Footsteps of Joy

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

I sit here on Sunday afternoon staring at the empty computer screen in front of me. There was a place I wanted to be, but I stayed home to write my weekly column, and now I sit here with nothing to show for it. It is the first day of “shovua shechal bo Tisha B’Av,” the week of Tisha B’Av, but the date of publication is Erev Shabbos Nachamu. As I sit here thinking of churban and sadness, I wonder what I can write that will have meaning.

Torah and its mitzvos guide our days, and as its calendar directs our moods, it brings peaks and valleys and days of happiness and days of sorrow. The Three Weeks and Nine Days represent the period of the most intense sadness of the year. They are followed by Shabbos Nachamu and seven weeks of consolation and happiness.

The comforting expressions begin on Shabbos with those most famous words of Yeshayahu, “Nachamu nachamu ami.” If we pay attention to the novi Yeshayahu’s words of consolation, they can energize us for the next six weeks. There are very few periods that contain the unique healing properties of the Shivah Dinechemta. These seven weeks represent Divine whispers of consolation to the Jewish people as expressed by the novi Yeshayahu.

Open the sefer Yeshayahu and read its most beautiful words. They are guaranteed to affect you as you study them. One posuk is more beautiful than the next, not only for what they say and convey, but also for the way they are written.

For poetry is the language of the soul. The saddest, most tragic occurrences are more easily explained and understood when expressed in poetry rather than in prose. Poetry affects our emotions and touches the neshomah.

With but a few succinct words, they awaken dulled senses, while hundreds of sentences may only scratch the surface. Poetry finds beauty where none is obvious, reason where it appears to be lacking, sympathy when all are indifferent, love in loneliness, and light in darkness.

Poetry is music to a soul lost in exile. Poetry is the response to those who cannot find words to express their pleasure, disdain, joy or sadness. Ideas and concepts that defy lengthy explanations can often be summed up in a few words strung together adeptly.

Many years ago, I wrote of the time when I sat with friends in stunned silence as we watched Abie Rotenberg sing his extraordinary composition, The Man from Vilna. We had all heard it many times, but this time it was different. We were a small group, sitting at a table. We were at the bar mitzvah of his grandson, Nochum Levitan. It was Shabbos Nachamu. The mood was joyous and festive.

As it happened to be, on one side of Mr. Rotenberg sat an elderly relative from Lithuania, who had lost everything in the Holocaust. On the other side of the master composer and lyricist sat his grandson, the bar mitzvah bochur.

The song is mournful and happy, as it portrays Simchas Torah in the city of Vilna right after the war. The survivor sat there, listening to the song for the first time, and you could see how he was transported to a time we never knew. He was in a trance, reliving it all over again. The rest of us were watching him, though thankfully there was no way we could imagine what was going on in his mind. It was a simcha, it was Shabbos Nachamu, and we were humming along as Abie sang the words about a man from Vilna.

We danced round and round in circles as if the world had done no wrong

From evening until morning, filling up the shul with song

Though we had no Sifrei Torah to clutch close to our hearts

In their place we held the future of a past so torn apart…

Though we had no Sifrei Torah to gather in our arms

In their place we held those children, the Jewish people would live on…

Though we had no Sifrei Torah to clutch and hold up high

In their place we held those children, am Yisroel chai

We have lost so much. So many are gone. There is so much pain. So many tears. A golus like no other. Today, the great Jewish metropolis of Vilna basically consists of a couple of cemeteries and empty shuls.

The Simchas Torah after liberation, people broken in body and spirit, lonely and alone in this world, clawed their way back home, looking to see if anyone had survived and what was left.

When they entered the bloodstained shul, there were no Sifrei Torah, but there were two small children, sitting on the floor in a corner, crying. And when they found those children, they found solace. They saw that there was a future. The Jewish people would survive. In a place of utter destruction, they found nechomah. The children would grow and so would they. They had each other and they had the children. Am Yisroel Chai. They scooped up the children and danced the night away.

As Abie’s words sunk in on that Shabbos Nachamu in a Monsey hall, the bar mitzvah bochur, the survivor, the friends and the family felt tragedy and comfort, destruction and rebuilding, churban and binyan, ovar and osid, past and future. The simple poetry hit its mark.

And then we sang and danced as if the world had done no wrong, knowing that the pain and torture would soon end. Loneliness would be a thing of the past. Tragedy and suffering would be transformed into a joyous, bright future.

There are many problems in our world. Jews in Eretz Yisroel are at each other’s throats, and there is way too much strife and sadness. Too many people are having a hard time making ends meet.

And then we come to shul on Shabbos morning and look around us, and we begin to appreciate the good we have. Laining is over and the words of the haftarah, though read softly, ring out loudly, proclaiming that we calm down, smile a bit, and know that the end of our tzaros is near. Nachamu nachamu ami. It is time to take comfort.

The haftaros of the Shivah Dinechemta contain lyrical words and buoyant assurances that can touch any neshomah, bringing joy and consolation, as they convey their deep messages.

Yeshayahu prophesized assurances of the future glory, and though he also delivered prophecy about impending doom if the people would not repent, he is the eternal novi of nechomah and consolation.

