If we were asked to characterize Tisha B'Av, if we were sort of asked what our association with Tisha B'Av is, if the answer will be candid and uncensored, kamedumeh that for many of us, the answer would be that it's a difficult day. It's a long summer taanis. The various restrictions weigh on us. It's a difficult day. In truth, Tisha B'Av is a very great and central day in avodas Hashem. There's a symmetry pointed out in Sifrei Chasidus. It's a recurring theme in Sifrei Chasidus, the symmetry between the twenty-two days beginning Rosh Hashanah and culminating in Shemini Atzeret in Chodesh Tishrei with the twenty-two days—this year with the nidchei it's twenty-three—but with the twenty-two days beginning Shiva Asar B'Tammuz and culminating in Tisha B'Av. My brother Hashem yikom damo would point out that the truth is that this symmetry was pointed out before the Sifrei Chasidus, the Maharsha in Masechet Bechoros calls attention to it. And clearly, the symmetry is very suggestive. Shemini Atzeret is the culmination of a month of malchuyos. It culminates in the atah hareisa lada'at. And the very fact that Tisha B'Av stands parallel to Shemini Atzeret attests to the greatness within the day. When the navi says that l'asid lavo, tzom harvi'i, tzom hachamishi, צום החמישי חודש אב will be l'sasson ul'simcha, it's not that there will be some new koach, some new potency infused in the day. That koach is there. How it will express itself, how it will manifest itself will be transformed, but the intrinsic and inherent quality of the day is already present. Kara alai moed is the source for why we don't say tachanun. So let's try בעזרת השם בלי נדר just briefly to try to frame the kinos to understand a little bit what the avodah of Tisha B'Av is, what the avodah of the aveilus yeshana of Tisha B'Av is. The Gemara in Shabbos famously, בשעה שמכניסין אדם לדין, one of the questions which we're asked is tzipisa l'yeshuah. The Rambam also, both in Hilchos Melachim as well as in the Peirush Hamishnayos in the Hakdamah to Perek Chelek when he enumerates the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim speaks not only about מי שאינו מאמין בו in Hilchos Melachim, or מי שאינו מחכה לביאתו. In the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim the Rambam writes as part of the ikkar to daven for yemos hamashiach. The idiom to be mechakeh l'viyaso is of course from the pasuk in Chavakuk, אם יתמהמה חכה לו. The other ikkarim... The twelfth of the of the thirteen Ikarim, that of Moshiach, asks not only for faith, but tzipiyah l'yeshuah. It's not enough that that we wholeheartedly b'lev vanefesh believe that the Melech HaMoshiach will come, that there will be a yemos hamoshiach, but we have to be longing for that day. We have to be awaiting that day. We have to be eagerly awaiting, looking forward, pining for that day. Now a person can only long for something if he experiences a sense of incompleteness. If something is missing, so then we long for the hashlama. We long for that to be filled in, for that to be restored. If life is good on all fronts, so there isn't really reason or cause for a person to be longing for some transformative event. There isn't reason or cause for a person to be longing for, again, even within the Rambam scheme of אין בין עולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכויות בלבד,
but there isn't reason for a person to be longing for a different type of life, a different type of existence, a different focus. As long as we're entirely content and completely happy, so there isn't really room in our minds or hearts for tzipiyah l'yeshuah. There's room for emunah in bias hamoshiach, but the עם כל זה אחכה לו, there's no room for. Tisha B'Av paves the way, Tisha B'Av allows for tzipiyah l'yeshuah. The avodah of Tisha B'Av is to recognize, to feel, and and hopefully even mourn for that which is missing. To recognize, to understand, to mourn for that which is missing. And Tisha B'Av is such a great and central day in avodas Hashem because only if we can observe Tisha B'Av can we really have tzipiyah l'yeshuah. משל למה הדבר דומה. Take anything that that we consider a disability. And imagine a colony of people, self-contained, isolated from the rest of the world, no exposure, no interaction with the rest of the world, and they all share that disability. They all have that disability in common. They don't recognize it as a disability. We don't, I don't, maybe there's a perspective according to which having only five senses and not six senses is a disability, but even if that perspective exists, it's not our vantage point and and we certainly don't. But even if that perspective exists, it's not our vantage point, and we certainly don't experience it as such. Tisha B'Av is designed to afford us that perspective, to give us that vantage point of what is missing in the world, in each of our lives. Now, on the one hand, the defining event of Tisha B'Av is Churban HaBayis. That is the center of gravity, that accounts for the timing of Tisha B'Av. But when you think about it, there's something which is not clear here. Unquestionably, we don't begin to appreciate what the loss of Avoda means. But even with that, is that really, does that encapsulate what Tisha B'Av is, what we're mourning for? The loss of Avoda? We do have halachically vicarious substitutes, Uneshalmah Parim Sefaseinu. Zos Toras HaOlah, a person learns the halachos, is מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו הקריב. But much more to the point, the Rambam paskens, Amar Rabbi Yehoshua, מקריבין אף על פי שאין בית. Kedusha Rishona of David and Shlomo, which invested the Makom HaMikdash with kedusha, was L'sha'asah V'la'asid Lavo. And the physical structure of the Beis HaMikdash is not necessary to do Avoda. מקריבין אף על פי שאין בית. If we could figure out the precise place of the mizbe'ach and we could establish, we could clear the bar of establishing yichus of kohanim in order to do Avoda, so we could have Avoda even though there's no Mikdash. So Churban HaBayis technically didn't and doesn't really preclude Avoda. So that only reinforces the sense, the question that is that really what the focus of aveilus of Tisha B'Av is? As you know, at the end of the 19th century, there was this move to try to restart the Avoda. And it certainly, if one could ever clear all the technical obstacles, so les man d'palig that certainly according to the Rambam's psak, that it's certainly theoretically possible. Again, the consensus amongst Gedolei Yisrael is that it wasn't and isn't practically possible, but theoretically