Nechamah Within the Aveilus

Nechamah Within the Aveilus
Tisha b'Av 
Harav Hagaon Yehuda Wagschal Shlita

The Three Weeks, the Nine Days, Erev Tisha b’Av and Tisha b’Av are all full of minhagim of aveilus, to gradually bring us into the feeling of mourning for Yerushalayim. Surprisingly, however, among the minhagim of this time there are also some minhagim of nechamah. For example, on Tisha b'Av itself after chatzos, we start minimizing the aveilus, sitting on chairs and showing signs of nechamah. Similarly, the Shabbos after Tisha b'Av is called Shabbos Nachamu, and the minhag is to be marbeh a little in simchah on this Shabbos, reflecting the nechamah that we experience after the aveilus on Yerushalayim.

The minhagim of aveilus are certainly in place, because we’re still in a state of churban, but what place is there for minhagim of nechamah? What changed that should offer us consolation? We’re still in the midst of the devastating churban of the Beis Hamikdash, and we weren’t yet zocheh to its rebuilding and the rebuilding of Klal Yisrael. So why are we observing minhagim of nechamah?
The Gemara, at the end of Taanis, teaches: כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה, and Rav Chaim Volozhiner wonders why this is phrased in the present tense. Shouldn’t the wording be יזכה ויראה בשמחתה? How can it be that right now, in middle of the aveilus, we’re zocheh to see the simchah?

He explains this in accordance with Rashi’s statement that Yaakov Avinu was not able to be comforted about his son Yosef’s death because the rule is that a mes is forgotten from the heart after twelve months, and since Yosef was actually alive, he could not be forgotten. Many hundreds of twelve-month periods have elapsed since the Churban Beis Hamikdash, whose aveilus is similar to that of a death, so the churban should have been forgotten already. If we are still crying and mourning for Yerushalayim, then, it must be that the Beis Hamikdash is still alive, for if it were completely dead, it would have long been forgotten. Therefore,כל המתאבל על ירושלים after all this time is זוכה ורואה בשמחתה— currently, right now, because his very ability to mourn proves that something of the Beis Hamikdash is still alive for him.

What really is left of Beis Hamikdash? There was a churban, and Yerushalayim was destroyed, so what remnant of the Beis Hamikdash exists that enables us to be זוכה ורואה בשמחתה now?
In the following words, the Gra offers a deep understanding of what the Churban Beis Hamikdash is (cited in Likkutei HaGra):

כי מעת שחרב הבית יצאה רוחנו עטרת ראשנו ונשארנו רק אנחנו הוא גוף שלה בלא נפש. ויציאה לחוץ לארץ הוא הקבר ורימה מסובבת עלינו ואין בידינו להציל מן העובדי כוכבים האוכלים בשרינו. ומכל מקום היו חבורות וישיבות גדולות עד שנרקב הבשר והעצמות נפזרו פיזור אחר פיזור. ומכל מקום היו עדיין העצמות קיימות שהתלמידי חכמים שבישראל מעמידי הגוף עד שנרקבו העצמות ולא נשאר אלא תרווד רקב מאתנו ונעשה עפר שחה לעפר נפשנו. ואנחנו מקוין עתה לתחית המתים התנערי מעפר קומי.

The Gra is saying that the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash was akin to the death of Klal Yisrael. It was as if our neshamah departed, leaving us with a lifeless body. But the process of Churban didn't stop there. Just as the body is buried in the grave after death, Klal Yisrael went into galus, which is compared to the grave. In galus, the Jewish people continued to deteriorate as a result of the surrounding influences, just as the flesh of the body decays in the ground. Yet even then, there were still great yeshivos and groups of Torah scholars. But eventually the flesh of the body becomes so decayed that the bones scatter – which is what happened to Klal Yisrael when the yeshivos dispersed. At that time, the bones are no longer bound together in one form, but they still exist. Just as the bones give support to the body, the talmidei chachamim give support to Klal Yisrael and keep them strong. As time went by, however, even the bones – the talmidei chachamim – decayed into dust. That's what happened to Klal Yisrael.

