Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Power of Tu B'Av and Rebirth After the 9th

my baby [Music] okay thanks thank you for coming and um I don't know if we have a small group because we've been with my number for whatever reason but I do appreciate the live audience as well as the the YouTube audience um tonight of course and tomorrow is a very special day in the Jewish calendar it is the 15th above and it's worthwhile to talk about that a little bit because the mission that says in maseka's Tinus that loha yamim Israel there were no festive I'm sorry I have to announce the uh dedications I apologize uh first they reference may they have a review of Israel tonight's year is also dedicated foreign again May the stress of the Torah learning be an elevation for their soul and we also have a special dedication by Chaya Feingold for the Aliyah shamotes for her father David mosheb and avram Fishel and her brother yonatan Israel Ben David Moshe once again made the castora be an elevation for their nishama and finally we have an anonymous donor and we're very grateful to Mr Mrs or Miss Anonymous we very much appreciate the mitzvahans since nothing is anonymous to our College Parker you'll certainly get the great reward of supporting children so as I indicated well the mission in China says that the two most joyous days of Ami Israel in the Jewish calendar were the day of Yom Kippur and the day of the 15th of of and it even mentions things that if they if they would be done today we would have wall posters condemning them and excommunicating in which women would dress up in white and they would go kind of dancing around and the men and the women would choose their Marriage Partners even on Yom Kippur itself there was such a such a thing it just shows you a little bit I don't want to get too much of a digression that we sometimes project backwards we assume that you know religious life people will say oh a religious Jew is living exactly the way our forefathers lived you know 2000 years ago we don't change well obviously we change whether for the better or for the worse but things are different the cultural milyo is very very very different sometimes you see wave of posters posters of the sukis water drawing in the basement and they have the people drawing water wearing streimels and and peckishes I can assure you that is not the way they dressed at the time of the second temple but be it as it may the mishna tells me the two most joyous days of the Jewish year were Yom Kippur and the 15th above the gamari then says in masaka's tightness we understand why Yom Kippur is the happiest day although we don't always feel the way but we should feel that way because it's the day of atonement the day of forgiveness the Day of Reconciliation what Greater Joy can there be than to be connected to Hashem and freed from all of the others that create a Makita that create a wall of division it's a joy in fact it's been pointed out that that's the difference between the fast of Yom Kippur and the fast of the ninth above on the ninth above I'm supposed to be so heartbroken that how can I eat I'm in grief on Yom Kippur I'm so happy and excited about what I'm going through I don't feel the need to eat on Yom Kippur it's a different type of fast one is an expression of I'm involved in something so wonderful who has time to think about food is I'm in so much grief that I can't eat okay so Yom Kippur of course is a very happy day but what is so great about the 15th of us why why is per se so the gamara and tyness gives no fewer than six reasons why the 15th of obviously simple has six reasons and I'll cover them chronologically the first reason was that we know that after the sin of the spies the Jewish people died that generation that left Egypt that was 20 years old when they left died gradually over 40 years and according to our tradition they actually died on the ninth of us because the spies came back on the 8th above the Jewish people heard the report that night and they cried and Hashem decreed you are crying for no reason this day will be made a day of bahria of Eternal crying and the Tami Jewish xiaomi gives us a very graphic description of how the Dora midboard died over 48 years first of all nobody died until they reached the age of 60. so the gazera is on everybody between 20 and 60. but you didn't die before your 60th birthday so what happened was every tissue above for in their the remaining years in the desert every member of that generation would dig their grave they would sleep I don't think they fell asleep actually but they would sleep in the grave and anybody who reached the age of 60 the preceding year would not wake you know that year would not wake up would die everybody else went through the symbolic death experience but they would get up so approximately that means over a 40-year period on the average 15 000 people died every tissue buff because if you divide six hundred thousand by forty the you get 15 000. now the truth is once you start working with the numbers you get into a lot of complications because it was 40 years from the time of The Exodus but in point to factor was only 38 tissue Buffs 600 000 people died over 38 dish above and maybe as you'll see 37 tissue Buffs I've been trying to work out these numbers for I without without exaggeration for 50 years 5-0 years um I for some reason uh I should talk to a mathematician you could probably clarify it for me it never works out so there are some real questions here but just for purposes of understanding