Imagine being alive at the time of the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh. It appeared that all was lost. Life, as the Jewish people had known it, was over. They were driven from their ancestral land, sold into slavery, mocked and vilified, and unwanted by all, seemingly by Hashem as well. Hashem told them that He no longer had any interest in their korbanos and no desire for His dirah betachtonim. The place that was the depository of Jewish hope, connection, greatness and holiness was gone. The Jewish people were lonely and forsaken, unable to go on living.

At that juncture, the novi Yeshayahu offered a nevuah of comfort. He declared, “Nachamu nachamu.” He told the Jewish nation that Hashem still views us as His people. “Ami. You are still mine. Be comforted. Nachamu nachamu ami. All is not lost. Happier times will come. There is still reason to smile.”

Last week, we featured a touching interview with a survivor. Think about his feelings at the end of the war. Think of what was going through the minds of other people who survived. Think about the people who hadn’t been in those countries that were overrun by the Nazis and think about their thoughts when the war was over and the enormity of the loss was being felt. It wasn’t all that long ago that people were ready to give up and declare that our way of life had ended, r”l.

But then they heard the calls of Yeshayahu and the other nevi’im. They heard the pleas of the rabbonim and rebbes and Jews in whose hearts burned the story of Jewish survival, the promises of Hashem, and the force of faith, and they arose from the ashes and began to put themselves together, rebuild and live.

The pesukim of Yeshayahu are more than enlightened poetry. They are the blocks of binyan, forming the design with which we forge on through golus until the great day comes. While they foretell a brilliant future, they also invest the present with much meaning. Golus is not a dead end. It is part of a Divine plan, where there is room, purpose and a destiny for every Jew.

People with sensitive neshamos feel the message of these prophecies and pesukim, experiencing their relevance.

Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Be’er Yaakov, lived with nechomah, expressing it during every stage of his life. He once shared with his talmidim how he learned to live with that vision.

He related that he became engaged to his wife in 1946, at a time when Klal Yisroel was in the throes of mourning and shock following the Holocaust. After the engagement, the young chosson and kallah went for a walk on the grounds of Yerushalayim’s Reich Hotel.

The young couple strolled for a while, oblivious to their surroundings. Suddenly, they looked up and saw a most distinguished-looking Jew watching them.

“That distinguished looking man is the Ponovezher Rov,” the chosson whispered to his kallah.

Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman had lost to the Nazis most of his own family, his yeshiva, his town, and almost everything else he had ever known and owned. If there was someone who should have been shattered by tragedy and distress, it was the Ponovezher Rov. Yet, despite it all, he was consumed by his ambitious plan to rebuild the yeshiva he had lost. He stood in the yard of Pension Reich with a wide smile on his lips, as his eyes followed the chosson and kallah on their blissful walk.

He called out to them, “Freit zach kinder. Freit zach. Rejoice, children. Rejoice. For as much as you will rejoice with each other, the Ribbono Shel Olam will rejoice with us. That’s what the posuk tells us: ‘Kimsos chosson al kallah, yosis olayich Elokayich. Like a groom rejoices in his bride will Hashem rejoice over you.’

“You are the moshol, the metaphor, for Hashem’s eventual delight in us. Freit zach kinder. Freit zach!”

The Rov walked on smiling, having reassured himself of a bright future and providing the future rosh yeshiva and his rebbetzin a memorable insight into life, as well as a new appreciation for the poetic words of the novi.

A few years before that walk took place, two yeshiva bochurim were hiding in an underground bunker. They knew that being found would mean a certain and cruel death.

The two young men, prize talmidim of the glorious yeshiva of Telz, had been on the run for very long and experienced much inhuman suffering and torment. Now, as they sat in an awful, cold, dark underground bunker seeking momentary salvation, they once again sensed impending danger.

They heard loud footsteps of murderous soldiers on top of their heads, pounding out a tune of sadism and brutality.

With those steps ringing in their ears, Rav Chaim Stein looked at his friend, Rav Meir Zelig Mann. “Meir Zelig,’ he said, “you have musical abilities. Can you compose a niggun to the words ‘Mah navu al hehorim raglei mevaser tov’?”

In the footsteps of murderers, the future Telzer rosh yeshiva heard a herald of the raglei mevaser, the footsteps of the one who will come bearing the most joyous tidings in history.

The pesukim of the haftarah that we read during these summer months are laden with promise and hope. They offer us a means of endurance in the darkness of the exile until the day of redemption arrives. They provide a glimpse of the bright future and grant significance to the bumpy road we are on, assuring us that there is a plan unfolding and that we are a part of it.

They tell us that instead of seeing darkness, we should see the light beneath it. Instead of seeing obstacles all around us, we should sense holy struggles that will lead to our redemption. Instead of lamenting the uphill climb we face, we should see the ladder to everlasting joy, the contentment awaiting us when we reach the top of the mountain.

May that happen speedily in our day.

It’s Time

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

We are now in the saddest period of the year, a time when we observe halachos associated with mourning. They are not intended to become rote habits, but were instituted to remind us of the loss of our home, country, and spiritual base. The absence of meat, for example, is to teach a lesson and remind us that our lives are lacking.

We get comfortable and forget that there is a giant hole in our hearts and souls that must be filled. We have been away from home for so long that we tend to forget where home is and what it was all about. We forget that the lives that we lead here are lacking in many ways. We look around us and everything seems so perfect and good that we wonder what could be better than what we have now.