it is. Without rebuilding the without the באש אתה עתיד לבנותה. Without the rebuilding the structure of the Mikdash. So Kedushas Mikdash is still there. V'hashimosi Es Mikdashechem, אף על פי ששוממין בקדושתן הן עומדים. And the possibility of Avoda is still there, מקריבין אף על פי שאין בית. So what and yet Churban HaBayis is the defining event, is the kovei'a of aveilus of Tisha B'Av. What Churban Habayis, what Churban Habayis brought about, what Churban Habayis triggered, fundamentally, technically, okay, so there became all kinds of technical issues in avodah, but fundamentally what Churban Habayis triggered is that whereas כל זמן דבית המקדש stood, HaKadosh Baruch Hu's presence in the world was something which was vividly felt, as it were, almost something palpable, something visible. Ikar Shechina was batachtonim. It was felt. Existence was a God-filled existence in terms of our experience of existence, not just in some deep, hidden, ultimate sense, but in terms of how we experienced life. At the moment tavu va'aretz she'areha, what, when the, when the physical Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, that presence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu became almost infinitely more difficult to recognize, to realize, to see, to feel, to experience. Aveilus of Tisha B'Av is aveilus for a world that was a four-dimensional world, which largely we now experience as a three-dimensional world. The same way when the Beis HaMikdash stood, there was this physical representation, this physical marker, presence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu was felt and it's something that filled life. Imagine the difference between a statue and a person. You can have a statue that's very real to life. The artist who creates a statue, if he's gifted enough, so from a distance you won't even be able to tell the difference whether or not it's a statue or whether it's a person. Outwardly things are the same, but obviously inwardly the difference between whether there's a ruach chayim or not makes all the difference. We go through life but without realizing it, we go through life in a hollow existence. The world we live in, which used to be on a level that was accessible to us, suffused where with HaKadosh Baruch Hu's presence, now that presence, it's still here obviously, otherwise there can't be a world, there can't be existence, but it's very hidden from us and in large measure off-limits. This understanding that the Beis HaMikdash represents not not only avodah but a type of existence for the world explains something that we'll see repeatedly in the kinos which my grandfather zecher l'vracha famously explained and made the world aware of. All tragedies are commemorated and mourned on Tisha B'Av. In one of the kinos about the Crusades, there's a line where the paytan actually says that it has to be that way. When Menachem Begin was elected Prime Minister, so before he took office, he came, he came to New York and in addition to all his political meetings, he also made it his business to go meet the gedolei Yisroel. So when he met with the Rav, he asked him what he thought about Yom HaShoah. And the Rav told him, he called attention to that line in the kinos and to the Rashi in Divrei HaYamim that there's only one day of national mourning on the Jewish calendar and that's Tisha B'Av. So clearly on one level we're not looking to proliferate aveilus, but on another level the point is that once we understand that Tisha B'Av is about the absence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then we realize that all the tragedies are interconnected. It's not, it's not a question of the other tragedies sort of piggybacking on the day of aveilus of Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av is a day of mourning the emptiness, the vacuum, the impoverished three-dimensional world that we think of as reality. That's the same root in terms of the aveilus for the Crusades, Chmielnicki massacres, and the Holocaust. That's why in the, already in Megillas Eichah and it then echoes in the kinos, we call attention to the fact that with churban habayis there was a cessation of nevuah. With churban habayis there was a tremendous diminution of Torah because what the Beis HaMikdash was, what the Beis HaMikdash literally stood for, was the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world which manifests itself not only through the avodas hamikdash but manifests itself through Torah, through nevuah in so many ways. Sheyibaneh Beis HaMikdash as the mishna says in Avos, vesein chelkenu besorasacha to have a real understanding of Torah, so one needs the Mikdash for that. As long as Hakadosh Baruch Hu's presence is so hidden and in large measure off-limits to us, the Torah we have is also as extraordinary as it is, is also just a shadow of what can be and what will be. Tisha B'Av we try to understand the difference between a statue, a statuesque existence, and the person with a ruach chayim. The difference between a three-dimensional physical world and a four-dimensional world which is suffused with a palpable, as it were, kedusha. visible presence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. When a person mourns for the absence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu in our lives, the ultimate degradation of Kvos Shamayim is when this apathy, that's the ultimate degradation is when this apathy. When a person recognizes, mourns for the hollowness of existence, for the absence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for the absence of Kvos Shamayim, he positions himself to be metzappeh lishu'ah as well. We'll be'ezrat Hashem announce each of the kinos by number before we say it. We're beginning with the opening kinah, Kinah Vav. Each of the the kinos im yirtzeh Hashem be'ezrat Hashem will be introduced with a few divrei hakdamah. In Kinah Vav, as so many of the opening kinos are from Elazar HaKalir, take a look in the second stanza. עשה וניחם ויקרא לבכי ונאם על אלה אני בוכיה. Kavyachol, we depict HaKadosh Baruch Hu: on the one hand, He effected the churban, asah, and yet venicham, either subsequently, kavyachol, or maybe even simultaneously, kavyachol, He regretted what He was doing and called for, designated it as reason for bechi. The commentaries on the kinos refer to the Midrash in Eichah Rabbasi. Ba'osah sha'ah after the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed היה הקדוש ברוך הוא בוכה ואומר אוי לי מה עשיתי השריתי שכינתי למטה בשביל ישראל ועכשיו שחטאו חזרתי למקומי הראשון חס ושלום שהייתי שחוק לגויים ולעג לבריות.
