore, unfortunately, there's been a resurgence once again of the we had thought maybe we had gone beyond, but not yet. We're not yet beyond it. Which really compounds a tragedy on top of a tragedy. the tragedy, the war, the hostages, all of the families that have been dislocated, all of the that have died, the also the hostages that have died and the great heartbreak in so many families. But the tragedy on top of that is and we're still stuck with those mindsets of that are preventing the rebuilding of the basiktas that are preventing the in gathering of the exiles that is preventing the coming of Mashiach. So tragically it is very easy to kind of identify how we need to think about in this in this context. So it is a day of mourning a day of feeling the distance from God but through that distance we feel closeness to Hashem as he cries with us. But it's also a day of resolution, a day of chuva, a day of looking at the reasons for the and mikdash and trying on our own individual level to try to fix it up. And this is the meaning of the idea that says every person has to rebuild the basa mikdash. But how does that work? By trying to fix up the defects in my own character, I'm adding a brick to the celestial basa mikdash. So if I add a brick and you add a brick and you add a brick, eventually we have enough bricks that the third mikdash will be hashim. So may it be God's will that even this year we could bean if not may this be the last 9th of A that will be day of sadness and mourning. May we be za that it should be the great day of redemption the day that Mashiach is born the day that we experience the gula. You might see your body [Music]