Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: Tu B'av and The Seven Weeks of Comfort

You see your My name is Hi everybody. Thank you for coming. Uh we're as always we're praying for the protection of amI Israel, the lasting unity of ami is which will lead to victory and for all of those whose health has been affected by terror and for the of I guess we all should should add the of the United States in in fighting Iran and Hashem's protection for all of K israel and for the gula schlma rafu schlma for leaana basis is lassura mosha Ben Raelden, may they have Israel for Israel and a special dedication by Bruce by Bruce uh Bruce Rafflesen in acknowledgement of the Rav's tireless efforts on behalf of Co Israel. Thank you. Okay. Uh well uh first of all, happy 15th of Av. uh as as you know uh the Mishna says and we're going to explain this that the 15th of A uh together with Yam Kipper are the two happiest days in the Jewish calendar. So it's really a tremendous day of simp I don't know if anyone is getting married tomorrow or have friends that are getting married tomorrow but certainly 15th of A is one of the great great wedding days which is probably like L bulmer it's hard to get a hall for the 15th of A because uh everybody wants to get married that particular particular day uh and what I want to talk about largely tonight not only I have another thing I want to mention as well I want to talk about the uh why is is the 15th of A considered to be such a great day of of Sima. So we're going to digress a little bit from the para itself. Uh but first I want to go back a little bit and uh talk about the pattern of the hauros that that we have and that is uh first of all what is the origin of haftra anyway? So I have to tell you uh the big keshish I came up with when I was like seven years old but it turns out to be totally wrong. When I first like heard the word ha Torah I wasn't sure what it meant but I thought it sounded to me like half Torah. So I figured hm uh the whole Torah is when you read from the five books of Moses and when you read from the pro prophets you know it's less important. So that's the half Torah. That's what I thought. uh which I thought was a pretty good explanation, but when I got to half dollar, I didn't get what that was. What's a half dollar? Why would you call it half-dollar? So, as a result, uh I have to admit that my interpretation was an error. Uh but the word simply means to announce. For example, in the we have the line that means we don't announce after the pes the carbon pes that we can eat dessert because when you eat the carbon amen means dessert because when you eat the carbon pesak it has to be the last thing that you eat. So there's no dessert after the carbon pesak. And today since we don't have a carbon pesak yet. So the dessert is called the afi and you're not allowed to have a dessert after that. But I'm just showing that the word mafin means an announcement. Laier is to announce. So what is the idea of being an announcement? So this actually goes back to the period of the Antiocus persecutions that one of the things that uh the Greeks legislated against synagogue ritual was they didn't want us to read the Torah. They let us stabin at different times but they had guards to ensure there would be no hat. So as a result, the rabbis wanted to sneak in some reading from the Tanakh that even if we weren't Zoha to do it with creator, they enacted a prophetic reading that would be connected to the parha of the week and that was just called an announcement, a ha to Torah. So originally the ha Torah was not in addition to the Torah reading. The Haft Torah was to replace a Torah reading that we were not allowed to do. Once that custom got established, so even later after the Hmonian victory and we were able to reinstitute the Creator Torah, they kept the Ha Torah as a as a good idea. In other words, what started off as an emergency replacement for Creas Torah became a permanent feature of the Jewish liturgy. Interestingly enough, Rashian Masaka Shabas brings a custom that I think is virt is extinct today. It's simply not practiced today. And that is uh there is a Torah from the prophets that is read Shakris Shabas morning but Shabas Mina which also has a creasa Torah. They read a ha to Torah from the hill of Mish and the like and that was also a ha tora. The third ola, the third ola was a maft. Uh just like uh yam kipper, right? Yum kipper. The third ola gets ma yona. So there was a ma from the kuim. As far as I know, I'm not aware of any kahila that follows that custom and I don't know when it got abolished, but it is interesting that there are certain minhagim that simply got abolished over the years uh for various reasons. Now the idea that there is a to have a Torah and Shabas and Yum is in the Mishna. So by the time the Mishna was written in the year 200, this was already a permanent feature. But neither the Mishna nor the Gmorrah tells you what the ha Torah is. Meaning there's only a general requirement. It'd be connected to the para of the week or or the so as a result Ashkenazim have some htores have huristim have h to kabad has htores it even the of Roma Italy has different hurus because as far as kazal were concerned every community was permitted to choose its ha to as long as the hto are connected to either the para or the and Many many of us can be theoretically connected to a parat hasha and that is why there's a divergence of custom. It's not that one was right. There was some original custom and the others are breakaways. Rather there never was a standardized custom. Different were allowed to do different things. But khazal do say in mass migillah that the normal pattern of parhat shabua is interrupted in the seven weeks from after tishab which started last shabas until right before rashash shana and that is