Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: In Preparation for Tisha B'Av

You my birthday. >> Yeah, everybody. Thank you for coming. Uh today as always we pray for the protection of AmIrael the lasting unity of the people of Israel which will lead to victory and for all of those whose health has been affected by terror theim hashem's protection for Israel and for the gulma rafu is surah Mosha ben rael ben may they have a rau is alias nama memory of the father of Esther Schnitzer, William Foyer Nakman A Ben Shimon. He was born in Vienna and after the ancelus came to America alone, he joined the army, became a decorated war hero, jumped into Normandy on D-Day and was one of the famous Richie boys. Again, we we're very grateful for his uh service and sacrifice. in memory of Zerel's Latas barrel by her daughters uh TLC Anita Rao with the following message. This should be an aliyah for her precious nishama on her 46th yard site the 27th of Tamos. And finally the late mother of Jeremy Bernstein a friend of Ibana friend of mine whose yard site the 26th of Tamos Lash Shabas Sas Elazar Halevi. May all of the shamas have an aliyah in these of the Torah that we're learning. uh one of the uh may possibly I don't want to say as you know suddenly passed away Senator Lindsey Graham he was a Christian so whether that counts is that's another makus but in terms of somebody who really cared about Israel at a time when so many people in Congress and elsewhere do not care about Israel uh is really a loss to the Jewish people. He really really was very very committed and uh his sudden death is something that might scare all of us but once again we don't like to think about this but remembering the day of death uh is a very important aspect in a hashem not because it's supposed to make you sad or depressed that's hopefully not what it does but it makes you realize the importance of every day of life every moment is important you got to use every moment because you can't automatically assume that you'll have all those moments later on. Things can happen. Uh, in fact, um, apparently in Europe, I I've never seen such a thing, but I I heard it described, they have like buildings or catacombs constructed of human bones, which would not allow, but there's like a Latin inscription in top of the catacomb that says, "What you are is what I once was, and what I am now is what you will be." It's kind of a message message to the reader. And uh even though once again halaka would absolutely not permit the desecration of human remains under those circumstances but the underlying message is something we think about and I think uh senator Graham Petira kind of reminds us a little bit a little bit of that and he was tak very very good friend uh to Israel at a time when as I say we don't have that many friends uh that that's the way the world is moving in that in that direction. So uh this is kodes. So on one hand you know do you wish somebody a kesh to a good kesh is it a day of sa the great rev of Washington heights used to say that the way kazal describe the month of a is they say that's what the mishna says when the month of a begins we diminish our simra so was it doesn't say we eliminate sra but rather We have a little bit of less meaning you increase the sim you reduce the sim but there has to be all the time there is never a time in which there's not sim in fact the the a little more than a year ago used to point out a very interesting observation say that ruesh cannot rest on a prophet unless Unless the prophet is bas meaning every prophecy is bas gives prophecies of destruction of of all the bad things that are going to happen but he wouldn't have been able to have that prophecy unless he was how can that be and the answer is that somehow even with adversity that breaks your heart you still have the joy that you're connected to Hashem And therefore side by side in a way that maybe we don't understand a person can have joy in a person's heart can be broken at the same time. And that's the only way ruesh could possibly exist when you're dealing with soros and and and so many great great tragedies. So the month of highlights this kind of dichotomy of sim and at the same time it's the kesh of but at the same time the will become the gul this is what kazal say that when msiah comes not only will these days not be fast days that's obvious but they will actually become days of joy and the moral says the meaning of the famous statement mashiach is born on tishbuff. Famous famous famous statement. I'm not sure what kabad's going to do with that. The rebi was born before before pes. Uh but well act but according to the moral there's a good terret. The moral says it doesn't mean the flesh and blood mashiach is going to be born on tishab. The flesh and blood mashiach can be born any day of the year. But it means the thing that brings the messianic power into the world are the tears that we shed on. The yearning that we have to be connected to Hashem is what brings Mashiach in the world. So when you say Mashiach is born, you're not referring to the person who's Mashiach when he's going to be born. That could be anywhere, anytime. But it refers to the idea that what brings him into the world is how much do you want him? And as a result, it is that mourning and that yearning that shows how much we care. And that in turn brings Mashiach in the world. So it turns out that the mourning is the reason for the gula. We're not just mourning over something in the past. The morning m o u r n i n g will bring the morning m o r n i n g right the morning will bring the will bring the morning and that's idea that's through uh the ais of tishabuff now there's a beautiful minhug actually today we have a little bit I mentioned to somebody uh our yonet calendar is a little peculiar uh this week because uh paraim this week's para is always read the shabas before tishaban is shabas is always read the shabas after tish. So is already a theme of but because is so late in the week our ye next week on paran is going to be before tishov. So I'm kind of going crazy over what am I going to talk about next week. Uh so y