Understanding Tisha B’Av: The Inner Work of Aveilus

Topics

• More Than the External Practices of Aveilus
• The Many Forms of Pain
• Aveilus Means Remembering
• When Shirah Becomes Kinnah
• The Shabbos Table and the Beis HaMikdash
• The Galus of Feeling
• Tears as a Deeper Tefillah
• The Five Calamities of Tishah B’Av
• A Day Prepared for National Tragedy
• Oholah and Oholivah
• Different Portions of Klal Yisrael, Different Galuyos
• The Twelve Mazalos Mourn
• Te’omim, Matan Torah, and Unity
• The Churban of the Entire Creation

Transcript

## More Than the External Practices of Aveilus

Chazal say, *“Whoever mourns for Yerushalayim will merit to see its rejoicing”* (Taanis 30b). The promise is not merely for one who performs the outward practices of mourning. Most people will sit low, fast, and recite the Kinnos. Yet the language is *kol hamesabel*—one who truly enters the aveilus.

The Kinnos are meant to awaken the many inner dimensions of that mourning. Aveilus is not one emotion. It includes pain over what was lost, fear over the diminished *kavod Shamayim*, and concern for the suffering that Klal Yisrael continues to endure without the Beis HaMikdash.

The language brought in halachah is that a person should be *meitzar v’doeg* over the Churban. *Meitzar* means to feel the pain itself. *Doeg* means to recognize that the Churban is not only an event of the past. Its consequences remain in the present and stretch into the future.

## The Many Forms of Pain

There is pain that is intense now but carries hope that relief will come. There is also pain whose end cannot yet be seen. The Kinnos give expression to all these forms of sorrow. The closing imagery of *Eli Tzion* compares Yerushalayim both to a woman suffering the pains of childbirth and to a young widow clothed in mourning. One pain contains an expectation of new life; the other confronts a loss whose full weight becomes clearer with time.

That is why the night begins with the question of *“mah hayah lanu”*—what happened to us, and what did we once possess? Proper mourning requires remembering the world that existed before the loss. (See Eichah 5:1.)

## Aveilus Means Remembering

At a shivah house, people naturally tell stories and show pictures. They recall what the person said, what he did, and the small details that had once been taken for granted. That is not incidental to aveilus. Mourning means returning to what was and recognizing the emptiness left behind.

The same is true of the Beis HaMikdash. *“Zechor Hashem meh hayah lanu—Hashem, remember what happened to us”* (Eichah 5:1). The Kinnos repeatedly describe both sides of the Churban: the beauty that once existed and the destruction that replaced it.

They also ask why it happened. Aveilus is therefore joined with *tzidduk hadin*. We ask: What occurred? What did we lose? What brought us to such a state? The first Kinnos begin building this awareness, one dimension at a time.

## When Shirah Becomes Kinnah

The next Kinnah stands in place of the song that could have been sung in a world with the Mikdash. Instead of *shirah*, we recite *Kinnah*. Instead of the beauty, harmony, and closeness that belonged to the Mishkan and Beis HaMikdash, the mouth of Klal Yisrael now expresses lamentation.

This itself defines the Churban. The same Jewish mouth that was created to praise Hashem must now describe the absence of His revealed dwelling. The Kinnah is not merely a report of tragedy. It is the painful replacement for the song that should have filled our lives.

## The Shabbos Table and the Beis HaMikdash

The Jewish Shabbos table reflects the Beis HaMikdash. The Maharil is cited as requiring a table with four legs, corresponding to the Shulchan in the Mikdash. The zemiros recall the song of the Levi’im, the candles recall the Menorah, and the bread recalls the Lechem HaPanim. Shabbos allows a Jew to carry a miniature remembrance of the Mikdash into his home.

This is why the loss is not only architectural. We lost the *noam*, the sweetness and spiritual feeling that the Mikdash placed within Jewish life.

## The Galus of Feeling

As the generations pass, we lose not only knowledge but *regesh*. Earlier generations knew how to cry. They possessed an inner sensitivity that allowed the Churban to touch them. Dryness itself is part of galus.

What is the difference between *bechi* and *dimah*? *Bechi* is the act and voice of crying; *dimah* is the tear that emerges. The Chida is cited as connecting *bechi* with *becho*—something coming from deep within the person. A tear is the outward expression of an inward reality.

The Kinnos are therefore not satisfied with information. Their purpose is to awaken the inner place from which a Jew can cry. Without that feeling, one can know every detail of the Churban and still remain outside the aveilus.

## Tears as a Deeper Tefillah

Chazal teach that although the gates of prayer may be closed, the gates of tears are never closed (Bava Metzia 59a). Why should tears accomplish what spoken tefillah cannot?

There is a tefillah formed by words, and there is a tefillah that comes from the deepest feeling of the person. Tears are that inner tefillah made visible. They emerge from a place deeper than ordinary speech.

The Kinnos seek to awaken this kind of memory and feeling. That is difficult for us because we never experienced the Beis HaMikdash. A person who knew his father can live with memories after losing him. What happens when generations are born without ever having seen the Father’s house? We do not possess a clear picture of what it meant to live with the Mikdash.

