"The Greatest Tragedy of All" (5:53) Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz - Tisha B'Av -

but that was the first generation but us we have the opposite problem it's not that we're so consumed with grief that we need a healing mechanism to enable us to rejoin Society it's the other way around we simply have no feeling at all for what it is that we are missing and therefore the purpose of a over theban is exactly the opposite of the purpose of Avance uh in private context and that is to gradually through physical restrictions build up a sense of deprivation a sense of what we're missing a sense of pain again we start with the we start with external actions to be sure but that's supposed to raise a sense of conscious there Consciousness about what it is that we've lost and therefore abolic says instead of going from the to the which is to get out of M the whole purpose of these rituals is to put us into a sense of mourning and again it's hard for a person especially you know there are people who argue he's argued this for many many years already that you know what is this thing about Tish you know we have a state of Israel we have a unified Jerusalem Etc uh what is it especially even the prayer draws its shair of controversy on in the amid of we have a prayer in which we ask God to comfort the Jewish people and he describes you as a city that's that is destroyed that is sh that is desolate that's bah that is degraded now for many many years of course that was an exact description but one is a little hardpressed to apply that physical description thank God to the the city that we are privileged to have and to a Jewish state so there were voices albe it to the left I mean I again even Orthodox voices but you know the left wing of Orthodox they have we uh that called for a revision of the N prayer but in truth in truth one of the ways you have to approach it is the words of the prayer stay the same but what they mean May shift from generation to generation and that is perhaps we've merited that in many physical ways Jerusalem is beautiful it's here Jews are living here although we still have in know Pockets uh where there where there are difficulties but when we talk about something being there are spiritual voids that still exist whether it's whether it's lack of sensitivity to the love of God whether it's a lack of passion in our abod these are these are voids these are vacancies these are vacuums this is a certain sense of emptiness and that does exist until we have the Bas of English but it's hard to feel it because after all the person who was born blind cannot really understand color the person who was born deaf doesn't really understand the beauty of music because they never experienced we never experienced we don't even know what it is that we are missing and in many many ways that's the greatest morning you know they tell a famous story after The Six Day War when uh we had the great great fortune on yum to recapture the the old city and particularly the harab right the famous some of the older people would remember the famous announcement even if you weren't there then but you know you've heard it I'm sure a number of times the is in our hands and you know showed up you know blew the chaar and all all sorts of very very great wonderful things happened that day and the story is tell it's a famous story I don't even know if it's true maybe it's kind of it's almost become a legendary story about many of the religious Soldiers the Hester were at the cotel and they were crying and there the re the cook Cook's only only son RAR and they were crying and dancing and singing you know different emotions and then there was a totally secular soldier who was also sobbing and crying and some of his friends asked him what are you sobbing or crying you don't even know what this wall is what what do you care I mean it could you but you know what does it mean I'm crying because I don't know what they're crying about and therefore there's something missing in me that I don't know and in many ways that story of is our story as we look at TI we can cry not because we know what the B is and not because we know what it is that we are missing but we can cry because we don't know what it is that we should be crying about that is really the greatest goet of all when a person doesn't even realize what it is that they're missing