you know you got to have of course if the basis will be rebuilt I will have I will have an answer there'll be no there'll be no no particular problem uh but still there is a given on tishabove strangely enough that there are joyous markers even on tish as strange as it is we don't say on tishab you normally don't say tan on festive occasions so not saying tak so we're not you know dancing on the on the table but we don't say taklan is this is a day of redemption and you know uh there was an old min that is no longer followed by ashkenazim but but it was an old ash very old ashkenazic min you know in the morning we say a lot of kinos kinos are poems of lamentations they're sad they're tragic very hard to translate but now you have art school and other translations of salvic so Now you can actually follow the keynotes a little bit. Uh but they're all very sad. They're dures and most of them were written by one person most Rabbi Lazar who's the most famous of the Jewish lurggical poets of the early middle ages. Rabbi Lazar but side by side with the lamentations and by the way in our kinos book there's a total of 45 kinos. So he wrote around 30 of them but in truth he wrote 80 kinos meaning only a a fraction of his total kinos or even in the book we you know people know them from manuscripts or or whatever it is he wrote many many many many kinos in fact everything everything that we have from him comes in duplicates triplicates quadruplicates in other words alternative versions that some made it some didn't make it but one of the things he did was in addition to the kinos which are poems of lamentations He wrote poems of triumph and joy and sim to be recited on tishabuff. And the breakdown was kinos in the morning and at min time we read songs of joy comfort and the like. And this was part of his tishabove service. What happened was that for whatever the reason it got dropped out of the Ashkanazic ritual. So we don't have those poems of I mean I mean we have I mean you could find them although it's not so easy to find them. You can find them but they're not as they're not part of any prayer uh service today. Nevertheless, there are some strange customs that indicate that even on tishabove there is this feeling of sim uh it's brought down that some women had a min of tishabove. Now the postkim were extremely ambivalent about this custom. They said wash your hair and tissue. I mean even during the nine days you're generally not supposed to uh bathe or shampoo nav you're not even allowed to to wash a finger unless it's dirty or or the like. So the postkum said this is not a proper minute so please do not do it. But the postum also had a certain admiration because it expressed the amuna shalma that this is going to be a day of redemption that in the afternoon they would wash their hair. Now there is a that is still followed today by old shi people and maybe some of you might have taken it up that tish of afternoon they sweep their house in honor of welcoming Mashiach. Now, and that is a that is a permissible medic. And some people actually still do that because they say they they want the house to be clean for when Mashiach comes. So that's a symbolic way of of that type of of affirmation, you know. Um what are the just very quickly just for basic information what are the five soros that the Mishna identifies as occurring on the 9th of A. So the first of them all is this is when the decree of the moraglin right the moraglin came back after their 40-day mission on the 8th of A they gave their reports and most of the nation other than the women cried and said they didn't believe in Hashem's promise uh all night that was the night of the night of said you have cried a cry for no reason this day shall be eternal morning and that's the raglin Uh the second aa or the second uh the second tragedy was the destruction of the first basikdash by the Babylonians. The second tragedy 4 and 90 years later was the destruction of the second basikdash on the same day by the Romans 490 years later. Uh the fourth tragedy was more than 60 years later the Barba revolt which Rabi Akiva was the spiritual head of and when Barwa's revolt was mercilessly crushed with casualties that were far greater than the basikt itself far greater and by the way even on religious life it was far worse because after the Romans destroyed the temple that's an awful thing of course it's an awful thing but they didn't care if Jews were keeping mitzvah They took away the bas you want to put on and you want to learn to you want to keep shabas we don't really care but after the bar revolt had attitude was no more Mr. nice guy as if he ever was a nice guy. And all of the anti-religious laws, no Torah learning, Rabi Yativa's flesh being uh taken away by hooks. All of that is not after the is after Barra revolt. Uh so that was the fourth tragedy and that is the fall of Betar, the destruction of the Barok revolt. And the fifth was Hadrien's decision to plow Shalam in salt to destroy his fertility. And to some degree to some degree to this very day uh the soil is suffering uh from that. Now I want to point out that when Hadrien destroyed the Barba revolt and he plowed he also had another rule. He barred Jews from living in Jerusalem. He turned Jerusalem into a shrine to Jupiter. Jupiter is the head Roman god, small G. And the city was renamed Alia Capalina. Capalina was a reference to Jupiter, the city of Jupiter. And it became a pagan city and no Jew was allowed to live in Jerusalem for almost 200 years. Other Roman emperors continued that. That was the longest continuous time that Jews were barred from Jerusalem. Much longer than 1948 to 1967. And there are still remnants of Elia Capatulina in the area of the old city that's known as the Cardo. I think now the Cardo is a shopping kind of a shopping mall or whatever. But that is part of the road. The city was much lower then and that was uh Alia Capitulina. Now, so Jews were not and in fact the whole term Palestine was introduced then that that that Hadrien wanted to kind of separate any Jewish identification to Erit Israel. So instead of it being called the land of