the general Point Let's just work with 40 years instead of 38 years and you have an average of 15 000 a year and basically everybody dug their grave on the ninth above and the people who were 60 that preceding period died the other people didn't die so it turns out in year 40 the last year of the desert there's only 000 people who are left of the old generation besides women and shaving labor you but Cloud didn't die but of the people who were supposed to die there are 15 000 people who are supposed to die they dig their graves expecting they're not going to wake up and lo and behold the next morning they didn't die they didn't understand they're supposed to die so they figured maybe we miscalculated maybe it wasn't the ninth of us maybe it's the eighth above you know we didn't have calendars then so they kept on sleeping in the grave one night other night other night other night by the time they hit the 15th of the month they saw a full moon when they saw a full moon they knew that the ninth of Bob had passed and God had declared an amnesty for the last fifteen thousand people so when did they realize that God had annulled the decree of the desert on the 15th of Ave in the 40th Year and that is the first reason why it is a festive day the gazera of the door hamidbar was terminated it was annulled now there is of course a very big Kasha on this because the terrorist says more than once that the entire generation of the desert other than the lady and the women died out except for only two people yahushua and Khalif but according to the talmad you xiaomi the Bible he doesn't really explain it it turns out it was Yeshua and Khalif and fifteen thousand of their closest friends so how can we talk about only Joshua and Khalif survived you have 15 000 people who got the amnesty of the 15th of us so that's a very strong Kasha and to tell me you show me some say well the 15 000 did die after Tish above after but again if that's the case then 2bab wouldn't be such a great Simka if they wound up dying anyway before we crossed the Argent okay but that is reason number one reason number two and I'm going in order refers to the daughters of which also occurred in the 40th year now this was a man from the tribe of Menasha and died in the desert according to one interpretation he was the one who was the wood gatherer and he was executed for desecrating Shabbos only had daughters he did not have sons and there was a lucky question whether daughters have the right to inherit property if there are no Sons because has property that he's going to get it would get inherited throughout and since he died in the desert it would pass to his worship now we already know the that a son inherits the father but what is the status of the daughter salafhad's brothers made the argument that if there are no Sons the property goes to the brothers the daughters made the argument if there are no Sons the property goes to the daughters Moshe didn't know the Moshe asks Hashem and Hashem clarified that the daughters inherit when there are no Sons now that is act one of a two-act play but then there was a second act and the brothers had the following argument if you're going to give salah's land to his daughters and they're not marriage ads and they could marry a person from any tribe in Israel so they're from Menasha now let's assume they marry a man from Yehuda so when these women die their property will go either to their husbands or to their children who will be of the tribe of Yehuda so it turns out you're taking land away from One Tribe and you're giving it to another tribe and that's defeating the idea that Eric Israel should be divided according to tribes so therefore they said to Moshe it's not fair to let these women marry men of other tribes once again Moshe asked Hashem and Hashem actually said that when a daughter inherits property a single daughter on average property she can only marry a man that is in the same tribe as her father and that guarantees that when she dies the property will remain in the ancestral tribe that's at the end of parsha's Maasai and that is indeed act two of the bonus which means it is a marital restriction a single woman who inherits property can only marry a man of the same tribe as her father this was actually a temporary because this was only in effect until the original division of the land was completed in other words the Oshua after Yeshua took over there were seven years of conquest and seven years of division 14 years altogether and we wanted that division to be exact we didn't want other tribes to have portions of lands in those divisions so until that division was complete this was operative but once each tribe got its helic we are told the halach Restriction was lifted and a woman who Inherited property could marry anyone that she wanted according to our Massaro although we don't have a source for this the day that yahushua lifted this prohibition was on the 15th of us so the 15th of of and that's why it got connected to marriage the 15th of five was a day in which Jewish women could marry anybody that they wanted to marry we no longer had marriage restrictions so that was simcha number two number three also pertains to a marriage restriction but it applies to a much later date in the Book of Judges one of the saddest incidents in Jewish history this is during the period of the judges this is a time in which there was no melach there was no centralized Authority so Society was kind of Lawless Health Care you know the phrase that appears throughout the Book