We say that in Mitzrayim, the Jews were slaves and were lacking much in life, so they desperately wanted to be redeemed, but what is so bad about our situation today? Boruch Hashem, there aren’t any blood libels, or pogroms, or the abject poverty and deprivation of the shtetel. Memories of the Holocaust are receding, German cars are “in” today, and most of us don’t feel that what happened in the past is about to happen anytime soon.

Thus, the Nine Days interrupt our summer, just as we are settling in to our summer places and schedules. These days remind us that this is not the way it is supposed to be and this is not the way we are meant to be living life. Tisha B’Av has its roots in the day the meraglim returned from their tour of Eretz Yisroel to report back to the nation that they would not be able to capture the land Hashem had promised them. They weren’t too sure how good a land it was anyway.

It was on this day that the Botei Mikdosh were destroyed, the nucleus of Yiddishkeit was ripped out from our midst, and we were driven into exile in strange lands where we weren’t wanted and were poorly treated. For example, on this day, we were chased out of England and Spain [and more recently Gaza], and the Crusaders began their deadly march. The list of tragedies that took place during this period and specifically on Tisha B’Av is, as they say in Yiddish, “lang vi der Yiddishe golus” - way too long.

During these nine days of privation, we should be reading the Chazals that depict the churban, the sefer Yosifun, works such as that of Rabbi Leibel Reznick on the churban, and the plethora of books on Jewish suffering throughout the ages and during the Holocaust. We should be getting a refresher course on what golus is all about and how we ended up here. Thankfully, in this pre-messianic period, Hashem is extending His kindness to us, and we have the luxury of learning about golus from books and not from personal experiences such as those of our parents and grandparents during the Holocaust and our ancestors over the past 2,000 years.

We need to know that we didn’t end up here accidentally. The majority of our families were wiped out in the Holocaust, and we are here only because Hashem allowed our grandparents to somehow survive. Everyone has their own story. There is no happenstance in Jewish life. Nobody just happened to be in the right place, or happened to escape a day early, or happened to be on the last boat to sail from Europe, or happened to have had a secret source of food and strength in a concentration camp. They survived because Hashem wanted them to, for reasons we don’t know. Some had obvious zechuyos and others went on to live lives of greatness, helping their brethren and rebuilding what was lost. They gave birth to us and we are here to fulfill their missions and demonstrate that their rescue had long-lasting positive effects on the world. And, of course, we are here to rectify the sins that caused all the pain and misery, helping to bring Moshiach.

The churban took place many years ago and reverberates until this very day. It is up to us to right our situation.

Parshas Devorim is always lained the Shabbos prior to Tisha B’Av. In it, Moshe Rabbeinu recounts the struggles of life in the midbar, as he chastised the people through hinting at their failings, beginning with the sins of the meraglim.

The Chiddushei Horim (cited in Sefas Emes, Devorim 5656) explains why much of the admonition is delivered through veiled hints. The sins that Moshe referred to as he addressed the nation were committed by the generation that had left Mitzrayim. By now, they had all died as punishment for the sins of the meraglim.

The people to whom Moshe was speaking were their children, the next generation, who played no role in those sorry acts. However, the sins they committed created a black hole that exists until our day.

Moshiach can only come when that sin is thoroughly rectified. It is for this reason that Chazal say that a generation in which the Bais Hamikdosh hasn’t been rebuilt is equivalent to the one in which it was destroyed. Because we have not fully rectified those sins and have not stopped committing them, we are still in golus.

We have all been taught that the second Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed because of the baseless hatred that was prevalent at the time. As the Gemara (Yoma 9b) states, “What was the main sin that brought about the destruction of the Bayis Sheini? Mikdosh Sheini shehoyu oskin baTorah uvemitzvos ugemillus chassodim, despite the fact that the people of that time busied themselves with Torah and mitzvos and charitable acts, it was destroyed because there was sinas chinom among them…”

The Yerushalmi presses the point further and proclaims, “We know that the people during the time of the churban Bayis Sheini would delve into Torah and were punctilious in their observance of mitzvos and the laws of maaseros, and possessed every proper middah, but they loved money and hated each other for no reason,” and that is why the churban was brought on.

Our task in golus is to repair those faults that caused us to go into golus to begin with. Instead, petty squabbles intensify and cause hatred and division. People view skeptically others who dress differently than they do and view people outside of their clique as inferior. We aren’t thoughtful of others’ feelings and do things that impact others negatively because we don’t value everyone as we should. Disputes are born, and then they fester, involving more and more people, growing so intensified that arriving at a solution becomes more difficult.

When the Torah (Shemos 3:2) describes the incident with Moshe at the burning bush, the posuk states that Moshe viewed the bush and behold, “hasneh bo’eir ba’eish, vehasneh ainenu ukol, the bush burned on fire and the bush was not consumed.”

The Kli Yokor questions that since the fire was burning and not the bush, instead of saying that the bush burned on fire, hasneh bo’eir ba’eish, the posuk should have said that the fire burned within the bush. 

He answers that the word sneh being similar to sinah hints to the idea that hatred that people have for each other causes aish, fire, to burn within the Jewish people and is the leading cause of why we are still in exile after all these years.