So the Midrash depicts anthropomorphically, kavyachol, HaKadosh Baruch Hu crying with a sense of remorse. What does it mean? What is that anthropomorphism conveying? HaKadosh Baruch Hu is only good. Goodness creates. Goodness is mamtzi um'chayeh. Goodness is not meimis um'achriv. But משל למה הדבר דומה, sometimes you have a fruit, let's say you see the fruit is beginning to rot. So to prevent the rot from spreading, you'll cut that away. Sometimes a surgeon has to remove a growth, rachmana litzlan, gangrene. It's clearly, clearly totally consistent with the tov, and yet it obviously goes against the grain. Kavyachol, we forced HaKadosh Baruch Hu's hand. We forced HaKadosh Baruch Hu's hand that the tov sometimes is manifest through a midat hadin as per those meshalim. V'ne'um, Elazar HaKalir refers to the phrase in Eichah, על אלה אני בוכיה. But he refers to it in a remarkable way. In the pshuto shel mikra על אלה אני בוכיה is either Yirmiyahu Hanavi or Knesses Yisrael. And here clearly as the Midrash as well Elazar Hakalir relates it to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, kaviyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu again cries for the churban as well that the tov has to manifest itself through a middas hadin is not plan A, as it were. Following the Eichah one of the recurring themes here, it's in the end of the fourth stanza of the Kinah, is Tzidduk Hadin, tzaddik Hu Hashem. And aveilus which is framed by Tzidduk Hadin is a different aveilus than otherwise would be. And aveilus without Tzidduk Hadin there's sorrow, there's grief. Aveilus with Tzidduk Hadin there's sorrow, there's grief, but there's also teshuvah, which is why in halachah aveilus is always identified with teshuvah. Tzaddik Hu Hashem recognizing that ultimately everything that happened and happens we're responsible for, we trigger, converts, elevates an ordinary aveilus into an aveilus of teshuvah. Continue with Kinah Tes, Kinah number nine. The literary structure of the Kinah: the first word of each stanza from Megillas Eichah and the last phrase of each stanza from Parshas Bechukosai. What Rabbi Elazar Hakalir is thereby conveying is that the churban habayis was a fulfillment of the tochachah. Ramban explains that the two tochachos, Parshas Bechukosai and Parshas Ki Savo, correspond to the two churbanos, the two galuyos of Golus Bavel, Golus Romi, Churban Bayis Rishon, Churban Bayis Sheini, and here too Rabbi Elazar Hakalir by juxtaposing the contrast between the Eichah, what Eichah bewails with what the tochachah foretells, indicates that the churban was a fulfillment of the tochachah. Of the two refrains, the first one, למה תריבו אלי כולכם חזקו עלי דבריכם ידכם הייתה זאת לכם.
Why do you quarrel with me? You're responsible for your own fate. The Nefesh Hachayim, Reb Chaim Volozhiner, explains that Yirmiyahu Hanavi already emphasizes this point. מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב, so according to Nefesh Hachayim what it means is like this, משל למה הדבר דומה. If we release a lot of pollution into the air, so it's not divine intervention as a punishment that we're left with a world with an atmosphere which is polluted. Rather Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world with basic natural laws. natural physical laws and then accordingly this cause and effect. If a person steps out on a ledge and jumps out of a window, it's not an act of divine intervention to punish him for that brazenness that he gets hurt or Rachmana litzlan even killed. It's just a natural cause and effect. Chaim Volozhin explains that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world and that the physical natural world mirrors and therefore gives us insight into the spiritual world and the spiritual world is also natural cause and effect. מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב it's not from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's like Rabbi Elazar Hakalir says here: מידכם היתה זאת לכם. This awareness that מידכם היתה זאת לכם on the one hand imposes a tremendous sense of responsibility. We're responsible for the problems in the world. There's no way of shifting or deflecting blame. But it's also tremendously empowering. If we're responsible for the state of churban, the same principle of מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות is also vehatov. It also means that we're in a position to reverse things. We're in a position to change things. You know, when we speak about מידכם היתה זאת לכם, how we're responsible, so there's an extraordinary comment quoted, I don't know if it's in print also but quoted בשם רב אהרן קוטלר. Rav Aharon Kotler said that when we think of sort of all the cheit that exists in the world, so what do we think about? We think about mechalelei Shabbat and we think about all the secularism. And Rav Aharon Kotler said, you know, ruba deruba Rachmana litzlan of mechalelei Shabbat, ruba deruba deruba don't know any better. Ruba deruba, the overwhelming majority of mechalelei Shabbat never received any chinuch and they don't know any better. He says, but when we Bnei Torah do something wrong, that limud zechut doesn't exist. And when we're looking for the most powerful causes of מידכם היתה זאת לכם, Rav Aharon Kotler says we shouldn't look to the fringes. We should look in the mirror. In the pe stanza, again it goes according to the stanzas follow the order of the aleph-bet, in the pe stanza Rabbi Elazar Hakalir writes: פצו זדים לפני מי תחוללי. The wicked ones said, they open their mouths and they said: Lifnei mi techalele? Before whom are you davenning? עם כבד עון פקד ויילה. No, a nation who was so weighed down with iniquity Hakadosh Baruch Hu punished and he got tired of you. He's not interested in you anymore. Ne'elasti, he's rejected you. This of course throughout the millennia was the heresy propagated by Christianity against Knesset Yisrael that הקדוש ברוך הוא רחמנא לצלן had spurned us. Which is why the fact that galut allows and churban allows for that heretical distortion, that's why the galut and the churban is such a chillul Hashem. Eicha... we continue with Kinah Yud-Beit. The