of Shelton in those days well there was no king in Israel everybody did whatever they wanted to do now sometimes when you read that you might get the impression oh it's praising the good old days that there were no buses there was no bureaucracy there was no government everybody was sitting under their Vine under their fig tree and it's harking back to the good old days of freedom it's exactly the opposite point the book of showtim is telling us it was the Wild West it was a lawless Society it was a society of Health Care yeah we had good Kings and bad kings to be sure but at least when there was a government there was a certain sense of Law and Order that had to be kept you know when the say in pray for the welfare of the government because without the government without the mauchos men would swallow each other alive which government are they talking about they're talking about the Roman government they're talking about the very government that destroyed the base on hikdesh and even so the saw value in a certain amount of stability that you can walk out of your house and you're not going to get murdered for your for your wallet or whatever it would be I mean a great great value in stability and I think in the tanak we see it as well where the navi keeps on bemoaning be enough and the story is a man is traveling with his concubine not even his wife and he seeks lodging in Giver which is a town in binyamin territory and basically what happens is it's very similar to sedome in which his concubine is given to a crowd of unruly Hooligans who rape her violate her and she dies and the next morning when her master quasi-husband discovers that she's dead he takes a knife he cuts her body into 12 pieces he Federal expresses a piece to each tribe of Israel I mean every everybody comes out bad here I mean and he says look at what the binyamanites did they raped this woman they killed This Woman This is a war crime this is a desecration of God you have to demand judgment and Punishment of the offenders so the tribes demanded that binyamin extradites the wrongdoers to be Tried by the Jewish people like a crime against humanity binyamin took a political position the ramban says that the other tribes don't have jurisdiction to judge offenses that were committed in Yemen by benjaminites each tribe has its own autonomous judicial Authority very interesting again if you study the American Civil War you will see that that was the primary issue without getting too much into the secular history the Civil War of the northern states against the Southern States was not over slavery although Lincoln was against slavery but Lincoln himself said he would not fight a war to abolish slavery he felt that in time slavery would get buckled anyway but the war was fought over the position of the southern states that they have a right to secede from the union and create their own Nation and Lincoln said on that we're going to fight a war that you don't have a right of secession well I'm so fascinated with this because the way the ramban understands the incident the Civil War of all the tribes against Benjamin was fought over this a very very similar issue argued they were a sovereign state and as a result they had exclusive jurisdiction to punish these wrongdoers the rest of Kali cell argued you're part of a Nation and this affects the nation and we have the right to step in so a Civil War was declared over this horrific incidence of P luggage forgiven now obviously Benjamin is greatly outnumbered because it's been young and against uh 11 tribes lady didn't fight but against 11 tribes uh initially Benjamin did quite well Benjamin inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on Claudia's route but eventually Benjamin got defeated Benjamin got virtually decimated only a few hundred binyaminites were left and to kind of rub salt in the wounds the rest of the Jewish people took a solemn oath that nobody would give their daughter to these benjaminites to marry so because of the shortage of in yemenite women who also died in the conflict this would have meant the eventual Extinction of the whole tribe of in Yemen and that would have been a cosmic tragedy not just a tragedy for Benjamin because the shechina resting on call Israel depends on the 12 tribes even today because we have the Lost ten tribes you know we can't experience a fogola but as I've said in other occasions even though the kingdom of the Twelve Tribes was destroyed and never restored but within the Jewish people are representatives of all 12 tribes meaning it's a common mistake that people make when people say every Jew that's alive today must either be from shavat Yehuda or shave it Benjamin or Levy calling Levy because he can't be from the other tribes because the ten tribes are lost right so when you say your Yuri Israel right some people think that means you only come from one of two tribes Yehuda or Benjamin so I want to point out that that's not necessarily the case because even though the kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed and was never re-established and the bulk of the population is gone maybe they're pashtoons you know maybe they're American Indians all sorts of stories about the Lost ten tribes but within malchus Yehuda the southern Kingdom there always were remnants like immigrants from the other tribes so any given Jew you could be a roofing you could be a Shimon you could be a soccer you could be as a villain but if a whole tribe were to truly be extinguished which Benjamin was on the verge of