the ha toas are no longer connected to the para tashu uh they are all connected to the theme of of redemption and comfort. So the very first Torah that we literally read just uh two days after Tishab is called Shabbatu the Shabas of comfort because the Torah begins from Yeshu the prophets are told go and comfort my people and this introduces the first of seven Toras all of which come from the same Nabi all of them are Yeshu uh and these these weeks are called the Shiva either or that's a question how you pronounce it but commonly people say uh even though in the kadesh it's interesting the same word is pronounced so there's a little bit of a contradiction in how people pronounce the word but I'll go with the common pronunciation of this which is dmpta the seven htoros of comfort and that overrides the para shua. So even though the para shvua may not necessarily be dealing with comfort and redemption although last week actually it did last week uh in van is also the very laning we read on tisha which talks about the Jewish people doing chuba in their galot etc. So that actually was a theme of redemption but a lot of the parot not dealing with redemption but overrides. So the Talmud gives the following sequence and the same thing is true before tishab. The three hafts before tishov of the three weeks deal with. So the pattern is three ha of tragedy followed by seven ha toos of comfort and that takes you to rashish shana and then we have two ha to of chuva. We're not counting the rash of Tora, but there's the Shabbat Shuva and Yum Kipper. So look at the pattern. Tragedy, comfort, chuva. Tragedy, comfort, chuva. So one thing to notice that's very important is that the hurus of comfort are more than double the hurus of tragedy. It's very very important. As Hashem says, it's an important the number itself is an important message. As devastating and tragic as Jewish history has been with all of the persecutions, then the kama is going to be much much greater. And this is even seen in the fact that there are seven of us of comfort and only three of tragedy. But the question I want to raise is not just about the number. And the question I want to raise is that the pattern is not correct. If you look at last week's para, you see the standard pattern is when we sin, there is tragedy, there's galot, there's kurban, the temple gets destroyed, and then in the course of our suffering, we come back to Hashem and we do chuva and then Hashem redeems us because we've done chuva. Uh that is the what the Torah says. Uh the Rambam writes in chuva eluva. We only get redeemed with chuva. And that's also the pattern in the in the we ask Hashem to help us do chuva. Then we ask forgive us. And then we say, "Go Al Israel redeem us." So the standard pattern in the Torah, in the Gomorrah, in the Rambam, in the suffering engenders chuva. Chuva produces redemption. So why in the order of the hauros do we go from suffering to redemption comfort to chuva when in fact the chuva does not come after the redemption. The chuva is a condition for the redemption to take place. And without repeating what I said last week, but what I talked about last week is actually an answer to this. And the answer is bikur without repeating everything of last week is the following. It is true that chronologically you have to have chuva before there's redemption. So the sequence chronologically is going to be suffering, chuva, redemption. But when a person feels that God has rejected them, a person feels crushed, a person feels defeated, a person feels that Hashem hates them as a result of all of that golas, he will not have the psychological energy to be able to do chuva because they feel they are broken beyond repair. So as a result, in order to energize me to be able to do chuva, I have to feel the love of God ahead of time. I have to internalize the notion of redemption that Hashem is waiting for me. Hashem is yearning for me. Hashem loves me. Hashem wants me to come to him. And that's what the seven huras of comfort do. So yes, we're not going to have the redemption till after we do chuva, but we need to internalize the idea of redemption in order to give us the energy to be able to do chuva because no one does chuva when they feel that God hates them. You do chuva only when you have a sense that God loves you. And then you can look at your mistakes and look at your errors and try to correct what needs to be corrected. So the redemption will not take place before my chuva. But I need to understand that I am a redeemable person and therefore I can go ahead and do chuva. And that also explains another feature about the hairet that I think people sometimes misunderstand. And that is this is a difficulty anyway in in learning what are called nvaonim. You know rishonim the the first prophet prophetic books Yoshua chaftim they have a story line. So even though not not as many people learn them as they should but at least there's a story we can teach them in school. But once you get to the nim like your m and like not too much is happening. There's no story. It's a bunch of speeches either muser comfort very hard for us to understand. So if I were to ask somebody could you summarize last week's Torah in like one sentence or two sentences. So they would say, "Sure, God is comforting us and God is promising us there's going to be a redemption." Okay, good message. Then I would ask somebody, can you summarize the Torah of this week? He says, "Sure. God comforts us and God's going to bring redemption." Okay, I thought I heard that last week. Okay. And then we'll have paras and could you summarize that of Torah says yeah uh God is going to comfort us and going to bring a redemption fourth of Torah fifth of Torah sixth Torah seventh of Torah same summary so you're kind of wondering kind okay Hashem it's a great message but