tisha b'av / devarim english 2013

 HAVE A HEART

Secret Recipe for Ruach Hakodesh:

“Any wise Jewish man who has in him true words of the Torah, who mourns over the belittled Honor of G-d and the Honor of the Jewish People… and deeply desires, feels sorry and troubled over the honor of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the Salvation that should hopefully happen soon, and wishes that the Jewish Nation return from Exile-  he will be worthy of having Ruach Hakodesh in his words…  ( Messilat Yesharim ch. 19, quoting a Tanna D’vei Eliyahu)

Why is a person granted Ruach Hakodesh in return for feeling deeply concerned about G-d’s Honor, the Temple and the Honor of the Jews? What is so special about crying and feeling bad about G-d’s Glory  having been so greatly diminished ?

One of the highest levels of Ruach Hakodesh was having the breastplate – , חושן משפט – אורים ותומים – on the heart.  Aharon Hakohen merited bearing the breastplate on his heart for something he did. When Moshe came from the desert and told his older brother, Aharon, the Gadol Hador of the Jews in Egypt, “I will be the leader of the Jewish People, to take them out of Egypt”, Aharon was genuinely elated. וראך ושמח בלבו  . He was not jealous or hurt. He had a much bigger heart than that. And such a heart was worthy of having on it the חושן משפט. (Shabbat 139a) The Maharsha points out that Aharon was not just happy; he was happy in his heart.  Some brothers would, in such a situation, be happy on the outside, but burn from jealousy within. Not Aharon. His natural reaction, coming from deep within, was happiness.  He was happy in his heart. Such a heart is deserving of the אורים ותומים, the Choshen Mishpat.

What difference does it make if one is happy for his brother in his heart or just on the outside, going through the mechanical expressions of joy? What difference does it make if one goes through Tish’a b’Av with his heart or without it?

If we look closely at how the Torah introduces us to building a Sanctuary (שמות כה’), we will notice an unexpected order in the verses that makes us wonder at the reasoning behind it. First, G-d saysמאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו תקחו את תרומתי  “From each man whose heart is desirous of giving shall you take my donations.” And only after that, a few pesukkim later, it says ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם   “And they shall make me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell amongst them.” It would seem to us that the Torah should first tell us what the main idea is, i.e., building a Sanctuary, and only then say how to get the funding for it! Why is the passuk of the “generous hearts” giving donations mentioned first?

The answer is that the main purpose of the Temple was not the sacrificing of korbanot.  G-d did not and does not need our korbanot. What He does want is our hearts. That is the main goal. The Temple was a place where we could express what was in the heart. Hence, the Temple is referred to as none other than הר הלבנון , Mt. of Lebanon. The root of this word is the Hebrew word  לבן , meaning white.   Lebanon – the Temple – the place where the sins of the Jews were made white – where they were transformed from “stains” to purity. On a deeper level, we find within the same word an additional  root: לב, heart. לבנון  is a lot of hearts.  And when someone would come to the Beit Hamikdash , he would get Ruach Hakodesh there. This is where Yonah received his prophecy for the people of Ninveh. This same Ruach Hakodesh was that with which, as Yirmiyahu explained to Plato, he was able to answer all Plato’s philosophical questions. Clarity in life was one of the things that one got by just entering the Beit Hamikdash, and something that we lost along with the Temple. And this Ruach Hakodesh came to the hearts of the people, because our hearts were the way they were supposed to be.

What is the way the heart is supposed to be? We see from Aharon that he was praised for his heart having had room for his brother.  Aharon was able to put his prestigious position aside for the purpose of his brother redeeming the Jewish People from Egypt. “Have a heart” means make place in your value system, your system of evaluating importance, for other people and for what they are going through. And this is what G-d wants. When we make place in our hearts for others, then our hearts are worthy of being whitened from sin. When we do not have a place for others in our hearts, שנאת חנם    , senseless hatred takes over, and by default, there is no place for a Beis Hamikdash.