We have discussed previously that the shikchas haTorah that was caused by the churban contributes to the disputes that we have in golus, and thus it is incumbent upon us to overcome sinas chinom, so that we may merit a return of the Torah and kedusha lost when the Bais Hamikdosh went up in flames.

It is amazing that for over two thousand years, we have had the curse of sinas chinom hanging over our heads and we have not been able to overcome it. Petty fights, jealousies, and battles that seem senseless in hindsight and to people who aren’t participating in them have shaken our people for centuries and continue until this very day.

We must rise above the petty issues. We must find the grace, nobility and strength to beat back this scourge and defeat it. We can if we would really join together with achdus. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we have to be able to respect each other enough to get along despite the disagreements, as long as they have a basis in Torah.

Our essence is one of kindness and compassion. Go anywhere in the Jewish world and you will find charitable people who support Torah and chesed in their communities. Ask any good Jew to help another, and even if he has never met the person in need, he will open his wallet. It’s in our DNA, ever since the days of Avrohom Avinu.

Somehow, in the midbar so many years ago, sinas chinom also crept into our DNA. It is not enough to be baalei chesed. It is not sufficient to be charitable, to be medakdeik bemitzvos, and to learn Torah day and night. We have to also stop the sinas chinom. We have to bring people together. We have to stop the machlokes that rages in our world. We can all agree that it is enough already.

In 1943, a group of 719 children from Poland who had been saved from the Nazis were brought to Eretz Yisroel by way of Teheran and became known as the “Yaldei Teheran.” Most of the children were dispersed to irreligious kibbutzim, where they were robbed of their heritage. People fought valiantly under the direction of the Chazon Ish to save as many as possible. The Ponovezher Rov was able to take a group of those children under his wing and brought them to Bnei Brak, but he had no mattresses, pillows and linens upon which the children could rest their weary bodies. 

The Rov, a master orator, let it be known that he would be speaking after Maariv in the emerging city’s Bais Knesses Hagadol. When the shul was packed, he got up to speak.

“I have a question,” he began. “It’s a stirah between two Gemaros.” The two Gemaros seem to dispute each other. The Gemara in Bava Metziah (62a) states that if two people are in the desert and one of them has a small amount of water, enough to sustain one person for the distance they need to traverse until they arrive at the next source of water, he is not obligated to give any to the other person.

This is based on the principle of “chayecha kodmin,” meaning that your life takes precedence over someone else’s.

The Rov continued, citing the Gemara in Kiddushin (20a) which states that if a person buys for himself a Jewish slave, it is as if he has procured a boss – namely, if he has only one mattress or one pillow, he must give it to the slave. The Rov explained that this halacha is derived from the posuk (Devorim 15:16) which states, “Ki tov lo imoch,” literally meaning “because it is good for him to be with you.”

Asked the Rov, what does the word “imoch – with you” teach us, that the owner comes first or that the slave comes first?

He answered that a person’s concerns always take precedence over those of someone else. Therefore, when there is a question of who gets to drink his life-sustaining water, he comes first and he gets to drink it and keep himself alive. When it comes to who gets to sleep on the single mattress he has, he also takes precedence over the slave.

The Rov explained: “This poor Jew was sold into slavery because he didn’t have enough money to provide for his family, so he resorted to stealing. When he got caught, he wasn’t able to pay back what he had taken, so he was sold into slavery, the ultimate embarrassment.

“Imagine how, after going through that, he comes to the home of his owner and the man tells him that he doesn’t have a mattress for him. ‘Tonight you’ll sleep on the floor,’ he is told. Is there any way that man would be able to sleep that night? No way.

“Now, how about the owner? Will he be able to sleep? No way! How can he sleep when he knows that the man he just bought and is now responsible for is not sleeping?

“Therefore, the Torah tells the new owner to give the new slave his mattress. This way, the slave will see that someone cares about him and he will be able to sleep. And when the owner realizes that the man in his care is able to sleep, he will sleep as well.”

And so, explained the Rov, this is the meaning of the posuk, “Ki tov lo imoch.” It will be good for him to be with you, because in order for you to be able to sleep, you need to give him your mattress.

Getting to his point, the Ponovezher Rov said to the packed shul, “I have brought children who were orphaned in the war. They don’t have a father and they don’t have a mother. They have nothing. I don’t even have mattresses and pillows and linens for them to sleep on.

“Can you imagine these children not being able to sleep? And now that you know about them and their situation, you also won’t be able to sleep. So you need to go home and bring your mattresses here. (In those days, and even today, Israelis slept on a thin piece of foam that is easy to carry.) That way, these poor children will be able to sleep…and so will you.”

It is said that the people flew out of the shul and ran home, and in no time at all, there were enough mattresses and pillows for the children to sleep on.

That is the way we are supposed to view every Jew, with care and concern. The Ponovezher Rov did, and that’s why he was able to accomplish so much, rebuilding people and communities after the war that ravaged Klal Yisroel. And that is the way we must view others, working to bring everyone together with love, compassion and respect, so that we may be zoche to Moshiach Tzidkeinu very soon.

Reconnecting

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Rav Tzvi Schvartz is the type of tzaddik many believe doesn’t exist anymore. He heads the Lev L’Achim branch in Rechovot and, with his white beard, bright eyes, broad smile, ready words of encouragement and active support, has been bringing neshamos back to life for decades in that city.

