Reflecting and Connecting

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

We are now in the period known as the Nine Days, the days leading up to Tisha B’Av. The Shulchan Aruch teaches that we must minimize our joy during this time. The Mogein Avrohom goes further, urging us to abstain completely from joyous activity. Why? Because these days are not just historical, they’re existential. They are meant to keep us focused on the churban; the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh, and the exile that followed.

So we refrain from eating meat, drinking wine, listening to music, and wearing freshly laundered clothes. There are no weddings, major celebrations, or vacations. We try to dull our senses so that our souls can feel.

And yet, it often doesn’t work.

We observe all the halachos but remain emotionally disconnected. For too many, the Nine Days feel more like an inconvenience than an opportunity for introspection. We know what to do, but we don’t always know how to feel.

We’re supposed to reflect on what we lost over the years, on what it means to live in a world without the Bais Hamikdosh, on what it means to live in golus. But we’ve become so comfortable in this exile that we forget it’s golus and we don’t feel like we’re missing anything.

We think we’re home. But we’re not. We have it all wrong.

There are people who are forced to travel for a living. Every Sunday, instead of enjoying a day off like everyone else, they get into their cars, fight traffic, and head to the airport. They find a spot in the long-term parking lot, take the tram to the terminal, wait in anxious check-in lines, then through security lines, and then again at the gate, until they can board and sit in their cramped seat on the airplane.

Hours later, when they finally reach their destination, they wait for their luggage, then for the bus to the car rental counter, where they pick up the vehicle that will shuttle them from place to place for the week. They check into the best airport hotel they can find, unpack their bags, and settle in.

As punctual as the flight may have been and as comfortable as the hotel may be, these traveling salesmen are unhappy away from home. They miss their wives, their children, their homes, their beds, their shul, their friends, and their neighborhoods. As nice as the town they are visiting may be, it’s not home, and while they are there, they feel sad and lonely. Every unfamiliar face and every lonesome meal reminds them of what they are missing. They wish they were home, or at least homeward bound.

Children wait all year to go to sleep-away camp. While there, they are surrounded by friends, having a great time. Camp is amazing. Campers meet others from all over, swim, play ball, and go on exciting trips. But it’s not home. They get homesick. And when it’s their turn to call home, all they do is cry and beg to come back.

Being in jail is dreadful. Speak to people who’ve been there and they’ll tell you that even life in the so-called “camp jails” is miserable. Despite how they’re portrayed in the media, “camp jails” are very sad places. Every moment of incarceration is a punishment, a constant reminder that they are not home.

In each of these examples, the person who is away feels the absence deeply. He knows what he’s missing and he yearns to return.

The prisoners, and lehavdil the campers, are comforted in their longing by remembering home, thinking of home, and receiving visitors, updates, and packages from home. They know that they’ll be going home soon. Camp is just a few weeks long. Even a stay in camp-style jail is not finite. Those there don’t need to do anything in particular to be allowed to return home, but every day in jail feels torturous and endless.

These experiences serve as examples that portray what golus is and how we should feel while in golus. But in truth, golus is different—and far worse. In golus, we are far from home, and we don’t know for how much longer. Each day we wake up wishing we knew when we were going home, hoping that today will be the day.

Not only are we far from home, but we have forgotten that we ever had a home. Born into exile, we have never seen our home, never tasted the beauty of the Bais Hamikdosh. And so, we don’t cry for it.

But we should.

The Rambam (Hilchos Melochim 11:1) writes that anyone who does not believe in the coming of Moshiach, and who does not actively await him, is denying the entire Torah. It is not enough to accept that he will come someday. We must long for him. We must await his arrival every day.

The Gemara in Shabbos (31a) says that when a person arrives at the Heavenly Court, one of the first questions they are asked is: “Tzipisa l’yeshuah? Did you look forward to the redemption?”

The implication is clear. Yearning is not optional. It’s essential. But yearning must also lead to action. Part of expecting Moshiach to arrive every day is engaging in actions that will bring about his arrival. If we want him and anticipate his arrival, then it follows that we ourselves would be performing the actions that Chazal teach will lead to the geulah and encouraging others to do the same.

The Alter of Kelm offers a haunting parable. A man screams, “Help! My father is dying!” But when people rush over, they find him choking his own father. “If you want him to live,” they ask, “why are you killing him?” The Alter explains that we cry over the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh, but we also repeat the very sins that led to its destruction.