being extinguished that would have been a cosmic tragedy so what eventually happened was that this oath was a nose that the oath not to give my daughter to benjaminite was terminated and again without textual support our Messiah is that that occurred on the 15th of of so once again this simcha is that a tribe was readmitted to Ami Israel and we were permitted to marry with them and connect with them and interact with them so we have two different marriage simplists we have the women who inherit property are allowed to marry men of any tribe and that happens in yeshua's time and then we have in the aftermath of the tragedy of pilegesh the concubine in Giver that originally there was an oath that nobody could give his daughter to a bin yemenite that oath was annulled on the 15th of average those are three simplest so far fourth simcha is much much lighter and that is uh when the ten tribes were exiled right the ten tribes were exiled by Sunset the king of Assyria over a hundred years before the Corbin basil over a hundred years and what happened was the very last king of the ten tribes as recorded in the book of malachim The Book Of Kings was a man called toshea binella and Hashem did a very good thing because when the ten tribes kingdom was established after the death of King Nevada was very concerned that people from his kingdom would visit the basa mikdash in yerushalayim particularly during the three pilgrimage festivals and he thought that would undermine his authority that would give people an attachment to yerushalayim so he actually arranged guards like a Berlin Wall East Berlin West Berlin if you remember that in which nobody from the northern kingdom was allowed to go to yerushalayim he closed the borders and he wanted to create a rival religion he built two golden calves did you know you picked such a thing I mean that's hardly a a symbol that that worked well in the past but two golden calves one in Chevron and one in basale these were two major cities of the northern kingdom and he put guards who would not allow Jewish people to go Jewish people would try to go to yerushalayim they could be killed and the like again the gemari tells us there were some isolated heroic people who managed to you know escape the border so to speak and visit the mikdesh but by and large we had these guards Jose benela hundreds of years later 200 300 years later abolished the guards opened the borders gave everybody in the northern kingdom free access to go to the basement and once again our mess over was that was on the 15th of us a simcha we were zolk to have access to the base of Magnus what could be greater than that we couldn't go there the northern kingdom for hundreds of years allowed it now the gemara in Chinese asked the obvious question that is hey if he did such a great thing why is he the last king why is the kingdom destroyed by Saint if anything we ought to say oh he made things good again why was he the one under whom the Assyrians destroyed that Empire so the gamara says because he lifted the Border restrictions but nobody went anyway so all the years they didn't go although Hashem you know knows their inner heart they at least have the excuse we couldn't go what could we do but when they're given the opportunity and they don't go it actually becomes a very very great sin so on one hand it's a great simcha that they have the opportunity on the other hand it also turned out to be a bad deal now why didn't they go so you know they're different explanations you can give one would be similar to What's called the Stockholm syndrome sometimes you literally get brainwashed you know a child or a teenager maybe even an adult gets kidnapped and they become so brainwashed by their captor that even when they're given an opportunity to leave they don't want to leave like the kidnapper can literally open the door and say yeah you want to go home go home to your parents and the kid doesn't do it there's a brainwashing and after all after hundreds of years of not being connected to the base I make time what's the big deal I have no desire for it anymore unfortunately to some degree we have that problem today with the thousands of two thousand years of Dallas um I think to myself uh that part of the lesson here is that when Hashem makes opportunities available that's a wonderful thing but it also creates a greater responsibility so an example would be tomatore you know 50 years ago 60 years ago if somebody wasn't studying Torah they might have excuses in some ways you know there are not that many books where if you didn't if they didn't know Hebrew not so many books were translated in English you didn't really have an internet in those days a person a person might say I don't live near a rabbi I don't have a carusa I don't understand Hebrew I don't understand the Aramaic there are no shiorim where I live so what do you expect me to do even then if you look you would find but a person can have an excuse today you know maybe it's unfortunate Hashem has taken away all the excuses everything is translated into English you have Arts grow you have shioram online whether it's YouTube or Torah anytime or you know whatever the program is uh you have stuff in writing you have audios and you have videos and you have written the documents such an abundance of riches that's a wonderful thing that we have to be grateful for that the Torah is so accessible on all levels but that also means when there is greater accessibility there is greater responsibility and when we don't take advantage of those