structure of the Kinah: the first two lines of each stanza describe how the entire bria is oriented to the Mikdash, how the Mikdash is so sublimely sacred, and each stanza then concludes with a question: How, given that, given that the Mikdash is the tachlis of the bria, how, why was it destroyed? What does it mean to stand before Hakadosh Baruch Hu and to say why? So perhaps the intent and the meaning of the why is not a confrontational challenge, but rather we find Moshe Rabbeinu after the Cheit Ha'egel, למה ה' יחרה אפך בעמך, למה יאמרו מצרים לאמר. Clearly, in context, the lama is a tzurah of tfillah. It's a tfillah which appeals to the fact that if the onesh is to be administered, it will create a Chillul Hashem. And lama, how can that be countenanced? Lama yomru Mitzrayim, למה ה' יחרה אפך בעמך. And it's yitachen that that's when Yirmiyahu HaNavi says למה לנצח תשכחנו תעזבנו לאורך ימים and following in that vein, the Paytan, each stanza concluding with a lama, it's not a challenge, but rather a tzurah of tfillah the way Moshe Rabbeinu intended it with Lama yomru Mitzrayim, למה יחרה ה' אפך בעמך. We refer again, following the pasuk in Eicha of lama lanetzach. Obviously, we don't literally mean lanetzach, it's not for all eternity, but it means it seems to us as though it were an eternity. That's why the Paytan concludes after throughout the piyut of speaking of lanetzach, he concludes זאת אהלל כי פקד בחבלו ורפואתי בטוחה כי רגע באפו,
my healing is guaranteed because Hashem's anger only endures for a moment. So clearly the lanetzach means what we experience as an eternity. When a person Rachmana litzlan suffers acute pain, so the moment the moments he has that acute pain seems like an eternity. In halacha, sometimes we're supposed to describe things not from the absolute objective vantage point but rather from the human subjective vantage point. חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה. Whatever Hakadosh Baruch Hu does is letovah, and yet the matbei'a habracha differs. For tovah a person makes a bracha hatov vehametiv, for ra'ah a person makes a bracha dayan ha'emes. Ay, but they're both tovah? Yes, in an absolute objective sense, they're equally tovah, but on the human level, they're very different. On the human level, what we experience is tovah and what we experience is ra'ah. And bracha and here too, tfillah is supposed to reflect and incorporate that human experiential vantage point as well. And that's what Yirmiyahu HaNavi and that's what Rabbi Elazar Kalir in Yirmiyahu's footsteps speaks of lanetzach. In the third stanza of the... of the kinah, ohali, and the בית המקדש אשר פצתה that you spoke l'ma'ano for its sake latzir to the messenger, to Moshe Rabbeinu, ואתה עמוד עמדי פה. The goal of Sefer Shmot subsequent to Matan Torah, says Rabbeinu Elazar Hakallir, was that the Shvias HaMikdash. Moshe Rabbeinu was instructed not to leave after Matan Torah, ואתה עמוד עמדי פה, and for what purpose? To give Moshe Rabbeinu the tzivui on the Mishkan, the first iteration of the Mikdash. The idea being that of the Ramban al HaTorah that Mikdash perpetuated the hashra'as ha'shchinah that existed on Har Sinai. אהלי אשר נטעת לבדך. We continue with the kinah seventeen. Elazar Hakallir catalogs the horrors of death and destruction, dehumanizing horrors, unspeakable horrors. Adam is created btzelem Elokim and in particular and above that, kol Yisrael, בנים אתם לה' אלהיכם. When we suffer a dehumanizing fate, when we are dehumanized because we are בנים אתם לה' אלהיכם, there is a chilul Hashem. It reflects, the Nefesh HaChaim explains, chilul Hashem is milashon chalal, a vacuum. It reflects a world bereft of godliness, a world of churban. The kinah concludes ורוח הקודש למובן מרים. Ruach Hakodesh counters all our bewailing and thunders הוי על כל שכני הרעים. Mashe hikram modi'im, what happened to them they publicize, however v'ais asher asu, what they did which triggered all this, lo modi'im. That they don't speak of. אם תאכלנה נשים פרין משמיעים, the horrible, indescribable vision of women eating the fruit of their womb, that they do publicize. However, the slaughter of Zecharya HaNavi in the Beis Hamikdash, אם יהרג במקדש ה' כהן ונביא לא משמיעים. In addition to the simple pshat here that cheit is the goreim of the ידכם היתה זאת לכם, yitachen that there's a deeper meaning here as well. Ruach Hakodesh responds, you're describing the dehumanizing effects of churban, אם תאכלנה נשים פרין משמיעים, but the real dehumanization is when we stoop to evil, when we become depraved. That's the real act of dehumanization. When we do that to ourselves, when we become so evil, we dehumanize ourselves and then mimaila. mimaila, the consequence to that is if we don't act as humans, we're not treated as humans. אם יהיה במקדש השם כהן ונביא, that's not human behavior, certainly not Jewish behavior. So if as subjects we don't act in a certain way, we have no right to expect that as objects to be treated that way. In this last stanza, so we have the phrase על כל שכני הרעים. הוי על כל שכני הרעים, woe unto all my wicked neighbors. The phrase, as the commentaries on the kinot point out, shchenai hara-im comes from Yirmiyahu HaNavi from Sefer Yirmiyahu. In Sefer Yirmiyahu in context, shchenai hara-im refers to Mitzrayim, Amon, Moav, doesn't refer to Knesses Yisrael. Here in the kinot, it refers to us. So yitachen when we have kirvat Elokim, when we're davuk b'Hashem, so then k'viyachol Hashem's shchenim are the other nations, are Mitzrayim, Amon, Moav. But when we distance ourselves from Hashem, we're no longer His bnei bayis, we distance ourselves from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, so then we become the shchenim. We're no longer the bnei bayis, we're the shchenim, and then that phrase of shchenai, which involves separations, right? Fences make good neighbors, separation, that phrase which implies separation is no longer used only for the umos ha-olam, but is used even for us, הוי על כל שכני הרעים. In the Ayin stanza, again here too the kinah follows the seder Aleph-Beis, if you take a look at the Ayin stanza, אם תיאסף על דם נקי שמונים אלף כהנים משוחים עלי לי.
