Understanding Kinnos: Tears of Teshuvah, Longing, and Hope for the Geulah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Today, I'd like to discuss a little bit the Kinnos. Of course, we don't have time to go through the entire Kinnos, or even, for that matter, most of it, but to touch on a few points in the Kinnos, especially the beginning, the first ten. I think it will be an interesting and important introduction, hakdamah, preparation for the day Tisha B'Av. Over the years, Kinnos starts as more or less talk, reading and reading and reading. Most of the people have a hard time putting their finger on the actual even translation, or let alone the idea what the Kinnos is trying to bring out. But after you start getting a little bit of an understanding of the words, got translations, you think that the Kinnos are random points of churban and aveilus and things that unfortunately happened to Klal Yisroel throughout the doros, and there's not a connection so much from one kinah to the next. Actually, it wasn't even written by one person. Avada, the beginning, beginning Kinnos... Reb Leizer Kalir, according to many, was a Rishon. And then later on, there's from different poets, so to speak, people who knew how to write, who brought out different themes and different things that would touch the heart, that were nogea to Tisha B'Av. But as I get older, I start to realize that the specifics of the kinos were chosen because the kinos as a whole touches on every facet of what aveilus is about. Together with all the different nekudos that the kinos brings out, the person properly was misabel on Yerushalayim, the Beis Hamikdash. The themes behind the kinos are all necessities in aveilus, and they combine together to cover the entire scope of aveilus on the Churban. So I'd like to begin with the first kinah and show you something, an observation, which is a yesod in aveilus Churban. Zechor Hashem mah hayah lanu. This is from the kinah, first one. We say it at night. We say a few at night, and then we continue most of them during the day. But it seems to be that it's one... One kinah is, Zechar Hashem meh hayah lanu, oy. And every end of the kinah ends with the stanza, oy meh hayah lanu, oy meh hayah lanu, oy meh hayah lanu. The word oy is a krechtz. Basically all it is, the word oy. Does oy have any specific meaning? The translators definitely don't translate it as much. The word oy is oy. Whoa. It's a krechtz. The yesod of the kinah is trying to tell us that we have to express some form of emotion, something. There's a Gemara, rabosai, that Klal Yisrael had they only cried one tear, bechiyah achas, they would have never went to galus. Bechiyah achas, one tear. It's a Gemara. It's Chazal, a Medrash, Al naharos Bavel. We say it every day before...

We bench, Al naharos Bavel, sham yashavnu. Sham. There yashavnu. Say Chazal, sham is an emphasis. There, and not till then, and not till there. The Medrash says that they were going into galus, they were being taken with chains, and Yirmiyah meets up with them. And something about seeing Yirmiyah gave them an outpour of emotion. They began to cry. Says Yirmiyah, Ila bechisah em bechiah achas, one, one tear, you would not be in the state of galus you would not have to be in this matzav that you're in right now. Bechiah achas, that's all it takes? With one tear? Well, the truth is yes. The power of koach of a bechi. Chazal tell us that even when all the she'arim are נעול, when all the gates are locked, sha'arei bechi is not ננעל. Notice though it says bechios, it doesn't even say bechi, it says bechios, it's tears. So say sha'ar bechi. Here you see that we minimize it even to one tear, one bechi. What is in one bechi that that could have saved them completely? And the answer is, bechi is a deep emotion. You know, bechi has no— Words. Bechi is an expression of an inner feeling. That's all a bechi is. The bechi is something that the lev shows that it was moved, it was touched. All we need is to show the Ribono Shel Olam that we've moved. One bechi, one bechi. Is it a koach ha-tefillah sheboi? I don't know. It's hard to believe that the bechi that Yirmiyahu is referring to was a bechi of tefillah. It was a bechi of showing something changed. Shinui. It touched us. We got it. I don't understand literally the story. When there's a churban, you don't get it? But they weren't crying? I mean, when someone is taken out of his house, when someone is given a churban the way the Midrashim tell us, you don't shed a tear? Who doesn't shed a tear? What's there not to cry about? What caused them not to cry? And the answer is, there's different types of bechi, rabosai. There are bechiyos that you cry, it hurts. That's not the bechi that we're talking about. Az es tut vei un me veint. All right, that's you and your matzav. We're talking about something completely different. We're talking about a bechi. Where the person isn't crying from hurt, but he's crying that the neshama, something that the neshama is being disconnected from the Ribono Shel Olam. It's more of a ruchniyusdike bechi. When a child cries, it's interesting. When a child cries, what does he cry? He's crying physical, it hurts him. You know, by a bris milah, the cry of the child is a very important thing. It's brought, Ki shama Hashem kol bechi. It's referring to the kol hanaar that he's bocheh b'shaas the bris. Kol hanaar that he's bocheh, that he cries, v'chol habocheh, whoever cries together with the child, the bechi, his tears go all the way directly to Shamayim. It's Reb Elie Gutmacher in the end of Mesechta Shabbos. Ki shama Hashem kol bechi. It's the bechi of the naar, and says Reb Elie Gutmacher, those that cried together with the naar. So the pashut pshat is that the naar cries.