Judah, Yehuda, he named it Philistina, which means the land of the Philistines. There were no Philistines. They were long gone. But he somehow resuscitated that extinct people and he called it the land of the Philistines and that was a psychological device so that Jews should not feel they have any connection to Eric Israel. They were barred from Jerusalem. But once a year the Romans permitted the Jewish people to walk around the old city the walls of New Jerusalem to mourn the fact that the city was taken away from them. And that became a custom for hundreds and hundreds of years that Jews on the ninth of A would walk around the walls of the old city. Now I don't know if you I don't know if you can do it now, but you can you can you still walk on top of the wall? Yeah. Um I don't know if it goes all the way around, but the men was laba on top. I mean just even on ground level to walk around the walls of Yusayim and that became that became also an old Yusi men to encircle uh the city and that brought uh a sense of comfort and that I mean just like when you go to the Kaiso like people feel comforted. I mean the truth is why do I feel comforted? The kosul is not the bas mikdash. The kosul is not even a wall of the basa mikdash. It is simply the retaining wall of the temple mount. So I should feel comforted when I go to the coil. I mean if anything it should make it more bitter. That's why halically technically you have to rip. All right. So if you live in Jerusalem the minute is you don't do it. But if you're visiting from America whatever it is you visit the hotel you're supposed to rip a garment. Can't go to it's Friday afternoon. Okay. There are different ways that people try to get out of it. The question is should you try to get out of it? Okay. And there's also a a a practice that people who live in Jerusalem do not do it. But whatever it is, but obviously the underlying emotion is I see the coel and I'm heartbroken. And yet people still get comfort because it's a remnant. So the same thing when when the Jews in Alia capina times walked around the walls, this was a bitter reminder. They weren't even allowed to enter the city. But at least at least they could look at the walls and that gave them a certain little bit of comfort as well as it would do as it would even do even do today. So tishabove is a complicated day because it is a day of sadness and a day of tragedy. It is also a day of redemption and a day of hope. And in many many ways, as I think Shakespeare coined the phrase, absence makes the heart grow foundonder. As we remember how far we are from Hashem, we actually feel very close to Hashem. There's a certain yearning that wells up in our heart for that closeness and that creates a beautiful closeness. There are people who say, you might think they're crazy, but they say that they enjoy, I don't know if enjoy is the right word, they enjoy tishabove more than purim because it's a different type of joy. It's a it's a quiet joy. It's a withdrawn joy. It's an introspective joy. It's a joy in which I look at how much I need to do in my life to merit gula but also how much Hashem is yearning for that gula to take place. So it's a different type of joy. It's not the joy of dancing around but it's the joy of knowing that we have a job to do and Hashem is with us in that job and if we do that job good things are going to come. Good things are going to come. So there there could be a great simka. It's like you know they give you a a secular a person has a good cry they kind of feel better they had a good cry they got out those emotions. Tishab is a time when you can have a good cry and that's worth that's worth quite a lot. That's worth quite a lot. Okay. So I want to start off with uh an interesting observation from Rav Salvage. uh he points out that the aus the mourning that we observe for the destruction of the temple is very different than the mourning we observe for private losses. Let's say a person loses, God forbid, a relative, a father, a mother, a child, Rahman, a spouse, whatever, a brother, a sister. So if you look at generally, you see that it moves in a very definite direction. It starts off extremely strict and then it gets progressively more lenient with the passage of time. So first there's Shiva. So you don't even leave the house. You sit on a low bench. You don't wear shoes. And then after Shiva, we beginsh. In other words, the next 23 days, you go out already, but you don't go to to weddings. You don't buy new clothing. And for every other relative but a father and mother, after there's no more morning, you're finished aftershim. For a parent, you would go for a whole year. But even then the morning restrictions for the remainder of the year are more lenient than even schloan etc. So a moves from the from the more severe to the less kamur till eventually you come out of it. When we talk about the public mourning that we observe for the destruction of the basa mikdash you see that we start in an opposite direction. We start with the three weeks. Not too many restrictions. Don't get haircuts. Um don't listen to music. And even that is really min according to strict there's nothing that's really forbidden during the three weeks. And in fact manyards don't really have anything that's also around the three weeks. They can get married many not all. They can get married. They can listen to music. In other words, there's not that much that's forbidden. And then we get starting tonight roeshav where things are much stricter. Don't get haircuts. I'm sorry, but don't don't do laundry. Don't wash or shower. Things get more and more severe. And then you have the week of tishab which will start mo shabas. The week of tishbuff is even stronger than the nine days. It's stricter. For example, many would say that a sem fleshik is only the nine days before the week of tishab not once during the week of tish. And then we have tishab which is stricter and then we have tishabove itself which is the zenith the epitome of pure mourning. So the interesting thing is that with private mourning we go from the kamur to the c. With public mourning, we go from more cow to the