If it could happen that 80,000 anointed priests were beheaded over the innocent blood of Zecharya, alas unto me. The paytan, Rabbi Elazar HaKalir, l'chora is employing the terminology of Egla Arufa in a very strict sense. That just as the Egla Arufa is לכפר על דם נקי, the Egla Arufa comes to atone for a murder, so what happened was a bechina of Egla Arufa in Tei-Asfa, it was a bechina of Egla Arufa that all this blood was shed as a kapara for what had, for the murder of Zecharya. We continue with the next kinah, kinah Yud-Tes. Here too the kinah is built around a series of unbearably painful contrasts. At the dawn of our history HaKadosh Baruch Hu promises Yaakov Avinu heitev eitiv imach, sof sof, and Moshe Rabbeinu v'niflinu ani v'amcha, and yet what we endure presently is בני בליעל חללו שמך ולא שפכת עליהם זעמך. Initially HaKadosh Baruch Hu ata gidalta v'romamta, You raised, You nurtured, You elevated us, and now our cousins rejoice as we're destroyed. We commented earlier on... neither a challenge to Hakadosh Baruch Hu nor is it even a tefillah. In this Kinah, the lama is a rhetorical question that we ask ourselves that ultimately we answer in the last stanza of the Kinah ואתה צדיק על כל הבא לך השם הצדקה ונצדיקך בחיבה ולמה נהינו ולנו הדיבה כי כל זאת באנו בחובה.
We respond to the rhetorical lama which as though it were directed against Hakadosh Baruch Hu by responding with a lama which is directed against ourselves. Lama nehinu, what are we complaining about? What are we moaning? כי כל זאת באנו בחובה. In this last stanza, Lecha Hashem hatzedaka, righteousness is with you Hakadosh Baruch Hu, venatzdikecha bechiba and we'll acknowledge and we'll proclaim your justness dearly with love. When the Mishnah tells us ואהבת את השם אלקיך בכל מאדך בכל מדה ומדה שהוא מודד לך
it doesn't only mean that despite whatever happens a person is supposed to retain and sustain ahavas Hashem, but it means that ahavas Hashem should be not despite kol mida umida, not despite whatever suffering and whatever pain there is, but the ahavas Hashem should be for the kol mida umida. The ahavas Hashem in light of tzidduk hadin, so the ahavas Hashem is recognizing and embracing the kol mida umida. Not despite the kol mida umida, despite the suffering Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we still have our ahavas Hashem, but our ahavas Hashem envelops the suffering, the ahavas Hashem is for the suffering as well. Reb Yeruchom the mashgiach from Mir is reported in his last months or year of his life he suffered from cancer rachmana litzlan and suffered greatly. So he was overheard saying at various points during that tkufa of suffering, א דאנק טאטע פאר די ייסורים. Thank you, thank you, Daddy, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Avinu Shebashamayim, thank you for the yissurim. Lecha Hashem hatzedaka venatzdikecha bechiba. The tzidduk hadin is bechiba, is with ahava. Ahavas Hashem bechol mida umida means that the ahavas Hashem is not despite kol mida umida, whatever comes our way, but appreciates whatever comes our way. The opening stanza, just circling back to the opening stanza, the initial contrast here which Rabbi Elazar Hakalir draws, on the one hand initially ואתה אמרת היטב איטיב עמך ונפלינו אני ועמך. Moshe Rabbeinu was given the bakasha that he and Knesseth Yisrael will be separate, will be distinct. So what's the counterpoint? The counterpoint doesn't refer directly to what's happened to us, but the counterpoint is למה בני בליעל חללו שמך. Again, this identification between kvodam shel Yisrael in the world and kvod shamayim. The counterpoint to the heitiv eitiv imach of Bnei Yaakov, of veniflinu ani veamecha, the counterpoint to that is the chillul Hashem. And atah. We continue with the next kinah, Kinah Chaf-Bet. This is the first kinah that we're reciting where we focus on the crusades, the heart-rending description of the suffering and death wrought by the crusaders. The paytan begins Hacharishu mimeni v'adebeira. Be quiet, leave me be. Don't try to stifle me. Let me speak what's on my mind, let me speak what's in my heart. Don't, don't resist. Unlike Iyov from where this phrase is taken, the paytan is not מטיח דברים כלפי מעלה. There's no reason for the paytan to be silenced in what he's saying. There's no, he's not challenging the justice of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So why does the paytan anticipate that there might be some resistance that he preemptively says no, Hacharishu mimenu, be quiet, don't try to interfere with what I'm going to say? The halacha is, Gemara in Moed Katan, quoted as halacha, the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch, that אין בוכין על מת יותר משלושה ימים. A person is not supposed to cry over a meis beyond the third day of shiva, rachmana litzlan. Even in the event of a talmid chacham where lefi kvodo, lefi maalaso, that period of bechi is extended, but it's never extended beyond shloshim yom. אין בוכין עליהם יתר משלושים יום שאין לנו גדול ממשה רבנו וכתוב ויתמו ימי בכי אבל משה.