If we want to go home, we have to stop doing the things that are keeping us away.

During these days of Av, we mourn. Tisha B’Av is the repository of sadness and mourning for everything that has befallen us. We recall the time when the Bais Hamikdosh stood in the center of Yerushalayim. We reflect on the tragedies that have occurred to the Jewish people throughout the ages and are saddened as we recall them.

Tragedy and sadness are part of our essence. On Tisha B’Av, we remember the kedoshim who lost their lives in the current war. We remember the horrific attack on October 7^th, the victims of terror attacks in Eretz Yisroel, and the growing antisemitic attacks in Europe, the U.S., and around the world.

On Tisha B’Av, we mourn the six million victims of the Nazis, the millions of our brothers and sisters brutally killed in pogroms, the Jews who were murdered during the Crusades and the Inquisition, the millions killed at the time of the churban, the Jews sold into slavery, and those who were pillaged, beaten, robbed, and thrown to the lions in the Roman Coliseum.

Every European city and countryside is stained with Jewish blood. All year round, we look away from our history in these Western nations, but on Tisha B’Av, we recite Kinnos for the Jews who were killed in England, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Portugal, and we wonder to ourselves why Jews vacation in those places, spend money there, and buy their products.

On Tisha B’Av, we stop. We remember. We cry.

But not just for what happened. We cry for what is still happening—and for what isn’t happening—because we have not yet done what it takes to bring the redemption closer.

The halachos of the Nine Days are not rituals of deprivation. They are meant to influence our thoughts and emotions during this time. They are meant to lead us to teshuvah, to do what is necessary to merit being brought back home.

We know that the second Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed because sinas chinom was prevalent at that time (Yoma 9b). However, the Gemara in Sanhedrin (104b) attributes the sin of the meraglim as the cause of the destruction. It was on the ninth day of Av when the Jews in the desert cried needlessly. Their bechiyah shel chinom has echoed through the generations, giving every era plenty of reasons to cry. It was they who created the tragic national day of mourning we now recognize as Tisha B’Av.

The meraglim saw themselves as small and insignificant while traversing Eretz Yisroel, and they accepted the attitudes and perceptions of others. Upon returning, they shared their pessimistic report and analysis with the people. “Woe to us,” they cried. “We are being led to a country that will destroy us.” They were insecure about their worthiness to receive Hashem’s blessing and protection. They feared that they were unworthy of the promises made to them that they would overwhelm the inhabitants of the Promised Land and inherit it.

They didn’t recognize their own greatness. The nation chosen as the favorite from among all others feared that they had been cast aside. Lacking self-confidence, they were easily misled by the doomsday predictions of the meraglim.

The meraglim didn’t see themselves as worthy. They were insecure, small in their own eyes. They projected that insecurity onto the nation, and the nation wept—not over facts, but over fear. That same spiritual low self-esteem later led to sinas chinom. Because when people don’t see their own value, they cannot see it in others.

Years later, during the period of Bayis Sheini, even though the Jewish people were religiously committed, the rot at the root of the cheit hameraglim still remained. The people were cynical, negative, and pessimistic. They didn’t believe that the Jewish people were worthy of Divine love. They hated each other because they didn’t appreciate the inherent greatness of every individual. Insecure, they were blind to their own self-worth. And like the Jews at the time of the cheit hameraglim, because they felt undeserving they failed to appreciate the blessings they had been given.

On Tisha B’Av, we sit on the floor as aveilim, reciting Kinnos, recalling how good it was, how close we were to Hashem, and the holiness and unity that permeated our lives. We bemoan the losses we suffered. Through our tears, we proclaim that we are still worthy of Hashem’s blessings and embrace. And by remembering that, we begin to undo the sins of the meraglim and of sinas chinom.

Low self-worth is one of the most destructive forces. It leads to passivity, jealousy, resentment, and hatred. It convinces us that we can’t make a difference, when, in fact, we are the difference. People give up on becoming great even before trying. They lose the motivation to excel because they don’t believe in themselves. This is one of the ways the yeitzer hora causes us to live hopeless, sad, and sometimes self-hating lives.

The Sefas Emes explains that a generation that doesn’t build the Bais Hamikdosh is considered to have destroyed it. Why? Because not believing in our power to build is part of the churban.

Our response to churban must be to have faith in ourselves—to know who we are, what we are, and what we can achieve.