I I get the message why do you repeat it again and again and again and again. But so this is really the difference I think between Nak and Gomorrah. Now Gomorrah will focus legalistically why do you say this word? You could have said this word. I think in many ways that is the wrong way of learning Nak because Nak is communicating different messages. The repetition in Nak is not necessarily because new information is being conveyed, but rather when a person's spirit is crushed, they need to hear the same message again and again and again. And you can't start asking the question, well, why do you have to say it? You already said it. The heart needs that reassurance. Especially, you have to understand it this way. The prophecies were originally given orally. So it's true in a book repetition is a real problem because I read this chapter and then I read that chapter and it's the same thing. But if you if you think about the context in which these are speeches that are being given to crowds of Jews. So the Jews are hearing different speeches giving them that message of comfort. And I'll give you a maybe a personal example. Uh they say that um ch all children remember the first time that they were separated from their parents and they thought that they were they were lost. It's kind of a traumatic event. You know, you're you're in a shopping center, whatever it is, and you don't know where your mother is like for one second or whatever it is. So, it's traumatic. So, I I I actually do remember this. Uh we were at a big department store in in uh Hartford in those days. These are actually some big department stores in Hartford, Connecticut. And uh we were on the 11th floor, one of those big big stores. And I wandered off to look at the toys which were on the 11th one. My mother went somewhere else or didn't see me for a second. And all of a sudden, I look around and I don't see my mother. And I immediately got terrified. I said, "Oh, I'm an orphan. I'm abandoned. Um I'll never have a place to go again. I'll have to find a place to sleep in the toy store." Which would wouldn't be that bad. Uh but you know what am I going to do? Well, the whole thing may have lasted maybe 10 seconds. Very very short. But I started crying. I was sobbing, weeping. And my mother came, hugged me, and she said, "I love you. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay." Now, if I would be a brisker tomood analyst at the age of five, I might say, "Well, why do you have to keep saying you love me? You said it already. Why are you saying it again?" But you understand that's not the way it works. When a person feels rejected, a person who feels lost, they need the comfort of repetition. That's why I think people sometimes learn n a little bit too analytically because they're not understanding the emotional power of the message that is trying to be conveyed. Okay? Is that's something to think about in terms of the seven of Torres of of of comfort that yes, we're not going to be redeemed until we do chuva. 100% true. Although the Rambam says, Hashem promises we will do chuva before the end of days. But we need to be assured of Hashem's love before we do chuva. So as a result the seven hafturas of comfort are actually a preparation for the month of el for roshashana for yum kiper. There is a saying that nobody will ever become better unless they feel they're already good. You do chuva from your goodness. You don't do chuva from your depravity. A person who feels that they're bad is not going to do chuva because they feel what's the point. Okay. So that's a general point about the shiva. But now I want to connect this to the 15th of AF. The last mission in Mak's tinus after it talks about tishab says yim is there were not days of joy in the Jewish calendar that were greater than yum kipper and the 15th of these are the two happiest days of the year. First of all, even Yum Kipper, we have to remember that because people sometimes look at Yum Kipper, oh, I got to fast and I'm uncomfortable, etc. Yum Kipper is the happiest day of the year. And the Gomorra even says that's pushar says, ah, yum kipper, the happiest day of the year, that's obvious. I don't even have to explain that because the day that Hashem forgives our sins, what could be a day better than that? So, the Gomorrah says, "Yam kipper is not a problem. Of course, it's the happiest day of the year. But the Gmorrah asks, "What is so great about the 15th of Aav? Why is the 15th of Av such a happy day?" Uh and then the Mishna by the way explains that the 15th of A was became a day of uh marriage in which women would go out and um they men would choose their mates, choose their but again you have to understand that's not why the 15th of A in other words it's a chicken and egg thing because the 15th of A was such a happy day it became the day of shid in other words the Gmorrah does not indicate because it was the day of shidim that's why it's a happy day. So as a result if we want to know why is the 15th of a happy day we have to give reasons other than the fact that it became a marriage day of because that is a consequence of the 15th of A being a happy day. So the Gmorrah gives no fewer than six reasons why the 15th of Aav is a joyous day. The first reason goes all the way back to Mosher Rabenu in the midbar and we know after the which of course happened on the 9th of A uh over the next 38 and a half years but 40 years from Matry uh the old generation died but Rashi brings in mass tinus an interesting yushi the way the dorham midbar died and the way the dorham midbar died was nobody died before the age of 60. The gazer of the moraglin was everybody who was 20 to 60. So the people who were 20 wouldn't die until the last year where they would be 60. In other words, everybody died a uniform day. Every night above, the whole generation, even