kamur. We're going from down to up. We're going from A to Z. When it comes to p well, yeah, we're going from A to Z. Z is the highest. Uh with private morning is the other way around. We're going from high. I'm sorry. Yeah. From high to low. So, Svich explains that the reason why there's a difference is the purpose of the morning is actually opposite. When a person loses a loved one, their lives are often shattered. They don't know what to do. They're paralyzed. They see no hope. They're devastated. So, one of the purposes of hilosis, one of the purposes is to provide a system that allows a person to grieve who's overcome with grief and to eventually re-enter society and continue to live. That's a big deal. It's a re-entry procedure. So, initially you're devastated. You're closeted at home and people come to you and they're not even supposed to talk to you until you begin to talk to them. And hopefully the person is healed and then they're ready to take baby steps to enter the world a little bit at a time during and then after Schllo. Meaning the reason ais goes from to kal is because the end goal of ais is to take away some of the grief that a person feels so they will be able to continue with their life. That doesn't mean you forget your loved one. But what happens psychologically is a form of compartmentalization. Meaning instead of the grief being all consuming, all overwhelming in which there's no room for anything else, you have a part of your mind and a part of your heart. That is grieving. That's a reality of life. But life goes on because as long as Hashem has given us life, we have to be positive. We have to make something positive from it. That's why Hashem has given us life. That's what ais is ais and it's remarkable many non-Jews have remarked upon this that the Jewish rituals of Shiva shloshim laws of ais are a remarkable psychological procedure mechanism to heal broken souls I'm not saying that's the only purpose but that is one of the purposes and that is why by the way people who get a curtail shiva sometimes feel very deprived you know you know the that if somebody let's say is buried on air of yung Let's say Shiva is cancelled with the onset of Yam there is no Shiva and people say afterwards that they felt they didn't have the opportunity to be healed by people coming and by sharing memories. So what we sometimes tell them is although it's technically a fake Shiva is you know after YT why don't you have a night or two nights where people can just come you don't have to sit on a low bench but people can come and share memories and share stories to give what you might call the the healing aspect of Shiva even though it's not a mandatory Shiva uh this is the same piece of advice I would give too for someone who is a g who lost a non-Jewish Technically, if a non-Jewish parent dies or even if you're Jewish but your father is not Jewish, technically there is no Shiva that needs to be sat for a non-Jewish parent. Shiva is not a a requirement in such a case. Nevertheless, a child lost his father or lost his parents and there may be a great deal of love there as there properly should be. So we again recommend kind of a night or two nights where people can come and you can share memories. Again this goes back to the idea that Jewish morning rituals are a way of enabling us to re-enter normal life and not be consumed by pain. I remember, you know, I became a rabbi of Vash uh in 1988 and before I even began the job, meaning I was going to begin in Elo before Rash and this occurred in the summer, I believe in the month of AB itself. So I was not I was officially not a rabbi of a show, but one of the members of my show who who would become a member of my or I would become his rabbi uh tragically lost their 10-year-old child. a 10-year-old boy like died suddenly. Sometimes these things are not explained. Now, this was a complicated situation because the 10-year-old boy was born from a non-Jewish spouse. In other words, this Jewish guy had intermarried a non-Jew, had a kid. The kid underwent a conversion. The mother did not. And they were divorced. They were divorced. So there's a picture in my mind that I still have and I have to admit I still feel very guilty over to this day. Here you had a whole Jewish community coming to give the father encouragement strength and the mother who is the mother of this child and she's divorced. She's not married to this guy and she's a guy. She kind of came to the funeral as of course she would come to the funeral but she was by herself. She was just by herself. The mother who had lost her 10-year-old was by herself. Nobody was paying any particular I mean people I mean preuncterarily people said something but you know nobody was really holding her. Nobody was really holding her hand or giving her strength and the like. And I feel bad about it to this day. I mean the truth is I didn't know anybody. Again I was not even the rabbi of the shell yet. But that picture did imprint itself on my mind. And one of the things it taught me is how important Jewish morning rituals are. That here you had a woman who lost her son and she didn't have the benefit of all of these rituals. So she didn't get the that these rituals give. Okay? We should be grateful to Hashem for what he gave us in the Torah. remarkable psychological. Of course, God made the psychology. So, God yelled or gave us the tools to deal with it. All of this is one side of the coin. That's mourning over private loss. Ah, so here's Rafik's point. When it comes to mourning over the BA mikdash, we got the opposite problem. How many of us are so heartbroken that we can't go on with our lives and we need a re-entry procedure? That would be a new excuse to get out of going to show whatever I sometimes tell the guys in you know if you don't like going to minion to get up late I'll tell you a real great great thing to say tell your rebi that you really wanted to get up go to sh but you were so devastated when you contemplated the loss of the bas mikdash you were not able to get out of bed I can't do it it's too hard I walk into sh and there's no ba mikdash I can't do it. I said it's