He is pain. He's an innocent child. It's pain from a mitzvah. So the Rabbeinu Shleilam looks at this Pesach, a korban. You know, speak to me, if the child really has the pain that he's crying about. I would say technically that, yes, there's a... I can't see how it's not painful. Meylim are convinced. You ever had this discussion with anybody? You ever heard this from a meylim? Meylim are convinced that it's something else more than the actual chitul. They're convinced that there's a cry, there's a bechi. They say maybe it has to do with the fact that the child feels uncovered at that moment, he's cold. There's discussion what exactly is causing that cry. One thing for sure, the cry of the child is the cry which has to be a ruchniyusdike cry as well. There's something in that cry that when the child cries, there's a... maybe it's his neshama. Maybe the neshama cries that he's becoming a Yid. There's a certain bechi, and that bechi to the Rabbeinu Shleilam is chashuv. And whoever cries with the child, the Rabbeinu Shleilam listens to that bechi. The point that I'm trying to bring out is that all we needed was one bechi, not from pain. Obviously a bechi from pain, there had to have been, there had to have been. It doesn't make sense that nobody cried. Unless the tzaros were so much that they became numb, it's hard to understand what that means. And the Teretz obviously means, we mean a different type of a bechi. We mean a bechi about a ruchniyusdike thing. We mean a bechi, what the person lost, that he becomes disconnected from the Ribono Shel Olam. That bechi. That bechi, we just needed one. Here we're saying, Oy, takes one regesh, one feeling, oy, meh hoyah lanu. You know, today, rabosai, we're dry. We're dry. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is. Deep down in every neshama, there's a part of the neshama, when he understands and he gets in contact with what the loss of the Churban, there is a certain hergesh of pain, remorse. The Ribono Shel Olam was searching for that krechts. Oy, meh hoyah lanu. The kinah begins, it's an interesting, Zechor Hashem meh hoyah lanu, oy. The theme, the first kinah, the entire first kinah is oy, meh hoyah lanu. What are you saying? And the answer is, it krechts. There's a response. There's something deep from within that's hurting me. That becomes yesod of the aveilus of the churban. If you take a look at the second kinah, second kinah is actually a tziruf of many Chazalim, and that is why the churban happened. If you take a look, it says clearly, why did it happen? It says in the kinah, Ki shadadu tzarim, Barach hamasei, kilabos, pneinu nishtanu. It's all about the things that happened that went wrong, that we did wrong. Nutlu menorah, levanah Torah, v'nivzeh gazes miyekara. If you look through the kinos, we'll find a lot of midah keneged midah. Chazal worked hard to identify the aveiros that caused the churban. Why is it so important to find the midah keneged midah and to discuss it in the kinos?