the young people, would dig their graves and they would sleep in their graves if they slept. And anyone who had reached the age of 60 that preceding year did not get up the next morning. And those who were not yet 60, even though they knew they wouldn't die that year, but they had to experience it, they would get up. So you see how it worked. Over 40 years the people from 20 to 60. Every year the people who had reached 60 died on the 9th of A. So the whole death of the dora midbore was over 40 years the nth of above. Now here is what to say. This is a bigish. This is not at all pushet but I'm just going to present this as the simplest meaning of the gumorrah. in year 40. So again, if you take a population of 600,000 people, so on the average over 40 years, 600,000 divided by 40 gives you 15,000. So if we take averages, it doesn't mean that was the exact number that died every year. The average is 15,000 people died a year on tissue birth. Now that would mean by year 40 there are very very few left of the dora midbar you're down to the last 15,000. So that tishabove that night of tishabove they dug their graves they slept in the graves they fully expected that they would die because this is the end. But lo and behold, they got up the next morning, they were alive, right? They checked the obituaries, they were alive. Now, they know they're supposed to die because they're the last part of the dora midbar. So, they figured maybe we made a mistake with the calendar and it wasn't the 9th of A, maybe it was the 8th of A. So, they kept on repeating it. the 9th, the 10th, the 11th, the 12th, the 13th, the 14th. The night of the 15th of the month, they saw a full moon. When they saw a full moon, they realized that the ninth of A had passed and God was not going to punish them. Meaning according to this, there was an amnesty of the last group. Now this is a very very difficult position because the Torah says more than once that the only people of the Dora Midbar the men at least the women actually did enter but the the only men who entered Eric Israel from the dora midbar was Yeshua and Kh according to this it's Yeshua and Kh plus another 15,000. So some of foram say well okay the 15,000 didn't die then but they died before Yoshua crossed the argent but if that's the case I'm not sure why the 15th of AB would be such a great sim a few months later anyway but okay leave that as a question but in terms of a reason the 15th of Aab is when we realized that Hashem had so to speak forgiven the sin of the dorham midbar That is Simkha number one. Simka number two refers to the daughters of Sulaf. Now the daughters of Sulaf is a drama in two acts because they actually appear in the Torah in two different stories. Story number one is their father did not have any sons. And the question would be who has the right to the father died in the desert. who has the right to inherit the father's portion of Erit Israel. Uh if there would be sons, a son is a yores. Uh but we don't know Moshe didn't know what the was if there are no sons. So the contest was between the daughters who claimed to be legitimate heirs versus the their uncles, their father's brother who said if there are no sons, it should go to the brothers. Mosher Rabenu didn't know. He asked said the if there are no sons, daughters inherit. Right? So that established the precedent that a daughter inherits when there are no sons. But then there's an act two to the story that the brothers still had another complaint. And that is okay. You're telling me that these women are going to inherit a portion in Israel which would have gone to their father. But what's going to be remember the daughters of are from the tribe of Masha. So what's going to be they're going to marry somebody let us say from the tribe of Yehuda and when they die the property will either go to their husband or it'll go to their children but their children or their husband is not of the tribe of Manasha. So that actually means Ericel is going to be divided according to the tribes. But if this woman who inherits property marries from another tribe, what's going to happen is the Yusha that belongs to this tribe is going to go to another tribe and that's not fair because you're allowing other tribes to dilute the Yushios of the tribes on a tribal level. So here too asked Hashem uh what's the answer actually said there is a taka that when a single daughter a single woman inherits property she is only allowed to marry a member of her tribe. In other words, the daughters of Sulfat who were single at the time have to marry people from shvet manasha to ensure that the arouchia does not go from shvet to shvet. And indeed the garra I'm sorry not the garsh records that the daughters of married their cousins married the children of their uncles. Hakly marrying a cousin is permitted. It's a permissible marriage. Now, contrary to the impression you might have that this is a permanent law, this is not a permanent law. And if you look at the mitzvos, 613 mitzvos, the idea of marrying within your tribe if you inherit property is not one of the 613 mitzvos. Uh it was only temporary to ensure that the original division of the land would be a perfect tribal division. But once you have that division then marriages can dilute it. So wanted there to be kind of the ideal picture for at least one minute and then it can be diluted. So if you looked at any tribal picture whether it's Manasha, Yehuda, Ephraim, Binyamin, there were different tribes that had portions in all of those lands because of the marriages of daughters who inherited property and the like. So when did this get abregated? Meaning when did it become permitted for women who inherit property to marry anyone they wanted? After Yahosua completed the conquest and the division of the land for 14 years and Khazal had a tradition