not likely your rebi is going to accept that as an excuse, but you could try it. That's not our problem. And again, I'm including myself. I'm not putting myself on a pedestal. Do we mourn? Do we grieve? Do we feel sad? Do we even know what it is that we're supposed to be mourning about? You know, how do you explain music to somebody who was born deaf? Apparently, Helen Keller had some understanding. It's still a mystery to me exactly how that works. How do you explain color to somebody who was born blind? The generation that experienced the destruction of the temple, they could appreciate it. They knew. They knew what they lost. But it's been so long, so many hundreds of years, almost 2,000 years. How do we even know? What is it that we're missing? Right? So, the purpose of mourning over the beta mikdash is not to get out of our grief because we're not in the grief to begin with. The purpose of mourning over the BA mikdash is to get into the grief in the hope and it may not happen that by externalized manifestations of grief that puts us in a frame of mind where we could feel the pain of the so that's why says you got to move in the opposite direction. If private mourning is to take a devastated broken person and give him the tools to function in ordinary society, the purpose of mourning rituals for the BA mikdash is to take a complacent, happy, welladjusted person and make them realize how much we have lost. And that's why it moves Rav Solivik said it moves in the opposite in the opposite direction. The hope would be the externalities would somehow affect our emotion. That doesn't always work either. You know, far too often we might go through the motions and it still doesn't genu genuinely trigger feelings with us. You know the Gomorrah gives I'm sorry not the Gmorra the med gives a story that when one of the Israel this was many years after the would recount the basikt he had received traditions he could recount hundreds of tragedies that happened. So the medish asks how could he recount hundreds of tragedies? Earlier generations that were much closer to the only recounted 50 and he recounts several hundred. So the Gmorrah says here's the difference. The generations who experienced the or were closer to the were so devastated by these tragedies that they broke down after 50. They couldn't go on anymore. as opposed to of Yokohan, he was distant enough that he could talk about all the tragedies. Again, I mean, in our modern times, you can actually see this with Holocaust, Holocaust. Those of you that have um family members, whether it's parents, grandparents, uncles, great uncles, aunts, whatever it will be, who went through the Holocaust, you know, it's it's for some that Holocaust survivors very rarely for many, many years did not want to talk about what they went through. later, sometimes in later years, they were willing to talk more about it. But for many years, I mean, the typical story of a kid who was raised by Holocaust survivors is my parents never talked about it because if they started talking about it, they couldn't go on. They couldn't go on. But we can talk about, you know, what happened in Ashwitz and what happened in Trebinka and you know, you know, we're horrified by it to be sure, but we can talk about it. you know, we're not going to break down because it didn't happen to us and we're distant from it and although we feel of course we feel the pain but it's going to be attenuated. So the so the med says that's exactly the way it was for the and that is the generations that were close to the they couldn't even speak about the sufferings of the those who were further away were able to speak about it but they still cried. we I would have to say are a new level where we can speak about it not even not even cry necessarily because of it. So that's rough solo matrix point that the trajectory of a veas is is very different you know um maybe it's not something to joke about but I'll tell you two interesting stories that kind of illustrate this one from either the 19th century or the early 20th century and one is more contemporary. Um there were some very from German university students at the end of the night. They wrote memoirs I don't remember their name but they wrote memoirs of their experience in a German university keeping mitzvah keeping Torah and mitzvah and these are two roommates two from roommates and it was tishabove and the semester wasn't over yet the German university didn't really have summer vacation that much and tish was a long hot day. There was no air conditioning in the dormatory, whatever it is. So the boys, the two men uh who were kind of just 18 or 19 in those days said, "Well, we just had a few more hours till the fast was over, so we decided to play a game of chess." Again, nothing particularly sinister. So they were sitting, they're playing chess because they're just waiting for the fast of the nth of a to be over. As they're playing chess, there's a knock at their door. They don't know who's coming to visit them on the 9th of A. They open the door and there's a a tall, lanky professor of theirs, a Protestant who's dressed all in black and he says with a great deal of sadness on his face, he says, "I've come to offer my condolences on the day of your great tragedy, a day that must be unimaginably sad for you. and may God bless you and your people with redemption. And the man was virtually crying and then he went away. So the the boy's right, we were so ashamed. We were so ashamed because we're playing chess and the our only thought is we're keeping tishab. We're keeping tishab but we just want you know when is it going to be over? And here you have this non-Jewish guy who really really he was a you know he read the Bible. He knew the Bible. He really really understood the tragic nature of the day. And the and the boys said or the men said, "We learned what tishabove was from that professor. He taught us what tishabove really really is." A more contemporary story. A rabbi in Queens tells this story that uh in the few days before Tishb um he went into a pizza place to get milk for his family and he sees some congregants of