I really try every year to connect to the Churban Habayis and to feel the aveilus but I can't do it. I am not moved to tears by the kinos describing the destruction. Intellectually I understand but emotionally it is just not there for me and I would guess most of us. We have lived so long without a Beis Hamikdash that we have no clue what it really means.
Someone in my shul put it best, we should cry because we can't cry about the churban.
9 comments:
IMHO one of the reasons why its so difficult for us to mourn on tish b'av is that we feel little grief over our loss. Now what is that loss? If that loss is a loss of gashmeos then its understandable why we feel little grief. We have the gashmeos back. We even have a State of Israel.
But if what we grieve is a loss of ruchneos then we feel a loss.
I once had a rebbe who went through what would happen every day in the bais hamokdosh and would talk about the reasons and the hasbooh of each event. He then talked about what a sanhredrin would accomplish. The resolving of disputes and clarifying of halachah. He talked about what a melech would accomplish. He talked about how if one needed some hishorarus one could go to the bais hmikdah and view open nissim. How one could seek ruach hakodesh at the simchas bais hashoeivoh.
He talked about neveuo about the million neviim that one lived. How many yidden could get a knock at the door and be told their own personal "co amar hashem'. Imagine one had a question about what to do. One could ask a novi and get a message direct the the ribono shel olum.
If one thinks that what used to exist was a non currupt torah run state where yushrus and emes were the guiding principles where there was shalom between one yid and another. What we have today even in frum circles is a far cry from that. Its all politics, politics, politics.....
However to come to such a realization one has to realise that what exists today is not part of or the beggining of some geuloh. Only by realising that one lacks can one mourn.
I think the events in gaza and later on in the west bank will prove that and drive that point home. After all if its a geuloh then why are we giving back land and sorveignty.
These kinds of things work intellectually not emotionally. I can intellectually understand what is missing but feel it emotionally. That is what he have today. It is far removed from us we just can't feel it.
'ba asher hu shom,'.
To feel it at whatever level we can.
21st Century wo/man living in a democratic society simply cannot relate to the ideal of a messianic, Torah society. For example 1) korbanos 2) living under a (presumedly) benevolent dicatator 3) being chayev misah for (e.g.) being mechalel Shabbos (regardless of how difficult it was to convict someone). There are many other examples. As bluke said, one can intellectualize about these things, but they are simply not part of our psychology.
For Tisha B'Av, I focus on the personal tragedies that are part and parcel of our history. It is easier for me to relate to these personal sufferings than to the destruction of a place and time that is so far removed from my everyday experience.
In an ironic twist, there are people who also don't feel any connection to the churban, yet at the same time will get all worked up against people who don't make aliyah.
He talked about neveuo about the million neviim that one lived. How many yidden could get a knock at the door and be told their own personal "co amar hashem'. Imagine one had a question about what to do. One could ask a novi and get a message direct the the ribono shel olum.
If you really believe these fairy tales I have a couple of bridges I can sell you, cheap. Also I have some nice beachfront property in Arizona. Bubbah Mayses are just that.
avi, don't be so cynical. I've seen this brought down also.
The answer to why you can't cry is right there in your post pre-tisha b'av. You act and think as though the beis hamikdosh is alive. You read the torah and the rambam and you think the message about milchama applies today. You don't think of am yisrael as having lost its moral right, or the torah as not being able to be applied.
I'm tired of militant Zionists telling us how ODDLY they can't mourn on tisha b'av. Out of Step Jew had a post just liike yours last year tisha b'av, and this year, he writes this:
"This Tisha B'av we should remember that, for good or for bad, the fate of the Jewish people is not dependent upon the amount or quality of Torah learned in Lakewood in Washington Heights in Chicago or in Baltimore. It does not depend on the number of kosher restaurants in Teaneck or the number of cookie manufacturers that get the OU.
It depends on our ability to live life as Jews – and to defend it, in Israel."
Any wonder why he cannot mourn the destruction of the beis hamikdosh? His ideology preaches that the mourning is irrelevant. You write this:
"Therefore, whether these dinim apply specifically nowadays is not that relevant to this dicussion. Even if they don't they show us the Torah's view on these issues "
No they showed you the torah's view of how things once were and should be NOT how they are today. You read the torah and you don't say, "that is how it was but we lost the right" you say "that's the spirit of it today, and anyone who doesn't realize it is too westernized"
So you have nothing to mourn.
"In an ironic twist, there are people who also don't feel any connection to the churban, yet at the same time will get all worked up against people who don't make aliyah."
Exactly. People who feel it even in Israel don't take bluke's attitude to aliya. People who don't feel it, think of moving to Israel as the ultimate religious goal. They invoke the ramban and the GRA, but they aren't thinking of aliya in the terms the gra thought of it
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