that the formal abrogation of the marital restriction occurred on the 15th of a and indeed that's why it later became a shik day because this was the day in which daughters could marry anybody and that became a sim because now a Jewish woman can marry any Jew. Right? So that's the second simka of the 15th of a. The third simka of the 15th of a takes us uh to a much later time actually not not much later because uh the second simra was in Yoshua's time. This is the period of the judges and that is uh there was an awful war uh civil war between uh most of Kali Israel against the tribe of Beyamin and this is an absolutely awful story. Uh this is the story at the end of the book of Chaftim Plesh Begiva the concubine in which a man was traveling with a pilgesh and basically she was gang raped and killed. doesn't seem they murdered her intentionally, but through the abuse, uh, she died and her master, or whatever the appropriate word would be. I mean, every single action here is is is awful. He cut her up into 12 pieces. He mailed Federal Express. He mailed a piece to every tribe describing the story and said, "What are you going to do about this?" And the tribes demanded that the ruffians, the rashim that did this behavior should be extradited and tried by the nation. beyan refused to extradite. There actually was a political point here that they claimed that they have exclusive jurisdiction over aos committed in their territory and they weren't they were not going to acknowledge. In fact, this is very reminiscent without drawing I don't want to talk about pledge for this is very reminiscent of the issue that the United States faced in the civil war uh that is states rights versus national government meaning binyamin took the position that we are not a single nation we are 12 separate nations who share a common religion so yes we share a common religion religion called the Torah. But we are separate countries. There's Binyamin country. Remember, there's no king, right? There's Beyamin country. There's Isakar country. There's Zulen country. So, yeah, we all have the Torah, but you don't have the right. The national government does not have the right to prosecute, right? So, so Pleesha was fought over this issue of states rights versus national government. Uh so it's very reminiscent uh of the issue that faced people think the civil war was fought over slavery. Uh the civil war was not fought over slavery. The civil war was fought over secession because the confederate states seceded from the United States and declared their own country. Uh that forced Lincoln to act. Meaning had the south simply wanted to keep slaves. Lincoln didn't Lincoln did not like slavery. That that's that's for sure. But he would have allowed it. he would have allowed them to keep slaves with the belief that eventually it would fade away. uh only after secession did he then give the emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves but that the civil war was absolutely fought over the issue of whether a state has the right to regard itself as a separate country uh and that's what the civil war established so pleesha was the same controversy it's actually very very fascinating but what happened was although shvet binyam amazingly enough inflicted great great casualties. I mean, imagine it's one tribe against everybody. And Shvet Binyamin was initially very very successful. But eventually they were crushed. They were decimated. They almost became extinct. There was only a few hundred Binyammonite men that were left. And the rest of Kali Israel took an oath that no man shall give his daughter to a binite. And that would have resulted in the extinction of the tribe eventually. And on a cosmic mythical level, I'm sorry, not mythical, mystical level, the ashraina depends on the yudatim. And if a whole were to disappear, that would have a catastrophic effect on the connection to of hashem to am. Uh so eventually this shua was enulled and the tradition has it it was on the 15th of a. So in truth this is a second reason why the 15th of a became connected to marriage. One is the restriction of no was lifted in the days of Yeshua bin and the second idea is that shvet binyam could marry into cli. So marriage opportunities were expanded. Okay. So that's the third reason. It's the second reason connected to marriage but it is the third uh the third reason. Now the fourth reason um let me just check here uh is connected to the 10 tribes. So I'm trying to go in historical order. uh when yuram ben navat established the northern kingdom and broke away from rakavam benchma. So one of the things that benat did was he wanted to create a rival to the bas mikdash so that the Jews of the north would not go to yushlay even surreptitiously to worship at the temple. So he picked to use Hollywood terms he picked a poor visual for that and that is he established two golden calves. I mean I mean gee you know you wonder you know why would people be attracted to that? I mean isn't there a little bit of history connected to that? But Jerovat put up two golden caps that people would worship and he placed guards on the roads that if anybody wanted to go to they would be stopped. And that lasted for the several hundred years of Malus Israel that the Jews from the northern kingdom were not were not permitted to go to the basiktas although some did sneak in. The very last king of the northern kingdom, Hosa Bena. He was the king that Serv toppled. He decided to abregate that restriction and he gave people free access to go to the base of Mikdash. And again, rabbitic tradition was that that was on the 15th of A. So on the 15th of A, Hosa ben Aah abrogated the restrictions on going to the base amikdash. Now as a little aside, the Gammorrah asks the obvious question. If he did such a good thing, why was the kingdom of the