his show who seem very very sad very unhappy and he goes over to them and he says this is a very sad time of year but we have to be muniach have hope. So the congregant said to the rabbi, "Rabbi, we're not sad about that. We're sad." Apparently, it was during the World Series. I'm not sure about the timing. He says, "You know, the Yankees lost game six, whatever it was." So once again, the point was, okay, that's a negotiable. Yankees not winning. I'm not sure if my timing is right. I may have the sports association incorrect. Um but um I stopped watching baseball. I tell you exactly in 1964 it was Yankees versus Cardinals in World Series and the Yankees lost and I just was turned off for baseball from 1964. So I haven't really been following it since, but I used to in those years I actually did did follow it. So I I don't know when the World Series is or anything like that but the story makes the point once again people have this sadness over the World Series and they don't think about the BA mikdash. Now again I am not saying this to be self-righteous. I'm talking to myself as well. We just don't know what it is. We don't know what it is. uh you know the famous story when Shaim was liberated or the old city and the temple mount was liberated in 1967 during the six- day war. So some of the first students who were there first that were there were the Hezer Bakim from uh Meras from Ravuk Shashiba they were like the first and Cook and Ravgorin you know they kind of showed up Ravgarin took Ravgarin was the military Rav and uh Yehuda Cook was an older Rasha Ravk's son and he gave special permission to take Rav Cook all the way to the Kotel and uh the boys and Ravgorin and and and and uh Revuk they were sobbing and crying and a short distance there was a non-religious soldier soldier who was also sobbing and crying so his friend said to him what are you crying about you don't know what this is you don't care about this you don't keep shabas you don't keep kosher you don't keep to what I mean these were fellow what are you crying about and he said I'm crying because I don't know why they're crying And if I don't know why they're crying, there's something missing in my life that I'm crying over. So the sad news is this very very perceptive remark of the soldier is something that applies to virtually all of us. And that the suggests is a solution. Someone said to the what do I do? I can't cry over the destruction of the temple. And the answer is mameish this line cry over your nishama that cannot cry over the destruction of the bish. That's what it is. That's that's where we at. So what is our ravodish? Is it just to be sad? No. There is an idea as I said before that our mourning over the basa mikdash is actually a process of rebuilding the basikt. We rebuild the basikt not by bricks and mortar. Although some people take that position but most say that our obligation is not to physically build the temple. That's the job of mashiach or the third temple will come in. No, that's a will the third temple be built by man or will it come down from heaven. But either way it's a messianic undertaking. I know that some argue with that. Some actually say we need to aggressively build the base of mikdash. But hakally that is not what the postkim have said and they have said it is not our job until mashiach comes to physically build the ba mikdash. So if it's not our job to physically build the ba mikdash, what is our job? Our job is to make our own hearts and souls a dwelling place for God. Make a bikash in your heart. And if enough of us truly make our heart and our soul a place for the shina then the ba mikdash will come down. So making yourself a mishkan what does mishkan mean? a dwelling place. making yourself a dwelling place for Hashem is how you rebuild the BA mik right that's the uh you know it's it's it's a beautiful niggan but these are words that are taken from safer who was a great makubel in the time of the but it's a it's already a famous niggan bilvi mishkna that means in my heart I will build a dwelling place for God, right? Uh it's also a famous series of Sariman spiritual growth books was it's also a niggan. In fact, I was the niggan that um my wife and I walked down to our our mishkn uh but the words are much older than the niggan. words come come from the 16th century the time of the Ariza and that's our job our job is to build the BA mikdash by making our heart and soul a dwelling place for the part of that is by correcting the aos that caused the destruction of the basikash because if the bas mikash was destroyed because of certain causes It cannot be rebuilt until those causes are fixed. Now, everyone knows the garuma. So, actually, I'm not going to elaborate on that too much other than to remind you of the garamar. The garamarian yuma says that there's a difference in the first temple and the second temple. The first temple was destroyed because of the worst sins of idolatry of bodhisara gilarayas sexual immorality and actual murder. These are the three aas that you have to give up your life before you commit and those aas were rampant and that's what the talk about. But the second bas the Jewish population was largely observant. They were from they were keeping the mitzvah. So why was the bas mikdash destroyed? So everyone knows the famous observation of the garra. It was because of the sasam the hatred polarization and dissension that existed among the Jews and that caused the destruction of the second temple. And then the garra goes on and makes an observation. Hey, come and see the first basikdesh that was destroyed because of the worst of aos ofim. How long was it destroyed? For only 70 years and then it got rebuilt after the Babylonian exile. But the second ba mikdash that was destroyed because of sin still not built. It was destroyed in the secular year between 68 and 70. Let's go with 70. Now it's 2026 almost 2,000 years. This is now I'm not going to talk about this now. I I may talk about it more next week. All I can say is you don't need a lot of investigation or sophistication to detect the sinum that exists within clo Israel at really all all levels. I've