opportunities it's a bigger Revenue okay so so far I mentioned four simples that are connected there's somehow that are connected to the 15th above right the first is the gazera of the dorha midboard to die was annulled by the 15th of Ave in year 40. in the desert the second in the day of days of Yeshua benon a daughter who Inherited property was now permitted to marry anybody she wanted she was not limited to the tribe of her father the third was the readmission of shaved binyamin into qual Israel after the oath that would have led to their Extinction the fourth is Hosea Ben Ayla the last of the kings of the ten tribes open the borders giving the northern ten tribes access to go to yushalayim and worship Hashem in the basamiktas which was destroyed 100 years after that but there was 100 years where they could go um and the fifth one is much much later and this goes to the Corbin of the bias Cheney the destruction of the second temple by the Romans in the year 70. this is post-biblical right the Tanakh the period of Tanakh ends essentially with the dedication of the second temple which lasted for 420 years and therefore by the time the second temple is destroyed this is post-biblical it's already the period of the mishnah as it were now the temple was destroyed in the year 70. but 60 years later we had a separate second Jewish uprising this was the uprising lead by Shimon Ben kuziva who Rabbi Akiva renameda the son of a star Rabbi Akiva believed that barkokba was we could Analyze This uhiva make a mistake or was the generation was not worthy so the mission failed if the generation turns out not to respond correctly or whether I be Akiva mistaken these are difficult questions but be it as it may Shimon Ben kuziva was a very very successful Soldier so to speak General at the beginning of the campaign over 900 Villages and towns were redeemed from or liberated from Roman rule there is archaeological evidence on the Temple mount that under the guidance of Rabbi Akiva they began to lay the foundations of a third base Summit Church because after a while if rabi Akiva believed they were authorized to build a third base many coins were minted you can get a Barca coin that is not that expensive it saysrael the prince of Israel so initially things looked very good but then the emperor Hadrian retaliated with overwhelming brutal force and the Barca Revolt was mercilessly crushed the casualty and the final Last Stand was in beta year 135 so the Corban of Batar was the final defeat of the Barca revolt and according to the mishnah that occurred on the ninth above as well so the ninth above of the year 70. destruction of the second temple the ninth above in the year 135. the massive destruction of beta the casualties of Bates are far exceeded the casualties of the Corbin base of English the gemara gives numbers that are frankly unbelievable and indeed the before some say their gusmas they're exaggerations but it talks about 50 million 100 million all right so then before some say those numbers are not literal but certainly there were tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands that were massacred brutally but it wasn't only that but all of the anti-religious laws of the Romans not allowed to learn Torah not allowed to have a bridge Mila they were not in the aftermath of the Corbin base I make this when the temple was destroyed in the year 70. it was destroyed to put down a political revolt against Rome that even the sages did not support and as a result the Romans destroyed the miktas to show their Mastery and control over the population but they allowed people to keep Mitzvahs even after the Corbin based on miktas you could learn Torah you could dab in you could wear it to fill in the anti-jewish religion legislation of Rome was the aftermath of barkokma Jews were barred from you shall I am which was turned into a temple in honor of Jupiter called Alia capitalina and for 200 years no Jew could even enter the city of Jerusalem the only concession that was allowed was they could walk around the city walls on Tisha buff that's actually the origin of an old minute that many people still follow today to encircle the walls of the old city and the ninth of Earth in addition Adrian did not allow the corpses to be buried he wanted them to rut he wanted them to decompose and therefore he ordered that these hundreds of thousands of corpses remain on the ground but a miracle happened corpses did not decompose and after three years and a week Hadrian finally figured he wasn't he wasn't accomplishing his goal here and he allowed the Haruka beta to be buried and again our tradition was 15th above knit new haruge betar Lake vura the victims of Batar were permitted to be buried on the 15th of of this is three years and a week after the Batar Massacre debate our Massacre was on the ninth of us three years and a week later they were allowed to be buried in commemoration of this event an extra bracha was added to birkats Amazon through the benching benching originally had three bracos the first is thanking God for food the second is thanking God for the bracha of eres Israel Allah the third was a prayer for the rebuilding of yerushalayim and the temple bone and when the temple was standing it was a prayer for the continuation of the temple the wording was a little different but that's where benching ended after were buried a fourth blessing was at it that God is good and God does good he is good because the bodies didn't decompose what a miracle that was he does good that we were allowed