The Kinnos supply that missing memory. Again and again, they describe what existed, what was taken away, and how Jewish life changed.

## The Five Calamities of Tishah B’Av

The next Kinnah emphasizes that Tishah B’Av is not only the anniversary of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash. Five calamities occurred on that day, as recorded by the Mishnah (Taanis 4:6; 26b). Among them was the plowing over of Yerushalayim, fulfilling the words, *“Tzion sadeh techaresh—Tzion shall be plowed like a field”* (Michah 3:12).

The day became the appointed setting for national tragedy. Understanding Tishah B’Av therefore means seeing the Churban not as one isolated event, but as a continuing condition in the history of Klal Yisrael.

## A Day Prepared for National Tragedy

The five calamities were not merely five unrelated events that happened to share a date. Tishah B’Av became a day prepared for the suffering of Klal Yisrael. The decree following the report of the Meraglim established a *bechiyah l’doros*, a night of crying for generations (Taanis 29a).

The pain of the day therefore includes the tragedies of later generations. The Churban did not end when the flames of the Mikdash went out. Its condition continued to express itself in new forms throughout Jewish history.

## Oholah and Oholivah

The next Kinnah is built around the prophecy of Yechezkel concerning two sisters: Oholah and Oholivah. Oholah represents Shomron and the Ten Tribes; Oholivah represents Yerushalayim and the remaining kingdom of Yehudah and Binyamin (Yechezkel 23:4).

The Kinnah presents them in a dialogue. Each recounts the suffering that befell her. One says, “This happened to me,” and the other responds, “And this happened to me.”

Why should the two parts of Klal Yisrael compete over who endured greater suffering? That itself reflects galus. Instead of speaking about their shared closeness to Hashem and the greatness they could have achieved together, they compare their wounds. Their common language becomes the language of exile.

Even their separation from one another is part of the Churban. The Ten Tribes experienced one galus, while Yehudah and Binyamin experienced another. The Kinnah gathers those divided histories into one national lament.

## Different Portions of Klal Yisrael, Different Galuyos

Different communities within Klal Yisrael endured different forms of exile. Sephardic Jewry carried the wounds of the expulsions and the Inquisition. Ashkenazic Jewry carried other persecutions, culminating in the destruction of European Jewry. Each portion of the nation was shaped by the galus appointed to it.

This continues the dialogue of Oholah and Oholivah. One part of Klal Yisrael cannot say that it possesses the entire history of Jewish suffering. The collective memory is completed only when the wounds of all the shevatim and all the communities are joined together.

## The Twelve Mazalos Mourn

The final Kinnah of the night calls upon the twelve mazalos to mourn what happened to Klal Yisrael. Chazal teach, *“Ein mazal l’Yisrael”* (Shabbos 156a). One understanding is that Klal Yisrael is not imprisoned beneath the natural order of the constellations. Through its relationship with Hashem, Israel can rise above and transform mazal.

A teaching attributed to the Meiri and an oral response from Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach are cited to emphasize that there is a mazal, but it is not fixed beyond change. “Mazal tov” means that the heavenly flow should be directed toward goodness and blessing.

The Kinnah shows what occurs when the order is reversed. *Taleh*, the lamb, should evoke the Korban Pesach and the korbanos of the Beis HaMikdash. Instead, Jewish blood is spilled like the blood of a lamb. The very symbol that should carry blessing becomes an image of destruction.

At a bris, blood is shed within covenant and joy. In Churban, blood is shed through cruelty. The same element of creation can serve kedushah or, when the world is overturned, become part of the lament.

## Te’omim, Matan Torah, and Unity

The mazal of Sivan is *Te’omim*, the twins. The Chida is cited as explaining that this corresponds to Matan Torah, when Klal Yisrael stood *“k’ish echad b’lev echad”*—like one person with one heart (Rashi to Shemos 19:2).

Twins belong together. When the unity is broken, the symbol itself becomes fractured. The Kinnah describes *Te’omim* as divided. That division reflects *sinas chinam*: what should express harmony becomes a sign of destruction.

## The Churban of the Entire Creation

The mazalos reveal a larger principle. The Churban is not merely something that happened to one building, one city, or even one nation. When Klal Yisrael is not functioning properly, the entire order of the world is disturbed.

The Midrash teaches that Hashem showed Adam HaRishon the world and warned him: “See how beautiful and praiseworthy My creations are. Be careful not to corrupt and destroy My world” (Koheles Rabbah 7:13). Human conduct can preserve the order of creation or damage it.

The Gemara relates that a Sage saw clouds in Bavel and predicted rain, but the rain did not come. He remarked that just as the people of Bavel were unreliable, so too were their clouds (Taanis 9b). The point is not merely rhetorical. The moral condition of a place can become reflected in the behavior of creation itself.

When falsehood, hatred, and separation enter Klal Yisrael, the clouds no longer behave as clouds should, the mazalos no longer express blessing as they should, and the world no longer functions in its proper spiritual order.

That is the final Kinnah of the night: the entire beriah mourns because the Churban of Klal Yisrael becomes a Churban in the world.