already said many times so I I I want to just repeat what I've said many many times already that in some ways this was the initial silver lining of the tragedy of October 7. October 7 was an awful, awful tragedy for the Jewish people, but it did have a silver lining that for a short while it did create a great sense of unity among the Jewish people, religious, secular, all the different types, we understood we have to be together and it created a shared community. It shared it created a caring. If you remember before October 7, I don't know if people remember the country was being torn apart by some controversy involving judicial reform which has actually resurfaced but this and people were talking about leaving the country. Businesses were talking about pulling out capital or reservists were saying they weren't going to report to me. Now bashem when there was a need they all reported but who knows if that emboldened kamas if kamas is hearing over and over again we're not going to show up for elim you know who knows what effect that has even if at the end of the day people did show up so people don't remember the country was on the brink not so far from even being literal of civil war and then comes October 7 October 7 all of a sudden We love each other. We care about each other. We want to work with each other, right? Uh we make fill in for who want to wear fill in. It was very beautiful in the middle of that tragedy. But then like an elastic band, you stretch an elastic band and then you let go and it kind of goes back to where it is. Old habits die very hard and unfortunately we're back to our sin and without commenting on the political issue of in the army yeshiva boys in the army demonstrations again this deserves a whole class of its own more than one class of its own but that's certainly not helping the part of the equation and that's really what I just want to allude to in which there is so much hate hatred there's so much polarization now I don't want to say that's the only thing there is also a lot of love there is a lot of sacrifice we can't you know unless you see the good in the picture you're also looking at a distorted view there is a lot of good there is a lot of caring I'm not going to describe Jewish life as an unmitigated failure in that that would be unfair and that would be untrue But a lot a lot a lot needs to be done on the sasum front. Now Mark Twain said about the weather everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it. I'll say the same thing about and I include myself as everybody talks about. What are we doing about it? Yeah. I asked myself the question, what are we doing about it? So that's actually not what I want to talk about in our final moments. I want to talk about a different thought. So everyone knows the famous Gumar and Yuma first temple, second temple. We know that. But there's another passage that's a little less known. And this is a gamorra in Nadarim. And the Gmorra in Masadorim says, You know why Jerusalem was destroyed? Because they didn't say blessings over the Torah. >> They learned Torah, but they didn't recite blessings over the Torah. Now, this is a little peculiar. First of all, whether or not there's a Torah requirement to recite a blessing over the Torah is a big mlo. Most reonim say it's only a rabbitic obligation. The Ramban actually says it is a Torah obligation. But okay, it's not uh the most strict Torah obligation. Moreover, the problem is that it's very clear from the Gomorrah and I I we don't have time to go over the proofs that the Gomorrah is talking about the first temple that the first temple was destroyed because they didn't say blessings over the Torah. Is that why the first temple was destroyed? They did a lot worse than that. a vodor. So why are you coming up with they didn't make blessings over the Torah and the Gmorra even says the prophets couldn't figure it out. Why was you shalam destroyed? And they couldn't figure it out till Hashem told them it's because they didn't make blessings over the Torah. What do you mean they couldn't figure it out? The Naveim are talking about these aas all the time. So they know. So there's a beautiful wonderful explanation by Rallia Lapan who was one of the great great great bal Muser of the 20th century very very great man he was nifter around uh 25 or 30 years ago may maybe even more and rellia says the following when the Gammor says the prophets couldn't figure out why there was a and hashem had to tell them. They didn't make the blessings over the Torah. The prophets are not asking what sins caused the destruction. They know what sins cause the destruction. They're not asking why in the sense of what you might call proximate cause for those who have legal background. The proximate cause is certainly a but they're asking a meta question. a question beyond that. And they're saying, "Well, wait a second here. The Jews were learning Torah. Shouldn't the Torah develop their character? Should a person who learns Torah be capable of murder, idolatry, and incest, and adultery?" In other words, they're not asking what sins were committed. They know what sins were committed, but they're asking, "How could that be? Doesn't Torah do anything to a person? Imagine a situation where somebody's in yeshiva and he conscientiously has a good morning learning session. He learns with a lot of husmada from 9:30 to 1. Then he has a 2-hour break. And in the two-hour break, he goes to town and he rapes, murders, and steals and then makes it back to yeshiva in time for afternoon seder. There's something wrong. There are such people by the way. I mean books are very rare but in the world generally as yeah uh you would figure doesn't Torah change a person? Doesn't Torah elevate a person? Doesn't Torah protect a person from these aos? That's their problem. And the answer is they didn't say blessings over the Torah. It's the answer of that. Meaning it's not that God is punishing them because they didn't say blessings. God is punishing them forever, but the Torah didn't work on them because they didn't say the blessings. Now, why is that significant? So, do you remember