north destroyed at that particular moment? Heb that should have been a merit that would have protected the kingdom. So the Garra gives a fascinating answer. He took away the guards and he gave people free access but nobody went anyway. Meaning all the years although Hashem knows of course but all the years that people didn't go to the basa mikdash they at least had the illusion of an excuse that we couldn't do it. But now that they're given the opportunity and they don't go, the sin becomes much worse. So it's still a sim. The 15th is still a simra because the opportunity was given but it also resulted in the destruction of the northern kingdom because they did not take advantage. Okay. So so far I'm trying to keep count. Uh we mentioned four reasons for the 15th of Aav. uh it was the abrogation of the last 15,000 people's death in the dora midbore in Yahosua's time uh it is when the restriction on the benos saf and similar women was lifted pleeshba shvet binyam was allowed to enter cl Israel uh the fourth reason is hosa bena uh removed the guards giving people access to the base hamikash uh And then the fifth reason takes us all the way to the destruction of the second basikdash. And that is if you remember the second basikdash was destroyed by the Romans in approximately the year 70 of the common era. It's actually between 68 and 70. There's some uncertainty but around 60 years later we have the great revolt of barba and one of the tragedies of the ninth of a 60 years after the kurban was the great great devastating massacre kuster's last stand the the barba the massacre of barba's armies and the final defeat in betar okay do not confuse that the number of casualties in betar was greater than the casualties of the basa mikdash and even religiously although losing the basikdash was of course a very great tragedy uh but in terms of Torah observance and the like most of the Roman anti-religious laws were in the aftermath of betar not the aftermath of the bdash once the Romans got the temple out of the way which they saw as a political problem uh they didn't really care if Jews were putting on fill in or keeping Shabas they they didn't really mind but Hadrien uh after crushing the Bara revolt uh was determined this is the second major revolt that Jews have done in in around you know a little more than half a century uh Hadrien was determined to crush that is when the land of Israel was renamed Palestine or Palestina which means the land of the Philistines to kind of sever the Jewish connection. Uh that is when Jerusalem itself uh got renamed Alia Capalina which made it a a temple to Jupiter and Jews were not allowed to live. All of that live in all of that was the aftermath of of um Betar. Now that one of the things that Hadrien decreed was that those who were killed in the Bear massacre would not even be buried. Their bodies would de hundreds of thousands of corpses would decompose on the ground and that would break the Jewish rebelliousness. Lo and behold, a miracle happens that the bodies did not decompose. And the bodies, according to this tradition, the bodies were kept on the ground, above the ground for three years and a week, the 15th of A. And finally, Hrien realized that he wasn't going to get anywhere with this tactic. And on the 15th of A, which was three years and a week after the Bar massacre, the Harug Bar were given burial. And the added the fourth and final in benching God is good that the bodies didn't decompose and he does good that we were given the zus of harug bet nitnu leur amazing thing so that's the fifth reason harug betar nitnu likura So you see every how many each period has this uniqueness. The first simka is the period of Mosher Rabenu. The second simka is the period of Yeshua bin. The third is the period of the chaim. The fourth is the end of the 10th of the 10 tribes a fifth is the which is really the time of the first temple. Uh the fifth is the the aftermath of the bay sheni harug bet. Now the sixth is referring to an annual ritual that one of the things that the basikdash always needed is the basa mikdash needed a steady supply of wood. Wood was needed for all the carbanos. They had to have wood all the time. And certainly during these uh centuries or during the decades of the Roman occupation, much forest was devastated. And as a result, there was not never a guarantee that we would have enough wood to meet the corbanos. So families certain families uh kind of had the cavote that they would supply wood at designated times of the year. And there's a whole schedule that this family did it for this period of time and this family did it for this period of time. And it mentions that the 15th of Af was when it was determined that there was enough wood for the coming year. Meaning to say they would store up the wood through the year. Meaning they were using last year's wood for this year, this year's wood for next year. And all wood cutting was stopped at the 15th of A. Uh and that became a great sima because it was kind of a celebration that God has given us the resources that we need for the coming year. Now, the reason it stopped is because it is said, I hope it'll be the case because it's been a a hot summer that uh the summer gets a little cooler after the 15th of A and therefore the wood has more moisture and therefore it warps and may be warming. So, the optimal wood is cut in the summer month in the summer period between Shivuos and the 15th of A. So it became a great celebration because the wood cutting for the coming year was completed on the 15th of A. So we have no fewer than six reasons why the 15th of A became a very very festive festive day. The Gomorrah, by the way, makes another observation that, and again, I'm not sure if it fits the the the secular calendar as we know it, but it says the 15th of A was supposed to