It's so important to discuss why the churban happened. We should be mekayem that the churban happened. How does this become part of the kinah itself? Mefarshim talk, what's the reason for Midah k'neged midah? Pashtus, it's that we see that the Eibishter's judgment is yashar. Rabbeinu Shalom does something, it's got to be, and it has to equal, and yativ done, and therefore mishpat Hashem are yashar. There's another pshat from the mefarshim that the onesh is always a teitza from the chet. People think that if I do this, the Rabbeinu Shalom will punish me. No, it's the actual chet itself which brings the onesh. That itself is the chisaron. So the midah k'neged midah is a must, because the onesh and the chet are actually one and the same. And the final pshat that's brought, and this is the nekudah I want to discuss today, we have to know how to do teshuvah. When a person gets an onesh, the first thing he has to check the midah k'neged midah, because otherwise he doesn't know al mah avda ha'aretz. It's got to have a midah k'neged midah, because we have to do teshuvah. I've mentioned to you in the past that the Rambam tells us that the yesod of the Tishah B'Av, the Taanisim, the yesod of the aveilus is to realize what they did wrong that caused the churban and what we do wrong, like what they did wrong. That the churban is continual. Chol shelo nivneh Beis Hamikdash b'yamav, ki'ilu nechrav. U'mimeila, we have to know what caused the churban, because we have to know what to fix today in order to bring about the geulah, to bring about the Beis Hamikdash. So part of the kinnos, Rabbi Yisai, is actually a teshuvah. Part of the kinnos is to bring out, is to cry, and like the Rambam says, zichron ma'aseinu. It's important to discuss within the kinnos. Now, you see, what I'm trying to do is give you a picture of what the point of the kinnos is. What are we trying to achieve with the kinnos? So the first thing is, like I explained to you, the first thing is, oy. First thing is, it's got to penetrate. The person has to be able to show that something is wrong. It has to be that the person is moved by what happened. You know, a person could theoretically say kinnos an entire Tisha B'Av morning and walk out the same person that he walked into the beis medrash. He came in, he was reading... The kinnos has to penetrate. The kinnos has to make the person have a movement. Oy, something went wrong. If it's a bechi, it's אפילו better, but at least a real krechtz. And then he has to start to figure out what is it that's causing us today to continuously have a Tisha B'Av. And that becomes, kind of, days to figure out the midah keneged midah, and the midah k'neged midah. Then we have Gimmel. And what is Gimmel? Gimmel is, B'leil ze yifkayon. This is the night that the children cry, my children, yelailu banai. B'leil ze, this night, is the night that's designated for the Beis Hamikdash to cry. Now it's interesting, how did it become B'leil ze? Is Tisha B'Av the night? Is Tisha B'Av the day? When was the sreifah? The sreifah l'Chayra was the ikur, it was by day. It started—some say it started actually the day before. There's a Midrash that they started actually the day before. But the point is, something about B'leil ze yifkayon. And we say it actually, Balaila, right? We say it, Bachoi sifkeh balaila. Why the night? So there's a Chazal...

Morah says, Shekol haboicheh balayla... Morah Sanhedrin, daf kuf daled amud beis, koloi nishmaas. People here, people are moved, and they all start crying. So meila, we say, Bochu yisifkeh balayla. Well, it's just a technical thing that since you cry, the other people will cry. Shekol haboicheh balayla, it's nishma. So what? That's why I have to cry by night? There's an inyan to be me'orer others? Or maybe when Klal Yisroel cries, they have to cry as a whole. That's the inyan, bochu yisifkeh balayla. How do you get Klal Yisroel to cry? It's balayla. Maybe other mefarshim talk about layla as a symbol of galus. Bochu yisifkeh balayla, the night, the galus, the darkness of night. That doesn't mean the night; it means the choshech of layla. Bochu yisifkeh. One thing you do see, there's an inyan of bechirah, rabosai, that you see clearly. To say the Kinnos and not shed one tear, you're going against what it says in the pasuk. The person not shed a tear during the Kinnos, what do you do with the pasuk, Bochu yisifkeh balayla? The pasuk wants that you should cry. You have to cry. That becomes what the pasuk, the Navi is telling us to do. And the balaila, okay, it's probably either like Chazal say that it's more, it's more for, the laila brings out the tears. The entire kinah is saying that it's nikva, that the day was nikva for the bechiyah, and that we know is Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av, and as he enumerates the five