to bury the bodies talk about looking at the bright side I mean the massacre of Baker was a tragedy of enormous proportions and yes a Jew squeezes out of even the darkest tragedy a sense of light a sense of hope that God is Not forsaken us God has not abandoned us that God has shown us even in the greatest and darkest tragedies that he's with us that we make the bracha of hatovaha native that Baruch Hashem we were able to bury the hardware and this is the fifth symbol of the 15th of f these six was that throughout the summer right the base and make this always needed wood and people would donate the wood and wood would have to be cut wood was apparently a pretty rare commodity because what the Romans had done after they had conquered the land was they had deforested it they had cut down many many trees acres and Acres of trees so wood was something that the base I make this needed all the time on a daily basis and they would look for wood and and buy wood and people would donate wood and certain families were given the honor that designated days they would be honored with the wood supply to the base of mikhn because in the time of Ezra in the Crimea hundreds of years earlier some families had donated wood and therefore they got a date in in as a memorial memorial for what their families had done they were given designated debts but it mentions that the last day in the summer when they cut wood was the 15th of f because after the 15th of the the knights begin to get a tiny bit longer and the days get a little bit shorter so uh the heat of the summer diminishes a little bit actually for me that itself is a reason why coming to love would be a great simple if it means it's going to get cooler okay that's a happy day for me but this is what it is and when there's less heat there's more moisture in the wood and when there's moisture in the wood you can get worms so it was not in optimal condition for the Mixed Dutch because there would be smoke and the like so therefore they always completed their wood cutting by the 15th of their wood supply for the next year would be completed by the 15th above and that was a simcha that Baruch Hashem we have enough wood for next year so what you see is no fewer than six joyous occasions on the 15th of f now I want to compare this to a list there are six simples on the 15th of us now the mishna right before this talks about the tragedies of Shiva sarbatamas and the fifth above and let's just look at the fifth I'm sorry I'm sorry the ninth of us let's look at the five tragedies so it's a five and a six let's look at the five tragedies of the ninth of us and let's compare them to the six joyous events of the 15th of us the first tragedy of the ninth of us was that was the day in the desert that it was decreed that the generation of the desert would die over 40 years the first simcha of the 15th of Ave is the Xavier was but in other words what I want to show you is that each simcha on the 15th of us is kind of a correction or a Redemption from eight Sarah and the ninth of us it kind of undoes or mitigates that Sarah so if on the 15th of there was the gazera on the Dora midboard the 15th of that gazera was mitigated now the second sorrow of the ninth above was the destruction of the first base of ignition by the Babylonians now gazal tell us that the first Mason was destroyed because of the avaros of avodazara giliarius idolatry sexual immorality murder now of those three are varus though it's very clear from the prophets that the man of era was idolatry it was idolatry that gave them carte blanche to do everything else so we can actually say that the eager the primary of era that caused the korban of the base of miknash was the attachment of the Jewish people to idolatry well let's look in the 15th above when you go to Hosea Beneva so I'm not going in order here Hosea benavon the 15th of detached the Jewish people from idolatry by giving them access to the base and taking down the golden calves and giving them an ability right so in a sense if the second tragedy is the tragedy of attachments to idolatry the 15th of five we were able to be liberated from that idolatry okay so it matches up the first the second tragedy matches up with Hosea Ben Ava now the third tragedy of the ninth of us uh is the second base I make this was destroyed by the Romans say that most of the Jews were observant so if the first base I make this was destroyed because of avodazara giliarius why was the second basa make this destroyed because of Sinatra hatred polarization the the third tragedy of Tish above is the tragedy of alienation the tragedy of polarization the tragedy of separation and hatred well on the 15th of we have two instances two this is where you get sick two instances where the barriers between Jews get removed these are the two marriage ideas one is that a woman who inherits property could marry any tribe she wants and two is shaved Benjamin gets readmitted so if the third tragedy of Tish above is the tragedy of hatred and polarization the 15th of Ave is the simcha of reunification tearing down the barriers reconnecting to each other so it kind of mitigates or unduce the spiritual suffering the fourth tragedy of the ninth above was the massacre at Batar on the 15th above those who were killed at Baker were given a burial the fifth tragedy of the ninth of us was in one of Hadrian's last acts to totally destroy the ability of the Jewish people to function as a nation he plowed over yerushalayim and the area around Jerusalem with salt so that nothing