He once shared with me a memorable lesson that he learned from Rav Elazar Shach. When Russian Jews were immigrating to Israel by the thousands, many were brought to Ulpanim in Rechovot, where they were taught basics of the Hebrew language and the Israeli culture. Rav Schvartz was put in charge of running classes on religion for the incoming Russians olim.

He began by providing a series of classes on matters of religion, but soon realized that the vast majority of the new olim had no interest at all in the subject. So, he provided a few basic classes on Judaism for all of them and for those who showed interest he provided in-depth lessons. Due to the force of his personality and perseverance, he managed to touch the hearts and souls of many olim, returning them to the Torah and mitzvos from which the communists had cut them off for seventy years. He was so successful that he began a yeshiva and kollel for the fresh baalei teshuvah who demonstrated promise and displayed interest in progressing in learning.

Rav Tzvi went to Bnei Brak to share his nachas with Rav Shach, the spiritual father of Lev L’Achim.

The Ponovezher rosh yeshiva wondered where Rav Tzvi had obtained the funding to maintain his makeshift yeshiva and kollel. He explained that he received a generous stipend for the introduction-to-Judaism seminars, which every incoming Russian immigrant had to attend. The funding came from the Israeli government, which wanted to expose new immigrants to the culture and spirit of Judaism. He told Rav Shach that instead of forcing people who had no interest in the subject matter to attend the entire series of seminars, he chose those who expressed interest in the first two and concentrated on them. He permitted the others to opt out. Instead of utilizing the entire budget for all the olim, and wasting time and money on them, Rav Tzvi explained, he focused on those who showed potential.

Rav Shach responded that what he was doing was improper.

“You are incorrect,” said the rosh yeshiva. “Israel is new to these Russians. They listen to the lectures, but they are in a strange country and are worried about how they will adapt and what will be with their children. They are worried about finding housing and a job. They have many concerns. They aren’t concentrating on Yiddishkeit, something that they are unfamiliar with and is very low on their list of concerns.

“But,” the rosh yeshiva continued, “the years will pass, they will settle in, their children will be growing, and they will feel emptiness in their lives. They will be searching for meaning, for something to ground them. They will seek inner happiness to fill a void in their lives, but they won’t know where to look. They will have nothing to fall back on. There will be nothing faded in their memory bank to bring back to life.

“At that time, they will start to remember what they were taught in the Ulpan seminars. When they start searching, they will have something to search for. Their memories of something Jewish will be brought to the fore and they will seek out Torah. But if you don’t go through the motions of teaching them the full series of lectures, they will have nowhere to go when that day comes. They will have nothing to fall back on, and their lives will forever remain empty and devoid of Torah and Yiddishkeit.

“You have no right to do that to them,” Rav Shach concluded. “Every Jew deserves to have something to come back to.”

Here’s another story, from a different vantage point, that will help us get to our point and remember it.

Back when the railroad was coming to Russia, the transportation ministry worked to lay thousands of miles of track upon which trains would crisscross the large country. When the plans were publicized, it was discovered that the plan was to lay track over the grave of the Baal Hatanya. Alarmed, chassidim sent a delegation to the minister of transportation.

They arrived for the meeting and began to plead their case. “Maybe you don’t appreciate what a rebbe means to us, so allow us to explain.”

The minister cut them off. “You don’t have to explain it to me. My father and brother are religious. In fact, I was also religious until I was seventeen years old. I know what a rebbe is and what he means to you.”

The minister told the delegation his story.

“I was in yeshiva, when I decided that I wanted to join the Russian army. I became fixated with it. I didn’t want to give up religion; I just wanted to become a soldier. My father was worried that in the army, I would lose my connection to Yiddishkeit. He begged me not to go, but nothing he said impressed me.

“My father was a Karliner chossid. In a last-ditch effort, he asked me to go with him to the rebbe, Rav Shlomo Karliner. I obliged. We entered the rebbe’s room. The rebbe appeared to be on fire, his face radiant and his eyes alight, totally connected to Hashem. The force of holiness was so strong that my father could not open his mouth to speak for the first few minutes. Finally, he gathered his courage and told the rebbe of my intentions to join the military, how I refused to listen, and his fears that I would become a goy.

“The rebbe’s face grew red, his countenance aflame, hot tears streaming down his face as he turned to me and begged, ‘Efsher doch, efsher doch. Maybe, maybe [you’ll change your mind].’

“I turned him down and went to the army, and as you see, I am so far gone, you didn’t think that I knew what a rebbe is. I know the power of a rebbe, and every time I sin, those pleading words of the rebbe ring in my ears: ‘Efsher doch, efsher doch.’”

It’s the Three Weeks, the time when we mourn the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh. We mourn that we are in golus. Every time our enemies attack us with words, sticks, punches, guns, rockets and bombs, we hear those words: “Efsher doch, efsher doch.” Maybe this will be the year we fix ourselves and make our way back.

Maybe this will be the year we will think of what we have lost and what we are missing and do what we must to be returned home. Not only will the senseless hatred and suffering end, but the sick will be healed, the abused comforted, and the homeless will be back at home in the land that is ours.