The Third Bais Hamikdosh is a work in progress. Every kind word, every small step of teshuvah, every effort toward achdus, is another brick in its foundation. That’s why we say in Birkas Hamazon, “Bonei Yerushalayim”—Hashem is building Yerushalayim right now. The process is underway.

If we don’t believe that we can contribute to that process, we’ve misunderstood everything.

We lost the Bais Hamikdosh because of two related sins: bechiyah shel chinom, a futile cry, and sinas chinom, baseless hatred.

Realizing what a Jew represents is the greatest and most effective antidote to sinas chinom. Each of us carries so much power. To end golus and return the Bais Hamikdosh, we have to appreciate the mitzvos and ma’asim tovim of our friends and view their efforts with an ayin tovah.

Parshas Devorim, like the rest of the last seder of the Torah, is Moshe Rabbeinu’s farewell message to his people. This week’s parsha introduces us to the seder that recounts the stay of the Bnei Yisroel in the midbar and concludes with prophetic words concerning their entry into Eretz Yisroel.

The Jewish people went on to settle the land, erected the Mishkon in Shilo, built the Botei Mikdosh in Yerushalayim, and experienced two churbanos before being tragically evicted from the land promised to them. They were sent into golus, where we remain until this day.

Seder Devorim begins with Moshe Rabbeinu rebuking his people, because to merit geulah and entry into Eretz Yisroel, they had to engage in teshuvah. As the Rambam says (Hilchos Teshuvah 7:5), “Ein Yisroel nigolin ela beseshuvah—Klal Yisroel will only be redeemed through complete and proper teshuvah.”

Parshas Devorim, read before Tisha B’Av, begins Moshe Rabbeinu’s final address. He rebukes the people, but with love. With dignity. With hope. He wants them to do teshuvah so they can enter Eretz Yisroel. He speaks not to tear them down, but to build them up. His rebuke is laced with respect, because that is how true tochacha, correction, is accomplished. His words aren’t condemnation. They are conviction, spoken by someone who sees greatness in his people and motivates them to achieve it.

Perhaps we read this parsha before Tisha B’Av because it contains the lesson of how to bring people home—not by demeaning, not by screaming, not by shaming, but by believing in their potential and helping them attain it.

Human beings are complicated. We are made of soul and struggle, mind and heart, impulses and emotions, character traits, and a complicated psychology and thinking process. From our youth, we need teachers and parents to guide us and to teach us Torah, responsibility, and manners. We need them to show us not just how to act, but how to think, how to believe, and how to dream.

Along the way, we stumble. We drift. We forget who we are. And we need those who love us to remind us. Gently. To correct without crushing. To help us find the way back.

Every generation has its challenges. The temptations of today are unlike those of the past, but the answer is eternal: Torah, teshuvah, and tefillah. As the years stretch further from Har Sinai, we need help from each other more than ever.  Just like Noach in his day of whom Chazal say, “Noach hayah tzorich sa’ad letomcho,” we all need help to make it and can’t do it alone.

The way to help people is by speaking to them as Moshe did. His tochacha didn’t just point out flaws. It revealed the strength within the people to rise above their flaws. It showed them that they were still worthy. That they still mattered. That redemption was still within reach.

We must do the same. To help bring the geulah, we must speak to each other with love. Correct with compassion. Lift up instead of tear down.

If we see the greatness in one another and treat each other with the dignity that every Jew deserves, we won’t just be remembering the Bais Hamikdosh. We will be rebuilding it.

So many generations have passed. So many tears have been shed. So much Jewish blood has soaked into the soil of exile. On Tisha B’Av, we cry out: “Lamah lanetzach tishkocheinu?”

Hashem, for how much longer?

And then, we all proclaim together, “Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venoshuvah. Chadeish yomeinu k’kedem.”

Hashem, bring us back. We want to return. We know You still love us. We are ready.

And then, as we rise from the floor, we pray that we will rise together, from destruction to hope, from mourning to meaning, from exile…to home.

Instead of being crushed by destruction and despair, we rise with hope and faith. As we complete the recitation of Kinnos, we declare to the world—and to ourselves—that although our bodies have been targeted for centuries, our spirit has never been broken. The flame of the Jewish soul continues to burn, yearning for Moshiach and doing whatever it can to bring his coming closer.

May that day arrive speedily, and may we soon celebrate Tisha B’Av not as a day of mourning, but as a Yom Tov of redemption and return.