Three Prophets. One Word. (Tisha B'Av) | Land of Israel Fellowship

So Moses, Moshe Rabbeinu, is standing on the plains of Moab on the east bank of the Jordan River looking across at the land of Israel, the land he will never get to enter. He has 37 days left to live. 37 days. And the entire book of Devarim is what he does with them. It's his farewell address. Um, it's the farewell address of the greatest man who ever lived. I think there's a great argument to make. Um, at least in my mind and heart. You know, and and it's just it's his farewell address. It's just one long burning final speech to the children of the generation he carried out of Egypt. And to their children. All of them for the rest of time, to all of us. And listen to what Hashem tells this new generation right at the top of the portion. Verse 8. Renatati lifnechem et ha'aretz. Bo'u u'rshu et ha'aretz asher nishba Hashem la'avotechem. See, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which the Lord swore into swore into your fathers, to Avram, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov, to give into them and to their seed after them. Go in and possess it. Not go in and visit as tourists. No. No. Not go on summer vacation there and winter vacation and just get No. No. Bo'u u'rshu. Enter it and inherit it. This is the opening charge of the entire book. The land is given. The oath is ancient and your job, Hashem tells his nation, is to walk forward into the promise. But then, just four verses later, Moshe says a word. One single Hebrew word. And when I tell you which word he uses, well, those of you who know the Jewish calendar and know about the period we're in in the ninth of Av, may feel something deep stir inside of you. Right, chapter 1, verse 12. Eichah essah levadi? How can I bear alone your trouble and your burden and your strife? Eicha, how? How? Now, why does that word matter so much? Because this Shabbat is called Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat of Vision. And every single year without exception, Parshat Devarim, Deuteronomy, is read on the Shabbat immediately preceding Tisha B'Av. The sages arranged the calendar this way on purpose. And in the Haftorah, we hear the prophet Yeshayahu, Isaiah, cry out over Jerusalem. Chapter 1, verse 21. Eicha hayta l'zona kirya ne'emana How has the faithful city become a harlot? She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Eicha, again. Right? And then days later, on the night of Tisha B'Av itself, we'll sit on the floor in the darkness by candlelight and open the scroll of Eicha, of Lamentations, and hear Jeremiah weep over the smoldering ruins of Jerusalem. And the scroll's very first words, you know what it is? The word the whole book is named after, Eicha. Eicha Eicha yashva vadad, ha'ir rabati etam. How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people? How is she become as a widow? Three prophets, three generations, one word. And the sages bring down the following teaching. They explain three prophets with the language of Eicha. Moses saw Israel in their glory and said, "Eicha, how can I carry you? You've grown so numerous, so blessed, like the stars of heaven." Yeshayahu, right, Isaiah, saw Israel in their rebellion and said, "Eicha, how did the faithful city fall so far?" And Jeremiah prophet saw them in their devastation and said "Eichah, how does she sit alone as a widow?" Right, the same word travels from blessing to warning to devastation. And I believe the Torah is teaching us something fundamental here. The seeds of Tisha B'Av, of the 9th of Av, are always planted long before the fire. Jeremiah's Eichah did not come out of nowhere. It was the last echo of a word first spoken on the plains of Moab. So, the question is, what was the seed? What actually broke all the way back at the beginning? And Moshe tells us, because the very first thing he does in his farewell address, the first story he retells to this new generation is the story of the spies. The sin of their fathers. The catastrophe that happened, our sages teach, on the very night of Tisha B'Av itself, 39 years earlier. And listen, okay? Listen to how Moshe describes what happened in the camp that night. Vatiru agnu v'ohaleichem vatomeru b'sin'ah atah shamotanu hotze'anu me'eretz Mitzrayim latet otanu b'yad ha'Emori l'hashmidenu. And you murmured in your tents and said, "Because the Lord hated us, he has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt to deliver us in the hand of the Amorites to destroy us." Read that again. Do you see that there? Because Hashem hated us. I think that is the seed. That is the original sin of Tisha B'Av. Not the giants, not the fortified cities, not even the military assessment. One could say the sin was was the was the story they told themselves in the darkness of their tents. That God hates us. That the greatest act of love in human history, the Exodus itself, was actually a trap. That the That the gift of the land was actually a death sentence. Right? They took perfect love and read it as hatred. And we learn that Hashem's response to that night of weeping was devastating. You wept a weeping for nothing, and I will establish for you a weeping for generations. That That night was Tisha B'Av. My name is Ari