And after thirty days, that's it, it was finished. The time allowed and allotted for bechi is finished. The refrain in the piyut, Odeid b'sipi v'ahima. The meforshei hakinot quote from the metzudos that odeid means inyan g'nicha v'yalala, right, the two nouns, the two verbs we're familiar with from teruah, to groan and to cry. So the paytan is crying and is looking to elicit tears. We have no indication that this piyut was composed within the first three days or even necessarily within the first thirty days after the horrible crusades, nor is there any reason to think that the paytan didn't hope and anticipate, as is the case, that this piyut would be, that this kinah would be adopted and recited year after year. So maybe the paytan is saying, the mechinen is saying, maybe you're going to resist, maybe you're going to try to silence me, to drown me out, because the bechi that I'm looking to elicit is excessive. No, Hacharishu mimeni. No, let me speak. Why is that? See, tochan, between the lines, the kinah is teaching us a new halacha. The Rambam says in codifying the halacha that excessive bechi, excessive crying and excessive mourning is wrong, not allowed. The Rambam writes... אל יתקשה אדם על מתו יותר מדאי. A person shouldn't be excessive in mourning his dead, שזהו מנהגו של עולם. Ever since the cheit of Adam Harishon, death is minhago shel olam. It's the way of the world. והמצער עצמו על מנהגו על מנהג העולם הרי זה טיפש.
He's a fool. Personal mortality is minhago shel olam. Devastation and destruction of communities is not minhago shel olam. The cap on crying, the constraints on mourning apply to personal aveilus. Personal aveilus, which is in response to something which ultimately, painful as it is, is minhago shel olam. It's the way of the world. For communities to be so savagely uprooted and destroyed, there is no statute of limitations. There's no cap in terms of the crying, in terms of the mourning. Hecharishu mimeni ve'adabeira, and this, this idea basically is the whole premise of Tisha B'av, of crying for events as very recent events, but events which are also thousands of years old. The second stanza describes the Crusaders as a goy az, a brazen nation. Further on in the Kina, the mekonein elaborates and refers to them as az ponim. The phrase of course comes from the Tochacha, the mekonein conveying that not only was the Churban HaMikdash a kiyum of the Tochacha, but what happened in the Crusades was as well. The Kina describes the preemptive suicide and killing of children at the hands of their parents to avoid baptism, to avoid being coerced, tortured into avoda zara. The mekonein clearly depicts this in the most laudatory of terms, reflecting one side to what of course, as you know, is a major, major dispute in halacha, whether Kiddush Hashem allows for or even mandates active preemptive suicide or killing of children. The mekonein appeals to the Torah. It's, I think, stanza four or five. תורה תורה חגרי שק. The Torah itself should gird herself in sackcloth, vehispalshi ba'afarim, and should roll in the dust, in the ashes. אבל יחיד עשי לך ומספד תמרורים. Torah should conduct, should observe an evel yachid and should engage in bitter eulogy for all the gedolim who were extinguished. In the Crusades, אל תוסף ושטיה יחפש מה מכמורם, those who held the oars of Torah, those who spread the nets of Torah, malachaya ve'chovlaya, they were the ones who stewarded, stewarded the ship of Torah bemayim adirim. What does it mean אבל יחיד עשית לך, what does the mekonen want from Torah? So he thought that what it means is avel yachid, a private aveilus, but kavyachol only the Torah can appreciate the full dimensions of the tragedy of the Crusades. The greatness of the gedolei Torah who were so ruthlessly killed, and in that, the world was deprived of their Torah. The masorah has and always will survive, but it certainly was impoverished and diminished by the Crusades. So much so that we can't even fully recognize or appreciate the tragedy and the catastrophe of the Crusades. תורה תורה חגרי שק אבל יחיד עשית לך, you, the Torah, you're the only one, as it were, who can really mourn fully and appropriately, because only the Torah itself knows the gadlus that was lost, and the gadlus that was lost not only to their own generation but to all generations of masorah. We're continuing with Kinah 25. This kinah returns to the Crusades. It provides much detail about the three communities in Germany that were destroyed, the dates of the Kiddush Hashem in each of the communities. At the very outset, the mekonen Rav Kalonymus, מי יתן ראשי מים ועיני מקור נוזלי, who would make my head a full of water for tears and my eyes should be a source of flowing tears such that ואבכה כל ימי ולילי, that I'll cry for the rest of my life. So on the one hand, we see here the reiteration of what we saw in the previous kinah about the Crusades, how there's no statute of limitations for the bechi and the aveilus for the destruction of the communities, for the diminution of Torah. But on the other hand, we also see that even though rightfully the aveilus should continue unabated, we don't really have the capacity for that. The mekonen asks מי יתן ראשי מים ועיני מקור נוזלי and as devastated as he, a contemporary, was by the events of the Crusades, he recognized that his capacity for tears and his capacity for mourning was limited and and didn't really align with rightfully what was appropriate. In the second stanza. We speak of the בתולות היפות וילדים הרכים, the beautiful and beauty here presumably is not only a physical beauty but a beauty of innocence, a spiritual beauty, the beautiful young women veyeladim harakim and the delicate young boys vesifreihem hanikrachim who were enveloped