things that happened, the tremendous tragedies over the years, and of course we all know it has to do with the meraglim, it has to do with the bechiyah l'chinam. So wait a minute. Notice that it's not just, 'Bachoi, the Ribono Shel Olam wants us to cry.' The Ribono Shel Olam wants us to be misaken the bechiyah shel chinam from the past. It's not, 'Gerada agav, you should feel the pain to the point that you should cry.' You see clearly that there was a bechiyah shel chinam, and therefore there's an inyan of bachoi yisifke, and it was nikva l'doiros a bechiyah. So the bechiyah becomes essential in the whole inyan of the Tisha B'Av. You cried for nothing, says HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's all about crying for nothing. What is the bechiyah l'doros? What is it about? I've told this to you before. Bechiyah is something that a person does when deep down he's missing something. There's talk if it's shayach to make tears, fake tears, and there is such a thing. Chatzki used to say over, why do you need a shaar, a gateway for bechius, if it's never ninalu, so what's the point of having a shaar? Bastach. Why do you need a shaar for if it's never closed? So I always wanted to say, the pshat is, the Ribono Shel Olam will devise an asi af. Imagine you walk past a house and the door is wide open. So what is he saying? Come in. It's an invitation to tell the person to come in. Stam, if you don't see the shaar, you don't chap that the shaar is announcing that there's a way to get in here. Chatzke flickt alemolim bezogin, that there's real tears and fake tears. Real tears and fake tears. So when the person cries and it's real tears, it goes in. When there's fake tears, the she'arim close the doors. There are she'arim. Shaari bechius.

Tell me, Rabosai, what are real tears and what are fake tears? What fake means that the person went and he... I shouldn't say this... peeled an onion and he started to cry. Those are fake tears. What does it mean, tears that are fake? I'm going to tell you a Chazal, Rabosai, I don't think anybody knows. It's an interesting Medrash Aggadah. You know where tears began? Who was the first person to cry? Does anybody here know? Who? Okay. So there's a Medrash Aggadah that says that it's actually from before then. Odom Harishon. Medrash Aggadah says, was he born with that? No. He was... He was born without the koach to cry. When he did his aveirah and he was kicked out of Gan Eden, he was so tzubrochen. It's a Medrash. He was so tzubrochen, the Ribono Shel Olam looked at him and said, 'Tachshiva keilim. How do I... I'll give you something very special. I'll give you a bechiyah to cry. Shekol zman, any time that you're lost and you cry, now I'll be menachem.' Tears were given. The person to cry over being thrown out of Gan Eden. It was given as a mechanism to survive galus. The tears were given that the person should feel, because once you feel, then it's still alive. The Chasam Sofer says, Why kol hamisabel al Yerushalayim zocheh v'ro'eh b'nechamasah? It doesn't say you will; zocheh v'ro'eh b'nechamasah now. You don't cry on something that's lost, it's finished. Ein adam... a person al meisai, it's finished, it's forgotten. Yaakov Avinu didn't stop crying for Yosef because Yosef was still alive. Bechi creates that the hergesh is still there. And bechi is a matanah that the Ribono Shel Olam gave. So they took that matanah and they misused it in the midbar. Atem bechisem bechiyah shel chinam. He took a matanah I gave you, a matanah, I gave you a matanah to come close to the Ribono Shel Olam. I gave you that when you're far, you should come close. So you use the bechiyah to further yourself when you were close. That's called bechiyah shel chinam. Atem bechisem bechiyah shel chinam. Meila al bi kovea bechiyah l'doros, because that's how you're mesaken. When the Yid cries in Galus, he's saying to Ribono Shel Olam, I'm just like the meraglim. They didn't want to go into Eretz Yisroel. I'm crying now, I want to go into Eretz Yisroel. Put me there. The bechiyah l'doros is that Ribono Shel Olam, the meraglim, they cried not to go into Eretz Yisroel. I'm going to use the bechiyah properly. I cry, I want to go back to Eretz Yisroel. I want to go build the Beis HaMikdash. That was the intent of what it was. It was meant when your person is taken out of Gan Eden, that he should be able to find solace. Roiya b'nechmaso when he goes and he cries. B'leil zeh yifkun yeleilu banai. The crying is a siman of banai, my children. It's when a child is golah me'al shulchan aviv. That's where the crying is meant. It was meant to long, to express longing when the child is meruchak from the av. That's what it was meant to be. And that's why the Ribono Shel Olam gave us bechiyah b'leil zeh. So b'leil zeh yifkun banai becomes a part, a part.