be the longest day. And after that time, the solstice, although again, I don't I don't know if it fits the calendar as we see it today. And therefore from that time on the nights get imp in very small increments the nights get a little bit longer. So some say there's a great simka you have more time to learn. Meaning to say assuming you're working during the day and you're learning at night after the 15th of a there's an extra minute to the night and that's a simka because you have a little more time to learn than you had before. that notion that even an extra minute of learning is something to treasure to celebrate and the like. Okay. So now what I want to do is this. I I want to draw a comparison like a chart. Um actually a powerpoint would be very good for this. uh we have six simas connected to the 15th of A and you can actually connect them quite nicely to five tragedies of the ninth of a itself although it's a five and a six but you'll see how two of them can count as one. Let's go back to the foundational Mishna that says there are five tragedies that happens on the fifth on the ninth above. So what are the five tragedies? First tragedy is as a result of the moraglin. The ninth of Aav is when Hashem decreed that the dora midbar would die. That's tragedy one. Tragedy two is the destruction of the first basikdash. Tragedy three is the destruction of the second basa mikdash. Tragedy four 60 years later is the massacre of betar. And tragedy five which is also a consequence of the massacre of betar is Hadrien plowed Jerusalem in salt to destroy its fertility. These are said to be the five tragedies of the ninth of a obviously in later history other things happened as well but these are the five that the Mishna enumerate. What's interesting is you can actually draw a correlation between the five tragedies of the ninth of a and the six. Okay, you'll see the six mut of the 15th of A. Some of these are going to be fairly obvious. The first tragedy of the ninth of Aav is the gazer and the dhan midward that they're going to die. The first simka of the 15th of is God enoling that gazer for the last 15,000 of year 40. Now the second tragedy of the ninth of a was the destruction of the first basik. No say that the first basik was destroyed because of the three cardinal aos of a zara gilim. But if you look at the nim the main aa was a zora. So the basine is a tragedy of a zora right a tragedy of idolatry. But there is a sima again this not the same chronological order. There is a simka in the 15th of a that we were liberated at least partially from bya bena removing the guards allowing us to go to the ba mikt. Now of course that was before the but in a spiritual sense you see that we were liberated from idolatry by hosa bena letting us go to the ba mikdash right so the 15th of in a spiritual way undos the aodora of the bias rein the bay sheni kazal say the main aa of the bay sheni was hatred. Is when Jews look at other Jews and say I don't want to be connected to you. This is where you get to. So two of the 15th of a are about fostering connectivity enabling connection. One is the daughters the restriction on the daughters of Slav was lifted so they could marry anybody and two is bin was readmitted. So that's where you get the two. So therefore the tragedy of the bayeni which was got amilarated. Now again chronologically this is not true because the bay sheni was after this but in a spiritual cosmic sense the tragedy was sweetened by the connectivity of binyamin joining cli Israel and a woman inheriting property being allowed to marry the fourth tragedy of tishabove I'm uh yeah the fourth tragedy of Tishab was the massacre of Betar. But on the 15th above, the Harug Ber were given a burial. There you do have a direct connection. The fifth was Hadrien destroying the fertility of Jerusalem by plowing the city with salt. But that's counterbalanced by the gift that God gave us that in spite of all of that every 15th of A we were able to get the wood that we needed to be able to uh serve the BA mikdash and that wood was a renewable resource that God gave us every year. So what you see here is that the five tragedies of the ninth of a find in a spiritual level their mitigation, their amelioration, their minimization in this of the 15th above. It's a very nice correlation of the five tragedies and the six mut and that's because the two marriage related reasons are counted as one counteracting the of the second temple. What's the point? What's the lesson of the correlation? We know that there's an old custom. It's not a but it's a very widely practiced custom. When a person sits Shiva on the morning of the seventh day because the last day of Shiva is not observed the whole day just a little bit of mourning in the in in the morning and then the ael gets up after chakras. Let's say if they're having a minion in the house after chakras, we literally say this language. The ael gets up from Shiva and the custom is he or she takes a walk around the block. Again, it's not a but it's a very very widely practiced custom and in many many ways it's a very meaningful custom because what it basically means is the ael is now rejoining life and although they don't forget their grief their grief can remain with them maybe all of their lives but they compartmentalize it instead of being a grief that's so overwhelming that a person cannot go You got to get up from Shiva. Interestingly enough, the 15th of A is the seventh day from tishabuff. It represents getting up from Shiva. It represents getting up. Meaning, yes, we grieve. We're broken. We're heartbroken. We have to think about the bas mikdash all the time and pray and do whatever we can to rebuild it but we also have to live. Hashem does not want us to be in tishabove the whole year again. part of us. Yeah. I mean there's something in our