Imagine for a moment that a healthy person was told that Rachmana litzlan he was going to lose some of his senses. It would be a terrifying thought and prospect because it would mean that life as he's known it, life as he's defined it, life as he's experienced it is about to end and a very different, much more challenging type of existence awaits him. Then imagine further that a healthy person is told that once upon a time he was or he could have been endowed with many more than the five senses he actually has and the difference between what that existence would have entailed is perhaps comparable to the difference between losing the senses that he has. We all struggle every year relating to Churban Hamikdash, but perhaps what we were just describing serves as a mashal. When there was a Mikdash and ikar shechinah betachtonim and the shechinah overtly, openly resided amongst us, the connection in quotation marks that that afforded with Hakadosh Baruch Hu meant that kirvat Elokim meant that we lived, existence was different. We lived on an entirely different plane. And even without even if we don't know what that existence was, but think to that mashal, the same way a person can imagine what it is if he would be lowered from his current level of existence, how devastating that would be, the emptiness, the vacuity. So he's actually living such an existence now albeit without realizing it. And a mashal perhaps which is even closer to home, the Rambam describes that when an individual worthy of nevuah merits nevuah ואיש שתנוח עליו הרוח skipping a little bit v'yehafech l'ish acher. When there's a different connection, different level of relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's a different existence. We're living life on a different plane of existence. In the introduction to the Artscroll Kinot they recount the story of someone asked the Sfas Emes, what if a person feels no anguish and can't cry over the churban? So the Sfas Emes said then he should cry over his lowly state that he doesn't feel it. Itochen that what the Sfas Emes meant is that and in so doing he's also crying over the Churban because that lower level existence that we lead and just knowing that even without having ever tasted or experienced that real higher level of existence which should be is something that that can and should arouse mourning within us. As Rabbi Kamenetsky mentioned the Kinnos tonight are abbreviated but when we finish Kinnos tonight it's not that we're in the middle of Kinnos it's rather that there are two self-contained units of Kinnos there are Kinnos for the night of Tisha B'av and there are Kinnos for the day of Tisha B'av. How do we know that's the case? Because Kinnos conclude with tefilla and psukei nechama. So tomorrow and I don't know if I if I have the same edition if the pages will align but in the edition that I have in front of me on page 396 we'll conclude with תירחם ציון כאשר אמרת with a bakasha with a request that Hakadosh Baruch Hu have have mercy on Tzion and we quote psukei nechama אל תפצנו אוריה מטוב וניחם השם עוד את ציון but the same tefilla the same psukim we're going to say tonight as well. So it means that the aveilus the kinnos of Tisha B'av are divided into two discrete units there's the mourning of the night of Tisha B'av and then there's the mourning m o u the mourning of the day of Tisha B'av. What's perhaps special and distinct about tonight's Kinnos? The Gemara tells us in Taanis a well-known Gemara ותשא כל העדה ויתנו את קולם ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא
the night following when Meraglim came back and and delivered their slanderous demoralizing report so the Torah describes ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא that everyone cried. אמר רבה אמר רבי יוחנן אותו לילה ליל תשעה באב היה
that night in which they cried was the night of the ninth of Av. אמר להם הקדוש ברוך הוא אתם בכיתם בכיה של חינם ואני אקבע לכם בכיה לדורות אני קובע לכם בכיה לדורות
I'll give you reason to cry and a crying that will span generations upon generations. The simple pshat in the Gemara is that the bchiya ledoros is a bchiya which is imposed as a punishment a bchiya because of the ravages of galus. And that's certainly true but on a deeper level there is a yesod in teshuva. The Gemara in Bava Basra tells us how Hordos who had usurped the throne he had formerly been an eved he was an eved and then he usurped the throne he slaughtered most of the chachamim because they taught the drasha that an eved is disqualified from being a melech. When he wanted to be chozer b'teshuva he consulted Bava ben Buta one of the remaining chachamim for guidance. And Bava ben Buta told him הוא כבה וכיבה אורו של עולם ילך ויעסוק באורו של עולם
in in killing the chachamim he extinguished the light of the world. The way to do teshuva is to increase the light of the world in this case he meant by by embellishing the Beis Hamikdash. So teshuva is supposed to be ideally optimally directly coordinated with the cheit. One should rectify the same area in which the cheit happened. If the cheit happened by extinguishing oro shel olam so then the tikkun the teshuva is to increase oro shel olam the light of the world. If the chet happened by crying a bechiyah shel chinam, so then the tikun for that chet is to cry tears shel mitzvah, tears of aveilus, tears for the Beis HaMikdash. So the אני אקבע לכם בכיה לדורות, yes it's onesh, but it's also opportunity for teshuva. When we cry for the bechiyah shel doros, so that's a tikun for the chet of the bechiyah shel chinam. And that perhaps is a special dimension of tonight's kinos and tonight's aveilus. The very first kinah זכור ה' מה היה לנו, based on the fifth perek in Megillas Eichah זכור ה' מה היה לנו, remember Hashem what has befallen us. Perhaps that choice of words reflects an idea with which we're familiar from the Nefesh HaChaim, that just as in the natural physical world there's cause and effect. If a person will jump out the window, so it's not that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to intervene and punish him for being reckless. No, there's natural cause and effect in the physical world. He jumps out the window, he's going to hurt himself. So too Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the spiritual world, that chet has consequences. זכור ה' מה היה לנו, it's not that Hakadosh Baruch Hu intervened and imposed a punishment. No, it was a natural result of our chatoim ma haya lanu. It happened. We don't need to attribute it to Hakadosh Baruch Hu having to intervene. That's why Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world, that there's a natural cause and effect in the spiritual realm as well. Nachalasenu nehepcha lezarim, and with that I'll conclude nachalasenu nehepcha lezarim, again the simple pshat is our inheritance has been turned over to strangers. But lashon lehafoch, we just had it in Megillas Eichah as well, but originally in Parshas Vayeira, also means to be destroyed. When our nachalah, when our inheritance is turned over to strangers, so that represents a spiritual destruction of Eretz Yisrael, of the Makom HaMikdash.