could grow he tried to destroy the fertility of the Lambs but on the 15th of Ave we celebrate the Rejuvenation of the land by having the wood that we're able to cut the gemara says Eric Israel is a very tough country not just the people they're talking the land and stuff in spite of the sulfur in spite of the salt in spite of everything the land fights back and the land generates no matter what but but interestingly enough only to the Jewish people only to the Jewish people just like a mother who only cooks for her kids she's not going to cook necessarily for other people when any other Nation lives in this country or occupies this country the land doesn't do anything we know Mark Twain who visited what was called Palestine in the 19th century and wrote a travelogue about it says this land was so desolate so non-productive nothing was growing here nobody could get anything out of it he didn't understand why God chose this land there was nothing here and yet you go to the gut North but even around here you see things growing flowers and trees and all types of fruits and grain because Eric Israel yields its gifts to its children to the Jewish people even though the Romans tried to destroy it by burning acres and acres and Acres of forests by plowing so much land with salt and sulfur to destroy its fertility so the point I'm making is take the list of five tragedies and take the list of six and you actually match them up in a sense that the joy of the 15th above is a partial undoing or mitigation of the tragedies of Tish above the tragedy of the Dora midber was undone by the annulling of that gazera on the 15th of of the tragedy of Abode Azara was undone by O'Shea benella giving us access to the base of magnesium the tragedy of Sinatra of the second base was undone right discounts for two by the removal of marriage restrictions and the readmitting of a tribe of Israel and the tragedy of Batar was undone or at least mitigated by the Haruki beta being given a barrel burial and the destruction of the fertility of the land is undone or mitigated by a celebration of its fertility when we successfully completed the quota that we needed for wood for the coming year in the basement what is the lesson of this correspondence so here it's very very critical it's important to know or to note that the 15th above is the seventh day from the ninth above we know when a person Mourns a person's sits Shiva you sit Shiva you don't leave your house people come to you you sit on a low chair you're grieving you're Mourning but then on the seventh day there is a ceremony that's called getting up from Shiva what's the shot that the seventh day you don't have to keep the whole seventh day there is a there is a principle in the laws of mourning that part of the last day counts as a whole day so what would happen is if somebody is sitting shiva after chakra chakras let's say in the house and after chakras the Avail will sit down for on a low bench for a few minutes so people can offer him final comfort and after that he gets up from Shiva and this is actually a little bit of a ceremony it's not a halaka per se but when he gets up from Shiva he leaves the house walks around the house and some even have the minute many people have the minarch of walking around the block it's called getting up from Shiva what is the meaning of getting up from Shiva getting up from Shiva means that even with your grief and even with your Mourning you have to rejoin life you have to become part of the world again it is not the will of God that you become so crushed and overwhelmed by your grief that you no longer function now it's true that tragedy never gets totally forgotten it's going to be in your head but at some point you have to compartmentalize it thank you so it doesn't become all-consuming you continue to live as long as you're alive God wants you to live you've got to function you got to be productive you got to contribute you have to give what you have to give to your family to the Cure community to the World on whatever level that is so getting up from Shiva is a very powerful idea that with my grief and with my sadness I have to go on the seventh the 15th of half is the day that we get up from Shiva that we understand that in the world there are tragedies there is suffering there is Devastation both on a national level and on an individual level but we also have to have eyes to see the goodness to see the promise to see the blessing the world is not all dark and gloomy and tragic even in the tragedies we strive to see those elements of Hope and goodness and Light that are ever present if you just look hard enough to see them so yes there was a gazera of people dying for 40 years but on the 15th above got an older yes there was the destruction of the temple but God also gives us opportunities to worship Him yes there was hatred and polarization but sometimes there was love and Reconciliation yes there was the tragedy of Beethoven but God allowed us to bury the dead and even that is a cause for celebration and yes the fertility of the land was destroyed but there was rejuvenation I think that for some reason the Jewish personality is often defined as cynical and negative that's kind of uh you know even if you're not anti-semitic you're saying yeah jewel always complains always fetches and you know maybe we do that sense of humor Jewish humor Etc but in reality there really is no Nation as optimistic as hopeful as resilient as the Jew we've been through so much I mean even in this generation or the last