The Gra is teaching us a tremendous chiddush: that the Churban Beis Hamikdash wasn't a one-time event, but rather an ongoing, continuous process. This process began with the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, but just as there is a process of decay that continues after death, there continues to be yeridas hadoros through the generations of galus, and that's a direct result of the Churban.

How is it Possible for us to Mourn?
The Gra is also giving us guidance on how to be misabel for Yerushalayim. Many people find it hard to mourn, and part of the reason is that we don’t really have a concept of what we are missing. What does hashraas haShechinah mean? What does gilui Shechinah mean? Yet although we can’t appreciate what was lost, we are still obligated to mourn for Yerushalayim. How is this possible?
The Gra is teaching us that in order to be misabel on Yerushalayim, to feel the churban, you don’t have to look back two thousand years. You don’t have to look far at all, in fact. Every bit of yeridas hadoros, every churban that we see in front of us right now, that’s all a continuation of Churban Beis Hamikdash. Churban Beis Hamikdash marked the yetzias haneshamah from the body, but so much more destruction has happened since then. And the steady decay of the very foundations of Klal Yisrael – from ten years ago to five years ago, from five years ago to now, from one year ago to now – persists right before our eyes. So many of the basic foundations of Klal Yisrael are crumbling.

This deterioration is not a new phenomenon, but rather a direct continuation of Churban Beis Hamikdash. So if you want to be misabel on the churban, and you know how to appreciate what hashraas haShechinah was, then gevaldik! That’s greatest form of aveilus a person can observe. But if you feel distant from the actual churban, you don’t have to look far to find reasons to mourn. You can look right outside your window; you can look right inside yourself. Any decay and any deterioration that we see in the fundamentals of Klal Yisrael – in Torah, in tefillah, in emunas chachamim, in kedushah – that’s reason for mourning the churban.

At the same time, however, the fact that the churban is an ongoing process of decay also means that there must be something left of the Beis Hamikdash. Because if there is something that can decay, there must be some bit of life left. True, the churban is becoming progressively worse, but there’s still something for us to grab onto. The same decay and deterioration that gives us reason to cry also gives us the ability to be זוכה ורואה בשמחתה, because our ability to mourn the churban affords us some connection to the original source of what the Beis Hamikdash was. And that’s the reason we can have a little bit of a nechamah.

The Rema relates that Yirmiyahu Hanavi was sitting at the site of the ruins of the Beis Hamikdash and crying, when a non-Jewish philosopher noticed that he was crying and asked two questions about this. One of the questions was: “A wise person does not cry over the past; whatever happened, happened. You are a wise person, so why are you crying over the past?”

Yirmiyahu Hanavi responded that he is unable to answer that question, because it’s something that the philosopher would not be able to understand. Yet although that non-Jew, who was a great philosopher and man of wisdom, could not understand the answer, a Jew can and does have to understand. The answer lies in the above teaching of the Gra.

A non-Jew cannot see himself as part of a continuous process that goes back thousands of years. He lives in his box, wherever he is at that moment. But a Yid knows that he’s not alone: he’s not the end, and he’s not the beginning – he’s part of a continuous chain. The aveilus that the Gra describes, linking Churban Beis Hamikdash with all the subsequent tzaros and yeridas hadoros that Klal Yisrael faced over the generations in one long process, that’s not something that a non-Jew can comprehend; only a Yid can understand that.

Yirmiyahu did not answer the philosopher because he couldn’t explain to him that the churban is not the past – it’s the present! A Yid knows that the churban of the present is actually a continuation of what was before. And if we’re being misabel on Yerushalayim, we’re not just mourning the past – we’re being misabel on the continuation of that churban.

Yet as we said, the fact that the churban is an ongoing process is also a source of some nechamah, for when we see that we’re part of this continuous chain, we can be comforted by the realization that there’s still something left of the gadlus that was then.

Our job, as we’re being misabel, is also to feel that there’s something left, and that’s the source of the bit of nechamah that we observe on Tisha b'Av after chatzos and on Shabbos Nachamu. For if we were zocheh to be misabel, then we’re also zocheh – currently – to the simchah, knowing that there’s still something left of the greatness of Klal Yisrael and the Beis Hamikdash.