As we have settled in to the long golus, people have found it difficult to remember what type of lives we are supposed to be living, who we are, where we come from, and what our mission is. Sometimes, the stresses and distractions of everyday living combined with the many allures out there overtake and engulf us, causing us to forget.

Megillas Esther (2:5-6) introduces us to Mordechai by stating, “Ish Yehudi hayah b’Shushan Habirah ushemo Mordechai ben Yair ben Shimi ben Kish ish Yemini. Asher hoglah m’Yerushalayim. There was a Jewish man by the name of Mordechai, son of Yair, son of Shimi, son of Kish, from the tribe of Binyomin (see Megillah 12b and Rashi), who had gone into exile from Yerushalayim.”

Who was he? A Jew, who followed in the ways of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, with the traditions of shevet Binyomin. He never forgot who he was. And he never forgot where he came from. He was an exile, a survivor of the churban, who longed to return home, no matter how comfortable his golus experience was.

And so it is in this golus. So many Jews have veered from their roots and it is difficult to return them. In the decades following the Holocaust, when Jews became scattered around the world, as far as they had gone from a life of Torah and mitzvos, they still remembered life back home. They remembered Shabbos and Yom Tov, the language, the sights and the smells. It was easier to touch their souls and kindle remaining sparks. The children of those people didn’t have much to remember other than the reminiscences of their parents, the accents, the recipes, and some words of Yiddish. It was harder to reach them, but they still had some Yiddishe feelings. Their children, however, have nothing. They know that they are Jews, but attach that appellation to concepts far from Torah. They are liberals who vote Democrat and support abortion and every abomination. If they are lucky, their children marry Jews. More often than not, they marry out of the flock and are lost forever.

We go to Eretz Yisroel and traverse the Holy Land. We tear kriah at the sites of the churban, stand at the Kosel, and imagine what was and what will be. We daven at the kever of the avos, the imahos, and Rochel Imeinu. We feel their presence and beseech Hashem to help us in their merit. We walk on the derech ha’avos, where our forefathers trekked to Yerushalayim to be oleh regel and go to Shilo, the site of the Mishkon before the construction of the Bais Hamikdosh. And wherever we go, a chill runs down our spine. We feel connected to who we are and where we come from.

At great expense, people travel to the alter heim in the countries of Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia, Germany and elsewhere. They visit the old botei medrash, shuls, yeshivos and cemeteries to remember where they come from and what their mission is.

Every year, as we bentch Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av, the cheerful blessing generates bittersweet emotion. A new month usually brings smiles and hopes for a fresh start. But this Shabbos, the fact that the arriving month is Av, with its undertones of melancholy, causes our hearts to sink.

The period of national sadness that began on the 17^th day of Tammuz increases with the start of Chodesh Av and peaks on Tisha B’Av.

Throughout our history, the first week of Av has seen wrenching, catastrophic events for the Jewish people. That legacy of sorrow and disaster continues. It’s a sadness shrouded in this rootlessness, a sense that things are not as they should be and we are not where we should be.

As we enter Chodesh Av, we wonder what we can do to reverse that cycle and when it will end.

Our search for a ray of hope begins with the awareness that the root of all our sadness and misery is the churban Bais Hamikdosh. We reflect on the Gemara in Maseches Yoma (9b) that teaches that the first Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed because we did not properly observe the halachos of avodah zorah, gilui arayos and shefichas domim.

The Gemara says that at the time of the destruction of the second Bais Hamikdosh, the Jews were proficient in Torah and gemillus chassodim. What brought about that churban was sinas chinom.

We’ve heard it so many times, but apparently we need to hear again that since sinas chinom caused the churban, the final redemption cannot occur until we have all thoroughly rid ourselves of the senseless hatred that seems to accompany the Jewish people wherever we are.

The parshiyos of Mattos and Masei are always read during the period of the Three Weeks. They deal with the connection of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisroel. We are connected to that land not only as a nation, but also as individuals.

Chodesh Av is about connection. It is about a relationship that was severed, to ultimately be renewed. We are working towards returning to our portion in Eretz Yisroel.

The parshiyos contain the seeds of our geulah, lessons for us to improve our behavior in golus in order to merit our share in Eretz Yisroel.

Parshas Mattos begins with the laws of nedorim and shavuos, different types of vows and promises a person makes, and the obligation “not to defile your words and to do whatever you said you would” (30:3).

In our society, words are cheap. They are thrown around aimlessly and carelessly, sometimes in a bid to impress and sometimes just to pass time. In the social media generation, everything is superficial, most of all words. They are conduits used to express thoughts and feelings that contain facile meaning and no depth. Little thought goes into what is said, or written, and therefore words carry no weight.

People go online to make sure they are up on the latest and bring garbage into their homes. They skim through all types of material, full of meaningless words strung together to convey vapid thoughts and feelings. They don’t realize that drip by drip, those silly, empty thoughts have an impact on them, and before long, their brains are filled with senseless views, opinions and ideas. The am chochom venavon becomes dumbed-down.

There was a time when people valued written and spoken words, when they perceived the inherent value of every utterance.

They were people of depth who appreciated the meaning of words. Their thoughts and the words with which they expressed them carried weight and were honored.