at the beginning of the book of Malikim, the book of kings, David is towards the end of his life and he is shivering. He is very very cold and he's being covered with blankets and he gets no warmth from the blankets. So kazal say that this was a divine punishment because David Hamelik treated garments with disrespect. What's the disrespect? That when Sha is pursuing him to kill him before David was king at one point Shaul went into a cave to relieve himself and he left his cloak at the entrance of the cave so nobody would enter. And David snaked up and cut off a piece of the garment. And later when Shaul is back in the camp, David is on a on a hill and David says waves this piece of garment and says, "You see how close I was to you? I could have killed you. Why do you view me as an enemy?" And Shaul briefly made up with David. It lasted around a day, but uh Sha started crying and said, "Dove, I love you and you, you know, etc." Okay. But Kazal say shouldn't have done that not because it was disrespect to show. That's so fascinating. Gamar doesn't say it was diseased clothing. You don't coat clothing. And say anyone who shows disrespect to clothing that clothing will not give you warmth at the end. Now it's interesting. It's not the same clothing. So apparently clothes talk to each other. In other words, uh, he cut Shaul's cloak and the blankets didn't give him warmth. But be it as it may, putting aside communication. By the way, crows communicate. Uh, you know, uh, if you miss mistreat a crow, he'll get his friends to kind of come after you. Okay. But what do you see? What do you see from that lesson? You see from that lesson, when you don't treat something with respect, it doesn't help you. even inanimate objects. Hashem made it kind of a rule of nature. That which you disparage does not give you help. So says Revelia, the same way, if you treat clothes with a lack of respect, the clothing doesn't help you. If you treat Torah with a lack of respect, the Torah will not elevate you. Making a braha over Torah symbolically means I regard it as precious. I regard it as a gift. I regard it as a privilege. If I don't bother to make the braha even if I'm learning it, I look at it like a burden and an imposition. So, Revelia says is equivalent to treat it with disrespect. Doesn't help you. The Torah doesn't help you. And therefore, the Gmorra does not mean the temple was destroyed because of the sin of not making Torah blessings. But their lack or their disdain for Torah meant the Torah didn't protect them from the worst of. So this is something to think about in terms of our general approach in a hashm you know a person could go through the motions of doing the mitzvah properly and that is a good thing. But if their attitude is one that this is a burden this is an imposition this is something I'd rather not have to do but I'll be obedient to do it. Although that that is has positivities as well, but the Torah is not going to elevate you the way it's supposed to elevate you. It's the joy and the enthusiasm and the passion that you have in your sashem that will enable the Torah to do its job to do its work. So this is a as I say this is a little bit of a less familiar gamorra than the famous aodor but it's also something very much to consider. What is our avodus hashem? Do we approach it with joy and passion and excitement or do we look at it like a burden and like an imposition? you know it's like uh you know Monday and Thursday in Schul there's a longer a longer >> right so uh everybody and again I include myself if there's a bris or there's a and we get out of saying the long there's always a little bit of a sense of relief again I include myself you know what's going on or I remember hearing once this is actually very sweet It it it moved me a lot. Um an older woman had died and her grandson I didn't know the woman uh but the grandson gave a eulogy for his grandmother and he said one of the things Safa never understood is when she would offer us food we would often say we don't want to wash. Now the reason people say they don't want to wash is not because they have gluten intolerance or they don't want to eat bread. They don't want to wash because they don't want to bench. I mean that that's frankly frankly what it is because benching is long. So Safa used to say I don't understand why a religious Jew wouldn't want to bench. Why don't you want to say thank you to Hashem for what he's given you. But this is kind of our attitudes. We we we don't always get joy in the mitzvos that we're supposed to get. Now, of course, of course, of course, better to do mitzvah without the joy than not to do the mitzvah. Of course, that's the case. Right? One shouldn't say, "Oh, I don't get joy, so I'm not going to do it." But still, if we want the Torah to elevate us, to purify us, to make us better people, we have to have the enthusiasm that we bring uh to those to those mitzvah. Uh the Balatana brings a zohor. The zoar says the passionate feelings of love of hashem and reverence for God are wings that bring your mitzvah to shamayim. Meaning you got to do the mitzvah no matter what. But they don't soar and you don't soar without the passion and without the excitement. In fact, tell a a story that in the early years of when there was a lot of debate between the and the misnagim the bal once came into a misn uh the sh was half empty but the baltov says oh yay the shaw is so crowded with Torah and mitzvos that I can't move. So everybody in the sh thought that was a great compliment. They said, "Oh yes, yes, this is a place where we have so much Torah and mitzvah." He says, "No, I didn't mean that. I meant there's no passion. There's no so the mitzvah are on the ground. They're not carried up to shayam. So it's so crowded I can't even can't even move around." And that's malatanya brings from the zaw that these are the wings that bring the mitzvah up to heaven. So these are some things we can think about in terms of how we can build a basa mikdash of the heart and as we build a bas mikdash of the heart we will be za to have the mikdash of come down to earth. So thank you You see your mother