Okay. I obviously don't have much time. I thought I'd be able to finish a little more. But I just want to— you know what? ... I'm going to say my pshat's gevaldik. Why do you need the ... after such a pshat? You say it's so gevaldik. Can I tell you the truth? I am so little compared to the ... You know how little I... When I say Torah sometimes, and I say differently than others, I want you to know I walk away and I ask mechilah before and after the shiur. I really do. I know I... but that's why I come here. I come here to say a shiur. I'm sorry. I have to. I don't really want to. ... But the gevaldigkeit of the pshat is, there's different types of bechiyos. When a person is boicheh properly, then the she'arim are opened. And I want to tell you this big yesod: there is nothing to stop a bechi. There's no way. There's nothing. You know, at the end of Yom Kippur, in the tefillah, we say clearly, the Ribono Shel Olam takes the bechiyos and He puts it b'nod chaliyos. He puts it in a pouch, and He keeps it under the kisei hakavod. It's a peirush. We say it every Yom Kippur by Ne'ilah. Whenever Klal Yisrael needs a yeshuah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu takes out one of these bechiyos and He uses them. He frees them for long-term use. Bechiyos can never— it can't. Bechi is a ruchniyusdike... The chiyuch, when it's done because the person longs to the Ribono Shel Olam, it's a ruchniyusdike thing, and it can't, it can't get lost. Like every davar ruchni, you can't destroy it. The most powerful thing is a true bechiyah. And the end one, one a minute or two. Vayeilevin, vayeilevin, chelek tzaddik, d'vari. Laila chinam that he was zocheh, all his children and grandchildren, all the gedolei Yisrael, one by one. It was kulo ahavas Hashem and ahavas Yisrael. So he went to be menachem avel a woman who lost her husband at a young age. He was killed in a war, that was the story. And he had a hard time. He had a very hard time, because every time he came to knock on the door to go in, he just couldn't face her. It says over there, finally, finally, he mustered up enough courage and he went in. So she told him, Rebbe, ... What happened to all my tefillos? The Ribono Shel Olam didn't listen to it. Now you took this yesod and you told her, do you think that your tefillos went nowhere? Every tefillah the Ribono Shel Olam took, and every tear the Ribono Shel Olam took, put it into a pouch, and when Klal Yisrael is going to need yeshuah, He's going to take out that tefillah and He's going to use it. It didn't go nowhere. It went somewhere very important. So she told him, You were menachem me, unbelievable, tremendous nechamah. Kayach of a tefillah, the koach of a bechin, the koach of something which is ruchniyus oimed l'doros. And therefore, throughout the Galus, we were meant to cry. I just need one second, I want to wrap up a yesod, okay? I don't know if you realize that right away, in the beginning, as soon as we start the kinah, we end kinah. Atah Hashem lo'olam. Tamarish, the first kinah: Atah Hashem lo'olam, teishev, kisacha l'dor vador, lamah lanetzach tishkacheinu, hashiveinu Hashem eilecha. That's it. At the end of the first kinah, that's it already. We're wrapping it up: Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha v'nashuvah, chadesh yameinu kikedem. And we think that you should read through all the kinos, and at the end, let's end on a positive note. Right away, the first kinah, we didn't even get a chance to talk about shechet... all of a sudden, yeah, ki mos mastanu, hashiveinu Hashem eilecha v'nashuvah. What happened? If you understand what Tisha B'Av is, the dual inyanim of yes...