We are quickly losing that. In our society, words should have meaning. Meaning also has to have meaning. We should not be focusing on external values, such as financial worth, supposed status, and impressions. We must not be superficial. The world is too dangerous a place for us to act without information and without thought. Too often, we express opinions and act based on feelings and not facts, emotions and not intellect. To do so is folly and can have drastic consequences.

Words affect us and other people. To end the golus and help rebuild the Bais Hamikdosh, we should think before we speak and ensure that our speech is neither hurtful nor insulting.

Words have the power to break and the power to repair. Words heal and words sicken. Words bring people together and words separate people. The words we use have lasting repercussions.

As we complete the laining of the parshiyos this week, we exclaim together, “Chazak chazak venischazeik.” We cry out a resounding message to each other and to ourselves. We repeat a word that is laden with power: Chazak. Be strong.

With that, we complete another sefer in our march towards the Torah’s conclusion. We internalize the chapter of the Bnei Yisroel’s passage through the midbar and try to learn the lessons that this seder has presented, so that we may be strong and strengthened. We say chazak.

Study the words of the Torah and you will be strong. Share the words of the Torah and you will be strengthened. Say it together. Appreciate the power of words and use them properly.

Remember what our priorities are. In every decision, as you contemplate your various considerations, remind yourself of your identity. When your buddies are talking during davening or chatting outside during laining, consider whether that is the proper behavior of a frum person such as yourself. When you’re sitting and shmoozing and the conversation veers off course, wonder whether the discussion is proper for a ben or bas Torah such as yourself or if you’d be better off sliding away.

When you are considering where to go for vacation - Cancun or New Hampshire, Southern France or South Haven, South Beach or South Fallsburg - think about your DNA and where you belong. When the gang wants to go to a place that doesn’t jibe with Torah values, remember who you are, what you are all about, that you have goals and ambitions, and efsher doch you should find a way out of going to that place.

If we remember who we are, where we came from and where we are going, we would be so much better off and we may actually get there this year. Amein.

Homesick

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Here we are again in the period we call the Three Weeks, soon to be followed by the Nine Days and Tisha B’Av. We have gone another year without deserving that the Bais Hamikdosh be rebuilt. We are still in golus. Sometimes, golus is just a word, and it is used so often that it loses its meaning. We hear speeches about golus. Each speaker, in his or her own words, gets up and speaks about being in golus and the fact that we need to get out of golus.

At times, though, it is like back in the first grade, when we began learning Chumash and the teacher would translate a Hebrew word we didn’t understand into an English or Yiddish word we didn’t understand. We would chant, “Bereishis, in unfang, in the beginning, bara Elokim, Hashem created.” We didn’t know what Bereishis meant, what unfang meant, what the beginning meant, and what created meant.

Golus. We are constantly reminded that we are in golus. We understand that golus is not a good place to be, but we wonder what golus is and what is so bad about it. We live in a nice home and have space outside where the children can play. We have a job, an income, and a car. During the summer, some pack up and go to their summer home. What’s wrong with that? What’s so bad?

Everyone wants to be in the place they call home. Going away is nice, especially for a simcha, but everyone who’s slept in a hotel or in someone’s guest room will tell you that they missed their own bed. “There is no place like home” is an oft-used cliché, but it happens to be true. People feel more secure, satisfied and productive when in their own home and not on the road in a motel somewhere. Wherever people travel and for whatever purpose, they generally go for a set amount of time and eventually get itchy to get back home.

Children wait all year for camp. They count down the days until the end of June, when they can put away their study books and head off to camp. But when they get to camp, as good a time as they are having, many of them get homesick. They like camp, they like their friends, and they love running around, playing games, and color war, but they also like their homes and miss them.

Golus means that we are not home. It means that we are not where we are supposed to be. It means that we are in a place where we can’t be as productive as we are meant to be. We are in a place where we can’t be happy, where there is always an emptiness in our heart.

Golus means always being homesick.

In autocratic countries, one of the ways that they punish people is by sending them into exile. Opponents of a regime are either jailed or sent out of the country. They are free to go live anywhere they want. They can be living in a place on the French Riviera. But they can’t be truly happy. There is always an emptiness in them, because they want to be home in the country in which they were born and grew up, where they dreamed of great achievements.

Two weeks ago, a Russian general staged a failed insurrection. He was not killed, but was sent into exile in a neighboring country friendly to Russia’s autocrat, where he will live in constant fear.

Golus means to be in exile.

Another form of punishment is to place people in jail. They are separated from their family, friends, home, job, business, and everything and everyone they know. They are locked away in a strange place, with strange people, strange laws, and tough guards. Everything in jail is meant to cause pain to the person. There’s nobody to love there and nobody to love you. There’s not much to do besides being sad and waiting to go home.

Golus is jail.

There is a growing phenomenon of people who have no home. Usually, they suffer from mental disease, but some of them simply can’t afford to live in a home. They don’t have enough money for rent and basic necessities, so they end up sleeping on the street. Some sleep on sidewalks, some in alcoves, others on park benches, and some in subways. They don’t have a good day. Ever. Even the homeless who are taken in to government-run shelters, while they have a roof over their heads and a bed, they don’t have much else and are always sad.

Golus is being homeless.