How does one open the heart? With a question. The Meggilat Eicha starts off each Perek with the word Eicha – How. How did such a thing happen? The meggilah does not answer the question. Someone might ask, what difference does it make how it happened? It happened, and it is very sad. No! The whole of Eicha is a powerful question that leaves us thinking throughout the darkest parts of Galut. When someone is left with a question, the mind is always trying to come up with an answer. Until there is an answer, the heart is not at rest. Yirmiyahu wants us to open our hearts and to answer the question he asks, over and over, in Eicha.

We say in our Mussaf prayers on holidays מפני חטאינו גלינו מארצינו ונתרחקנו מעל אדמתנו Because of our sins we were exiled from our country and we have been distanced from our land. What is the repetition? In our prayers, we mention that not only are we in exile and physically distanced from our Land, we are also emotionally distanced from Eretz Yisrael. It is almost out of our hearts. The answer is perfect for our generation. We are in a cell phone generation. How do we know that someone took another person out of his mind, out of his heart and no longer cares about the guy? He deletes him from his cell phone. Jerusalem, the Beit Hamikdash, the צער השכינה  is almost deleted from our memories. The only memory we have left is in a back up. Tisha B’av. Let’s restore what is almost lost…

CHOOSING LAST WORDS

The Midrash elaborates on the name of the last book of the Torah . Devarim, from the root word Devorah, bee. . Just as a bee dies after it stings, so, too, he who delivers words of rebuke: To teach you that when someone rebukes the Jewish Nation, even rightfully so, he is immediately “removed”. Yaakov, our Forefather, knew this, and only on his last day did he rebuke his sons. All his life, Moshe Rabbeinu pondered how and when he should rebuke the Jews. Ultimately, he learnt from his forefather, Yaakov, exactly how to accomplish this sensitive task. He knew that he would have to chastise them on his very last day. The sting was to bring about his death.

Just as Moshe learnt the when from his forefather, so he learnt the how. Therefore, Moshe rebuked mostly in hints. When Moshe rebuked the people for the sin of the Calf, he only hinted to it- די זהב. The surplus money the Jews had with them from Egypt is what caused them to make the Golden Calf. Why did Moshe not get straight to the point? This was, in a way, a modeling of Forefather Yaakov. One unique aspect of the rebuke Yaakov gave his children was to refrain from making mention of the act of sin. Rather, the sin was to be referred to, and the focus was on the loss that was suffered as result of the sin. Reuven was rebuked and told that he would lose his rights as a firstborn, to kingship and to priesthood. His hastiness was the focus of the rebuke, and not his action. Shimon and Levi, as well, were not reproved for their attack on Shechem, but for their having “stolen” the sword and traits of Uncle Esav. Moshe learnt from this that the correct way to call a person to order is to do so indirectly. The cause of the sin, the loss and the result of sin, was the focus in his words rather than the sin itself. For this reason, Moshe changed the sequence of  rebuke from that of the sequence of events. First, he mentioned the sin of the Spies, and only then did he mentioned the sin of the Golden Calf. This is because the sin of the Spies had a much more onerous result and more far-reaching ramifications on the lives of the people than that of the Calf.

R’ A. L. Heiman zt”l reveals another underlying point to which many are oblivious. The Torah stresses that Moshe spoke to all of Israel. Rashi brings the Sifri, that Moshe was careful to call everyone to this gathering of rebuke. If he would rebuke only a part of the nation, the others, in the market place, would later say to those who were present, “You heard the Son of Amram chastising you, and you did not answer him?! Had we been there, we would have answered him back (Sifri: four or five times on each offense)! ” So Moshe  made sure that everyone was there, saying, “If anyone has anything to offer in his defense, let him speak up now”.

This is hard to understand. How could anyone defend himself and challenge the truth of what Moshe was saying? Was someone going to refute the sin of the Spies or the sin of the Calf? Was someone going to deny the complaints about conditions in the desert?