in the scrolls. We single out these groups of the בתולות היפות וילדים הרכים. There's something unique about the devastation and the tragedy of a young person dying whose potential goes unfulfilled. The normal process of finding nechama a lot of it is driven by reflecting on what the person accomplished in life, how those accomplishments continue to reverberate, the legacy left behind. The devastation of the death of בתולות היפות וילדים הרכים is at least on the human level, from the human vantage point, potential that there was never opportunity for it to be tapped, lives that were extinguished before they could be lived. Here too the Ribbono Shel Olam ultimately does provide nechama, but the devastation is something which is very different in these types of cases. In the third stanza the mekonen explains that he's mourning and crying not only for the human tragedy but for the tragedy again of the diminishing of Torah. והיא שחה קרועה שכולה וגלמודה. He's not referring only to the physical abuse of sifrei Torah and seforim, but Torah becomes shachula. Shachul when referring to a person, someone who loses rachmana litzlan a child is shachul. Torah is shachula having lost ayei Torah, talmid ve-halmudo. The Torah has lost its children, the gedolim, the chachmei hamesorah who teach and perpetuate Torah. In the next stanza, when we're given the description of the resolve to be mekadesh Shem Shamayim, not to agree to apostasy, not to shmad rachmana litzlan, but rather to die al Kiddush Hashem, so the mekonen writes נאספו יחד נפשם השלימו במורא על יחוד שם המיוחד יחדו בגבורה.
They gathered together and with a yiras Shamayim. They resolved to give their lives al yichud Hashem. And then the Mechonen describes these extraordinary individuals, they were גיבורי כח עושי דברו למהרה. They were people who were giborim, their strength of character, their strength of commitment and ose dvaro, they implemented the word of Hashem limhara and they did it bizrizus. The simple pshat is that this is a description of how they had lived their lives until this point. Their entire lives had been devoted to and characterized by ose dvaro limhara. They were not only mekayem mitzvos, they were mekayem mitzvos bizrizus. But maybe there's a second kavana here as well. The story is told that when the Ger Tzedek, a member of the aristocratic family in the time of the Vilna Gaon, who became a Ger Tzedek, he ran away and kept his identity hidden to be misgayer. To be misgayer was a capital offense. And then when, as a result of whatever the incident was, his identity became known to the authorities, so he was arrested and he was going to be burnt al Kiddush Hashem for the offense of becoming a Ger. So the story is that as he was being led from the jail to the execution site, that the path went alongside the window of the Vilna Gaon's room. Apparently until that point the Ger Tzedek was walking either at a regular pace or perhaps maybe even slowly, presumably his thought being that it's a mitzvah to prolong life. So if he'll walk with measured paces, he'll live a few more moments. The story continues that the Gaon looked out his window, which he never did, but obviously he sensed the kedusha passing by, he saw the Ger Tzedek and he said to him, "With zrizus Reb Avraham, with zrizus. You're going to be mekayem a mitzvah. You're going to be mekayem the mitzvah to die al Kiddush Hashem, you've got to do a mitzvah with zrizus." It's possible that the Mechonen גיבורי כח עושי דברו למהרה is not only a description of how they came to shul every morning and how they put on tefillin and how they ran to do a chesed and how they ran to the beis medrash. Of course it's all of that as well, but that description remained true and accurate until this last moment, that even when the time came to die al Kiddush Hashem, it was גיבורי כח עושי דברו למהרה. The same zeal for mitzvos was evident in how they were mekayem the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem. Towards the end of the fourth stanza is the line that we alluded to before that the Rav zichrono livracha used to highlight, that all mourning, that all collective national mourning is supposed to be concentrated. trated in the day of Tisha B'Av. So the Mekonen writes וכי אין להוסיף מועד שבר ותבערה since one is not allowed to add another time, another mo'ed, to mourn for, to commemorate the destruction, tachas kein, therefore, hayom livyosi aro'era. That's why I arouse my lament today. We continue with Kina number 31. The Kina is built around a series of contrasts between the state of affairs betzeisi miMitzrayim, when we left Mitzrayim, and the state of affairs betzeisi miYerushalayim. The sweetness, the sublimeness of betzeisi miMitzrayim, the suffering, the devastation of betzeisi miYerushalayim. On the one hand, this juxtaposition, this contrast intensifies the suffering. Rachmana litzlan, if a person becomes impoverished, it's a terrible blow for anyone, but if the person formerly had been affluent, had been well-off, so then it's an even greater blow. The suffering is even greater. Everything that we experience betzeiseinu miYerushalayim is independently, in a self-contained sense, a source of suffering, but when it's contrasted with the memory of what was betzeisi miMitzrayim, the suffering becomes that much greater, that much closer to being unbearable. But yitachen that simultaneously the Kina has another intent as well in this contrast, in this juxtaposition of betzeisi miMitzrayim and betzeisi miYerushalayim. Esh tuka bekirbi, a fire is ignited within me, burns within me, bahalosi al libi, when I think of what was betzeisi miMitzrayim. What does esh represent? כי עזה כמות אהבה קשה כשאול קנאה רשפיה רשפי אש שלהבת יה.