As I was writing this column, the power went out. The computer shut down, the lights and air conditioner went off, and it became very quiet. Then the generator kicked in, making a racket. The lights flickered and gradually went back on, duller than they were just before, but they were on and giving light. It took longer for the computer and its connections to return. The air conditioner didn’t go back on and remained off. The generator only powers the lights, refrigerator, computer, and a few outlets. It creates much background noise as it completes its task. I’m not complaining; it’s not optimal, but it’s better than having nothing.

Golus is living life on a generator. There’s always noise in the background, you’re never at peace, you’re missing a lot, but you have enough to get along, as you wait for the real energy source to get reconnected and give you everything you need.

Moreover, we need to know that we were all created for a purpose. Hashem didn’t go through all the effort, kevayachol, of creating the world and sustaining it for all these years so that we should curl up on a comfy couch or beach chair with a good book and a can of Coke. He didn’t create us so that we should sit around with the guys talking about every silly topic under the sun. That’s not what life is about or for.

Hashem created us with a guf and a neshomah, with a body and a soul, with physical and spiritual components. While a physical life can be lived in most places, the spiritual life is more sensitive. As Jews, we are here for a higher purpose than others. We are here to learn Torah and perform mitzvos. When we merited the Mishkon and the Bais Hamikdosh, they were centers of kedusha, places in our world where the Shechinah could dwell and from which we could all draw our spiritual sustenance, allowing us to realize our potential and bring us happiness and fulfillment.

Our lives centered around the Mikdosh. We were in our own country, the land that had been set aside for us at the time of creation. We had korbanos to raise us and to erase our sins and bring us closer to Hashem. We were able to be in a constant exalted state of kedusha and taharah. We weren’t overcome by the tumah that overwhelms us in our day.

We had nevi’im to guide us. We had kohanim, the Sanhedrin, and good people to lead us. We were able to learn Torah and reach a deep understanding of its halachos, sevaros, and teachings. People had their shevet group where they belonged and land that had been in their family for generations and centuries. Everyone was able to achieve their tachlis on the highest levels possible.

Today, we have no Mikdosh, no taharah, no nevi’im, no Sanhedrin, and no kohanim performing the avodah. We don’t have the ability to arrive at the essence of Torah or to perform many of its mitzvos. No matter what we do, we won’t be able to realize the great potential of man.

We are in golus. We can’t get to the top of the ladder.

It is for these reasons, and more, that one of the first halachos in Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 1:3) is that every yorei Shomayim should be sad about the loss of the Bais Hamikdosh. Later on (560), he discusses various practices that Chazal instituted for us to remember the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh.

Additionally, six of the tefillos of Shemoneh Esrei concern asking Hashem to return us to the land in which we belong, and every time we recite Birkas Hamazon, we ask Hashem to rebuild Yerushalayim, meaning the city and the building that stood at its heart, reflecting the heart of every Jew.

We are sometimes referred to as “Golus Yidden.” We must know that our identity in golus is tied to the knowledge that we are a people without a proper home, lacking spirit and deficient in our essence. We are a people haunted by sad memories and invigorated by hopeful visions of a bright future.

When we arrive home and look up, we are greeted by a blank space opposite the front door. Every home of a Golus Yid has that unpainted spot to proclaim that we are empty and lacking. No matter how majestic the house, it cannot replace the home we loved, the holiness we embodied, and the spirit that resided within us when it existed.

At every chupah, at the apex of the great joy, poignancy, optimism and elation, the baalei simcha stand surrounded by family and friends, the chosson and kallah enveloped by a cloud of euphoria and good wishes, and then there is a pause. It is quiet and then the sound of the chosson breaking a glass is heard. For no matter how good things seem, no matter how happy and safe we appear to be, we must never forget that we are not home. Every time we are at a chupah and hear the sound of the chosson stomping on the glass, we need to remember that what we have now is but a fraction of the world we once had and the world of our destiny.

Chazal teach (Taanis 30b, Bava Basra 60b) that those who mourn the loss of the Bais Hamikdosh will merit to see it rebuilt. In order to merit the Bais Hamikdosh, we have to appreciate the loss. Those who do so will take upon themselves improvements and actions that will help lead to its reconstruction and thus merit benefiting from it as in the pre-churban days.

Those who mourn the loss of the Bais Hamikdosh know that if it is not rebuilt in our generation, it is as if it was destroyed in our generation. They know that it is incumbent upon them – and us – to rectify the sins that caused the Bais Hamikdosh to be destroyed. It is not sufficient to pay lip service to ridding our world of sinas chinom and working to attain achdus. We have to strive and really work to make those concepts real to us and to our people. Enough with hatred, enough with division, enough with senseless machlokes. We don’t have to agree with everyone and adopt their practices in order to love them and accept that there are twelve shevotim, each with different legitimate, Torah-based customs.

The Alter of Kelm would explain our situation with a moshol of a man who is shouting desperately for help. “Help! Help!” he screams. “My father is dying! Run to help save his life!” When the people come running to help, they see that this man is standing on his father’s throat, trying to choke him. They look at him and scream, “Are you crazy? If you want him to live, get off his throat! Then you won’t need us to save him!”

During these three weeks of bereavement, as we mourn the loss of the Bais Hamikdosh and cry for its return, let us work to engage in acts that will help to return it to us and rid ourselves of the behaviors that caused it to be destroyed in the first place.

May we all be zoche to experience and benefit from its return with the coming of Moshiach now.