There is one rebuttal that can be given to Moshe: The people whom he rebuked could  simply say, If you want to reprimand anyone for the sin of the Calf or the episode of the Spies, dig up our fathers’ graves and direct your comments to them . What do we have to do with it? The truth of the matter is, no one was left! The Midrash even explains that for this reason, Moshe gave them a blessing in the middle of giving the rebuke, ה’ אלקי אבותיכם יסף עליכם ככם אלף פעמים ויברך אתכם כאשר דבר לכם  . He blessed them for listening to him and not saying that they were not guilty for the sins of their fathers. If so, if they were not the ones who sinned, then why did Moshe rebuke them? How could Moshe refute the defense of the “ones in the market place”? And, if they were also deserving of rebuke, why did he call them to order for what their parents did and not for what they did themselves?

If one were to study the history of the Jews from after the sin of the Spies until Moshe’s last day, he would find that the sons sinned the sins of the fathers. They, also, served idols (Peor), fought with Moshe about the Manna and lack of water, and even tried going back to Egypt when faced by the war of C’na’ani, King of Arad. פקד עון אבות על בנים  . Instead of Moshe mentioning their sins directly, he did so through a subtle hint. He made it as if the sins of the sons were because of the fathers who brought them up in such a fashion. As if they were not guilty.

We have a lot to learn from this. At times we look at our parents and notice their mistakes. Let us know, that these mistakes and mishaps may very well have some sort of déjà vu in our lives. And we can learn from our own weaknesses and work on them. And when we do not, we say אבל אנחנו ואבותינו חטאנו  But we and our fathers have sinned.

Moshe was so careful to pick the right words.

A CHILD CALLED NACHUM

There was a couple who loved each other dearly, but, unfortunately, had not been blessed with children. They comforted each other by saying that the day would come when they would be “ready” to be parents, and able to hold their future in their hands. They prayed together, went for blessings from great rabbis together, and went for treatments together.

The difficult waiting period dragged on year after year – for twenty years. The woman cried bitterly to her husband, and began to despair. But her loyal husband kept encouraging her – and himself. One night, he looked at her tear-stained face and suggested that they try still another series of treatments. To their utter joy – the woman became pregnant .They would often stay up late discussing what they would name their baby, if a boy or if a girl. They talked about what neighborhood would be ideal to live in and about details of good parenting that they had never before gone into. They laughed together for nine months – the best nine months of their married life.

As the woman was rolled into the delivery room, she began to feel severe pains which were unrelated to the regular birth pangs that she had been experiencing for the previous several hours. Complications were becoming more serious by the minute; the lives of both mother and baby were in jeopardy. The doctor put the hard facts on the table in the form of an ultimatum: either the mother or the baby! There was not enough time to ask a Rabbi about what Jewish Law dictates in this case, and the poor woman acted on emotion: She turned to her husband and said, “Call him Nachum, and tell him how I gave up my life for him. And make sure he says Kaddish for me with all his heart!”

The father held his son on his knees at the bris, and everyone cried bitterly when he called out the name. Every year, Nachum would celebrate his birthday on the Yahrzeit of his mother. He would say Kaddish in shul from the first time he was able. And on the day of his Bar Mitzvah, his father asked him to go visit the mother’s grave and say Kaddish fervently for the one who gave up her very life for him. To the father’s  dismay  , however, the boy said    the Kaddish nonchalantly, without a tear in his eye. The father was devastated. “Nachum,” he asked, “don’t you have any feeling for your mother who gave up her life for you?”

Nachum gazed at the floor and tried to explain himself: “But I never met her. I really don’t have any feeling for the person everyone has been telling me to cry for.”

In a certain sense, we are all Nachum.   We have difficulty mourning the Beit HaMikdash (Temple), something that we never had the privilege of experiencing. But let’s stop and think for a minute. The prophet Yermiyahu tells us that G-d poured out his wrath on “sticks and stones” – the Holy Temple – instead of destroying the Jewish People for the sins they committed (Eicha,Ch. 4). We survived only because the Temple was destroyed. To fully understand what we lost, however, we must learn about the major differences between the era of the Temple and the present. The Temple was so much more than just a mere building of sticks and stones. It was the place where all Jewish hearts connected. And it was the only place in the entire galaxy where the glory of G-d’s Presence could be experienced. Only by destroying this marvelous place was G-d able to wake us up from our spiritual slumber and sinful lives.   .