generation the Holocaust without even I don't have to go back to the Corbin Basin ignition people lost everything people lost their spouses their their parents their children they certainly had no money to speak of uh coming out of that and yet they had the courage and the hope and the faith to rebuild their lives to create a second chance to understand that even if the world is destroyed you go on and you create so yeah maybe we express it cynically sarcastically whatever it would be but under all of that sarcasm is a tremendous hope and optimism that comes from a very profound faith in God that God will not abandon us God will take care of us you know I mentioned maybe maybe I said last week I don't remember but forgive me if I'm repeating that Rabbi solovacic in the 70s sat shiver three times he had three tragic losses in one year he had lost his brother rev shmuel who was a professor of chemistry at Yu also Thomas he had lost his mother and then the biggest tragedy had lost his wife to whom he was very very close and although brother hashemi was able to teach for more than a decade even after those tragedies those who knew him well felt he never really recovered from those losses but at the end of his third Shiva he gave a little drusha and he said there's a famous Ghazal that says that God made many worlds before this world and God destroyed those worlds in fact some actually used that to explain the age of the Earth that it doesn't have to be other planets but maybe Earth itself went through cataclysms like ice ages meteorite showers whatever it would be but there were worlds before this world that God destroyed thank you and Raph salvatric pointed out why would God make a world that he had that he destroys what's the purpose of it let him just make the world he wants and not make the world that he destroys you know Salvation said that God is trying to teach us a lesson that we have to apply to our own lives that even if our world gets destroyed we go on and we recreate because God had worlds that were destroyed and he destroyed them but he destroyed them for that lesson to teach us that you don't give up you don't throw in the towel you keep on going you keep on creating and the 17 and the 15th of Ave is that idea of getting up from Shiva not being consumed by despair and by hopelessness you know the last Kina that we recite on the ninth of us actually it's the next to the last but that's the keynote in which we stand up it's the only Kingdom we recite standing up and it's actually sung it's sung by the congregation l e cyan vareja Ali means lament it's not hashem's name Elite Zion and the cities of Zion shall Lament and it's sung um I remember as a a youngster ramosha Feinstein coming to Hartford Connecticut and he was there for the ninth above Tish above and I still remember his voice singing that so whenever I I say that Kina I have a vivid auditory memory of ramosa Feinstein's voice in which you could literally experience all of the pain of two thousand years of Exile in the way that he was begging Hashem to bring the Redemption and in LHC on vrl there are two metaphors it says Sion you shall cry over the qurban over the desecration of God's name over the suffering of the Jewish people over the pain like a woman in labor who is suffering and like a Young Bride who is sobbing over the husband of her youth attention [Music] to the two poetic metaphors that are used in that Cana one is the pain of Labor and the other is the pain of bereavement of widowhood both of them are extremely painful experiences right you suffer there's a lot of suffering there's pain especially before there was anesthesia but there's a very big difference between them the pain of Labor is pain but it's a pain that results in something very beautiful at the end most of the time a child the pain of Ritalin is a very different type of pain the pain of whatever is a permanent loss at least in this world he's not coming back so note the two metaphors and I think what the poet might be trying to express is a difference between perception and reality the Jewish people perceived the Corbin and the goddess as a widower we lost our relationship to God he's not coming back that's what your meow said she is like a widow but that's not the correct way of looking at it that may be the perception that you know we have been bereaved in reality all of our pain is a precursor to a glorious rebirth that's what the poet is saying you feel like a widow that's not the right way to look at it you're not a widow you're a woman going through hard labor and eventually there'll be something glorious at the end and that's what hazal said even with your meow your Mio says about you shall I am foreign she is like a widow so the med distortions she is like a widow but not really a widow she's like a widow because she feels she'll never get her husband back in reality she will right there's the illusion we sometimes lose faith we lose hope but in reality we have to have that hope and that is the message of the 15th above to see the good even in the darkness to have faith to get up from Shiva not to be consumed in grief and this is an important lesson not only vis-a-vis the based on mikdash this is an important lesson in the vicissitudes of life that we go through not to give up hold on keep on going you're going through labor but from that labor will come a glorious birth I wish everyone a very happy to be of and many people to feel the simcha in what Hashem is giving us in our lives okay and give us [Music] is here