heart that we have to have all the time. And therefore the 50 the 15th of A represents the idea that all of the suffering of tishab can be partially reversed or reduced or mitigated by the simas because the 15th of a is getting up from Shiva. Okay. One cannot allow their grief to paralyze them. One has to use grief to the extent that it exists as a catalyst for virtuous action and constructive activity and not to be so broken that they cannot go on. Now in truth although um the whole tenor of of what I'm saying is the 15th of AB is getting up from Shiva in truth getting up from Shiva is an aspect even of tishabove itself. You know, we recited Kenos and Kenos is uh a very difficult liturgy, difficult to translate, difficult to understand, sometimes difficult to connect to. It's become a very difficult situation. But kinos are generally said, excuse me, sitting on the ground or sitting on a low bench unless you have back pain where you stand up. But but ideally, kinos are to be said sitting down. But there's only one exception. The actually it's not the last kina but the next of the last kina in some monogamus the last kina is the kina that is sung by the congregation. It's sung to a tune ela I by the way people mistransate that a lot. I hear sometimes people say kaye, they think Ellie is God's name, my God. That's not true. Ellie is a verb that simply means lamenting. So Ellie V simply means I lament Zion and the city. So you say Ellie, you don't say Kaye. Okay? But be it as it may, it's a lament that the whole congregation sings and we stand up when we say it. So Rev Salvich has a very beautiful explanation. The kinos are over and it's time to get up. We're getting up from Shiva. Even antish is kind of getting up from Shiva. But we have to know that even when we get up with from Shiva, we don't forget the basis. You don't kind of say, "Oh, okay. Now I'm I'm back to normal." You have to lament even when you get up from Shiva. So there are two messages here. One is don't let your grief paralyze you. You got to get up. But at the same time, don't let your getting up desensitize you to not having the bas. This is the kina that I take with me when I get up from Shiva. So there are two lessons. I got to get up from Shiva but I still have to have that grief and that yearning that is within me and that is the genius of el. Now I want to make one other observation about that p because it really is an extraordinarily beautiful p. Part of it might be because I have a certain childhood picture. Raosha Feinstein used to come when I was growing up. He used to come to uh Hartford, Connecticut for two weeks in the summer. He had a relative there. The joke that we used to say was um he wanted to go to the one place in the world where nobody would ask him any shilas. Okay. That uh uh and on tishabove he was honored. He he would say elite v. So I so in my my mind's uh ear and eye I was I was I was looking I was maybe 9 years old but I remember of Mosha Feinstein with that tune of Elition and you could hear in his singing voice you can hear the 2,000 years of galos and suffering of Israel and the words are extraordinarily beautiful and the tune is beautiful and if you have the memory of Feinstein that certainly has to it but even without that it's a very very powerful kina but it uses two metaphors it says I lament Cion and the cities like a woman in the pain of labor and like a young bride who mourns the death of her husband in his youth. Now look at the genius of the two Michalim that are given here. Meaning it's describing the pain and the suffering of woman in labor and a widow. Now yes they're suffering and they're suffering but these are very very different types of problems. The woman in labor is going through, she might be going through excruciating pain, but it's a pain that in the normal course results in new life in rebirth and that can sustain a person because they could see a light at the end of the tunnel. The pain of a widow is unfortunately cannot be removed that way. I mean there's amaz at some point but but generally speaking in this world the loss is not going to come back. So what the poet is trying to say is the following. We think we're a widow who has lost our husbands. We think God has gone. God has left. God's not coming back. In reality, the pain that we're suffering is the pain of a woman in labor, which is a precursor to new life. So, it's kind of basically saying we should lament Zion like a woman in labor instead of making the mistake that we are a widow. And that's why in the beginning of a which is Yumo's book, Aka is the first kina. In fact, uh Khazal's name for Aka is safer kinos which actually is an exact Hebrew for the book of lamentations. So the English name is exactly right because the rabbitic name for migillate is seafair hakot which means the book of lamentations. They got it right. Sometimes the the English terms are actually more accurate than the popular Hebrew terms. Safer devar is the same thing. Safer devarm is what we call the fifth the fifth khish. But the English or the Greek actually dutami means the second law. What did kazal call the book of dvarim? Mishna Torah, the second Torah because it's a repetition of the Torah. So sometimes those titles are actually more in accordance with kazam. Uh but be it as it may in the very first lamentation what does Yo say the great city of Yalim is like a widow bereft but Kazal have a it doesn't say she is a widow she's like a widow but not really a widow the husband's not coming back here Hashem is father coming back. So don't allow the mindset of Amana to take away your hope. And that's why elit switches the metaphor from Basula who loses her husband to a woman that's in the pain of of labor. So thank you and again uh may all of us experience the simra of the 15th of of a My birthday sh my