Esh at times is used to depict the burning, passionate ahavas Hashem. And the Mekonein is suggesting that the feelings, the emotions, the thoughts which are triggered betzeisi miMitzrayim and the feelings, emotions, and thoughts which are triggered betzeisi miYerushalayim can and do coexist. While we endure the suffering of betzeisi miYerushalayim, on the one hand, the pain is deepened, is intensified, but the The special relationship that exists, the aish tukad b'kirbi. And it's this juxtaposition of the two betzaisis which sustains the emunah expressed in the final stanza of the ששון ושמחה ונסו יגון ואנחה ושובם לירושלים. The idiom of Sosson V'Simcha and V'Nasu Yagon V'Anacha is from the possuk in Yeshayahu. Perhaps in light of what we're discussing, it seems the Malbim already addresses this in a different way. It seems unnecessary. Obviously if there's Sosson V'Simcha, so there's no Yagon V'Anacha. So why does the Navi have to describe that ופדויי ה' ישובון ובאו ציון ברינה, that those who have been redeemed by Hakadosh Baruch Hu return and they come back to Tziyon joyously, שמחת עולם על ראשם, soson v'simcha yasigu, they'll obtain joy and rejoicing, v'nasu yagon v'anacha, and sorrow and pain will flee. But it's possible in light of what we've been discussing is that the prior state in the Galus was that there was also a b'china of Sosson V'Simcha, but it coexisted alongside the Yagon V'Anacha. Even when mired in the depths of Galus, אש תוקד בקרבי בהעלותי על לבי יציאת מצרים. There's an element of Simcha in the connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, in the relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu that a person knows and retains simultaneously alongside the suffering of yetzias miYerushalayim. He retains those memories and what the memories attest to in terms of our position as the Am Hanivchar, so they remain with us. The vision of the Geulah is that there will be a Sosson V'Simcha which doesn't have to coexist with a Yagon V'Anacha, but it will be that they'll obtain Sosson V'Simcha and it will be ונס יגון ואנחה בשובם לירושלים. Aish tukad b'kirbi. V'halosi. Yetzias. But we continue with Kinah number thirty-four. Based on accounts in Chazal, the Kinah relates how Nevuzaradan, the chief of staff of Nevuchadnetzar, came into the Beis Hamikdash. He saw blood that was boiling, that was seething. Ultimately after attempts to deny and avoid disclosure, he discovers that it's the blood of Zechariah who hundreds of years earlier, over two00 years earlier, had been slain in the Beis Hamikdash on Yom Kippurim because the people were so offended by his divinely sent words of tochacha. Nevuzaradan slaughters thousands upon thousands until finally even he is repulsed by the magnitude of what he's done and at that point the blood of Zechariah quiets. Churban Habayis. was the result of centuries of cumulative cheit. It didn't happen just because of the sins of a particular generation of a particular group of individuals. It was a cumulative result. How do we understand, how do we relate to? Western society is very, very individualistic. We see the, in contemporary times, the most ugly expression of that in terms of the focus on self-gratification. There are no morals, no mores, no objective truths which stand in the way of self-gratification. But all of that ultimately developed from a sense of individualism. Western society focuses on the individual. Willy-nilly, we're influenced by that and we struggle to understand such accounts. What happened to Zechariah happened over 200 years earlier. What's it got to do with the kohanim who were in service in the Beis HaMikdash so many years later? So there are two perspectives. Perspective number one, as the Rav zichrono livracha used to explain, Klal Yisrael is not simply the aggregate and aggregate of individuals. Klal Yisrael is its own metaphysical being, its own metaphysical entity, an immortal, eternal metaphysical being. אני ה' לא שניתי ואתם בני יעקב לא כליתם. Just as I, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the navi Malachi says in the name of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, by the voice of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, just as I am eternally unchanging, so too you, Bnei Yaakov, will never perish. The Klal Yisrael that exists today, the Klal Yisrael that existed in the generation of the churban is the same Klal Yisrael since the dawn of history, since Maamad Har Sinai. It's not a question of someone else's sins being hoisted upon, being imposed upon someone else. We're the same Klal Yisrael. But the truth is that even from our Western-influenced individualistic perspective, we can also understand it. משל למה הדבר דומה. Imagine you have a son who inherits upon his father's death a multi-billion dollar business. The business is worth billions and billions and he's the, he's the heir. But the business also has certain debts, there are certain loans that are still outstanding. Maybe in the millions, maybe there's 10 million dollars in unpaid loans. It's obviously a ridiculous claim for the son to say that the business belongs to him, but I never committed myself to those debts. He can't accept the billion dollar business and deny and refuse responsibility for the million dollar debts. They come together, it's one package. Even as individuals, the eternal bracha that we receive, that we inherit of Torah, of being the am hanivchar, of having a path to kirvas Elokim, a bridge... We can't accept that and and and deny any responsibility to right what the wrongs that happened in in previous generations. So on both of those levels, we can understand and we can relate to that there's a sense of accountability that we have collectively for what's happened throughout our history. And it's that which is the the premise or or the foundation of of of this Kina. אברכך ואודך מושיעי וצורי והללך ואעלך עם מעורריך Ad yom shehechevash Meashpasos meorercha Yofia v'roshecha V'zman mikdash k'orecha Ad yom shehechevash Yishman shem meorercha Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Veshomemu meorercha Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaatzmu m'osharecha Viromemu hodecha V'zman mikdash k'orecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha Ad yom shehechevash Yaltzu meshachrecha Viromemu hodecha. ויעשו כולם אגודה אחת לעשות רצונך בלבב שלם. ויעשו כולם אגודה אחת לעשות רצונך בלבב שלם. ויעשו כולם אגודה אחת.