Galus, but together with geulah. It's not just galus. Kara li mo'ed, we don't say tachanun. It's a peledige zach. The day that was nikva for the ikur of aveilus, we're fasting and we're walking around like aveilim. But kara li mo'ed, we don't say tachanun. While we're sitting on the floor, while we're sitting on the floor crying, אבל tachanun? Kara li mo'ed. Hashta pshat. You're sitting on the floor and you're telling the world that you're an avel, meisai mutal lefanav. That's what you're telling, as eved k'prakt. This is a meisai mutal lefanav. Tachanun? Yom Tov. Kara li mo'ed. So this Torah tells us, Rosh Yeshivas, that if you understand the relationship with the Ribono Shel Olam, sometimes it's to get a patch, sometimes it's to get a gletel. It's all mo'ed. Mo'ed is an appointment, vad, to get together with the Ribono Shel Olam. What a beautiful ... beautiful. Shein vigel, okay? But the truth is, if you understand, the patch is only to bring about the geulah. And this is what I tried to bring out: the bechiyah l'doros is not to bring out the bechiyah for pain. It's to bring out the bechiyah to be zoche v'ro'eh b'nechamasa. It's to bring about the longing and the ratzon to go back to the Ribono Shel Olam, to the Beis Hamikdash. It's a dual between aveilus. Which the aveilus is supposed to bring about what? Hergeshim of nechama. As the Ribono Shel Olam is kayam, and the Beis Hamikdash is kayam, and Klal Yisrael is kayam, and Moshiach mitkumen bald, and that's why Moshiach is not born on Tishah. It's different bechirah, baisai. The bechirah is this. Here, you know, there's a very nice ... okay, otherwise. You know, I hope that we won't need this, maybe. Maybe the Ribono Shel Olam is saying, ... kinus, ... kinus there, ... it's gonna be kinus this year, and you stop wasting your time. I'll take it on the chin if I made a mistake, okay? Are you allowed to cry Rosh Hashanah and Kippur? Huh? Are you allowed to? I'm not gonna pasken that one. Mishnah Berurah talks about that. Mishnah Berurah says, are you kippur to cry? The goyim, Rosh Hashanah to cry. The goyim held you're not allowed to cry on Rosh Hashanah. The goyim said that if a person, when he blows shofar, you know what he should do? He should dance. True as melech. It's a loshon of simchah. The melech, walls רעדסט, Rosh Hashanah and Kippur, you should, chas v'shalom, you shouldn't cry. The reason I'll write that anyone who doesn't cry during his davening Rosh Hashanah and Kippur ... go check into his blood with ... Is v'ntzach vavas elvei. Oy, belvein, vaylus and bitter, and nepes badutem. Ah, tedas is bechiyah shel chinam. That's not what bechiyah is meant to be. That's not what the bechiyah is. But the bechiyah is, I feel close to the Eibishter. I was rachok all year, and all of a sudden, I have nitzotz of Elokus. This moves me to cry. That bechiyah must be Rosh Hashanah. VaRosh Hashanah in Yom Kippur חוזר. It comes right to beir olam. It's a Mishnah Berurah. Tisha B'Av, the bechiyah leinis the nechamah, because the richuk brings the bechiyah, which brings the kiruv, a longing to the Ribono Shel Olam. Das is zeicher veraya verachamasa. Das is. Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha vnashuva. That's what it's about. Oy, hashiveinu Hashem eilecha vnashuva. Oy, hashiveinu Hashem eilecha vnashuva. It goes together with the kechtz. The kechtz is, Ribono Shel Olam, I want to come back. I want the beis hamikdash. It's in the same sentence. It's in the same paragraph.

Galus is meant for geulah. It's meant to bring out hergesh. The Ribono Shel Olam says, I give you Moshiach. Moshiach was born today. She was born today, born on the day that you're crying that there's a churban, because it's to be me'orer, v'hachshiveinu Hashem eilecha v'nashuvah. I tried to go to a beis medrash where they explained the kinnos. It's so rich. I took you three kinnos. We had to read all of it. That's why maybe nobody's going to come to us. We go all the way till Moshiach. I have a policy I told the people in the shul: this or Moshiach, meaning till Moshiach comes, we're going to keep on going. You can't handle it, so let's take choice B. Moshiach has to come again. But you should go. Go to a shul, a place, or apply yourselves. It's rich in yadus. The kinnos is rich in yadus, hergesh of doyrusa, what it means to long for the Ribono Shel Olam, to feel bad about the churban and the galus. And with this, you'll be zocheh v'ro'eh b'nechamasa. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.