Tisha B’Av: The Churban, Yerushalayim, and Turning Tears of Mourning into Nechamah

Transcript

This week's sugya is תשעה באב, Churban Habayis, Churban Habayis. You know, Churban is a sugya in Klal Yisrael. It's not just an event. Churban is part of the fabric of what we are all about. Not something in our history that we, you know, that historically something happened. No, no, no. We live with it every day. Every tefillah, every tefillah we mention we're in galus and we ask Hashem to bring us back, and Yerushalayim and Beis Hamikdash, every tefillah. Everywhere you turn in the davening, it's about this. So I'd like to discuss the sugya of Churban in preparation for Tisha B'Av. So I want to begin by telling you that kol zman we don't properly understand what it means to be mit'abel, we might not get out of this mess, this galus that we're in. The Yaavetz, Rabbi Yaakov Emden, in Hilchos Tisha B'Av writes clearly that he thought about it: why are we still stuck in the galus? How come we can't get out of it? Says Rabbi Yaakov Emden, he's for sure, he says, I thought about it and I've come to a conclusion without doubt that the reason is because we don't properly mit'abel. We're not properly mourning the destruction of the Mikdash and the Churban. We don't properly—I mean, we say the kinot, we go through the motions, the words, but obviously we don't know what it means to be mitabel. And kol zman, if we don't erect it, we don't fix it, rectify it, if we don't rectify it, we're doomed to remain in the matzav. So it's important to understand the sugya of Churban. In order to properly understand Churban, we have to know what we lost. That's chapter number one in the sugya. That's perek aleph. Perek aleph is to know what we lost. And kol zman we don't understand what we lost, there's no way to be mitabel. Could you mourn something you don't know what it's about, or appreciate what it's about? You can only mourn on something you understand what the loss is, right? This, the Beis Halevi says clearly. There's a beautiful medrash. The medrash says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu summons Yirmiyah to summons, to ask the avos to Olam to come to cry over the Mikdash. Yirmiyah goes and he says to the avos, Avos, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, come, Hashem is summoning you, because you know how to cry. You know how to cry. So come. Ask the Beis Halevi, what does it mean, you know how to cry? What, you know somebody who doesn't know how to cry? What does it mean? Says Beis Halevi, it means because the Avos, they know what it's supposed to look like. They understood what it really meant. L'meila they could cry. If you don't know what it's supposed to be, so you think it's very good. Someone could come into the yeshiva today and say, Ah, nice, they're learning, they're davening, look, kiruv baalei teshuva, beautiful. They don't understand what it's really supposed to look like. If they would know what it's supposed to look like, then you could properly be mit'abel. That's what it means, says Beis Halevi, Atem yodim livkot. You know how to cry, which means when you cry, it's with a proper haaracha, evaluation of what it should have been. What should have it been? What did it look like? We said this week's parsha in the haftorah, Shabbos Chazon, Admaschem lizarim ochlim otah. Remember in parshas Chazon. Go ahead, Nisan, read the pasuk. Admaschem...

Admatchem, what is the land referring to? So it could be it's referring to Admatchem, your land of Israel. The Gra in Aderes Eliyahu says it's referring to the Beit HaMikdash. The Beit HaMikdash was considered Admatchem because just like the earth is the source of sustenance, of chiyus, to people, that's where we get our food from. The symbol of food is the land, adamah. So too the Beit HaMikdash was mekor hachiyut. It was the mekor of all chiyut for Klal Yisrael. And there is a lashon of a medrash like this as well, that Beit HaMikdash was the chiyut. It was the sustenance. From there, Yidden, the Jews, got chiyus, they got life. It's the mekor of the chiyut of Klal Yisrael. So Admatchem is symbolic to the Beit HaMikdash. I want to tell you even more. The Gra in Sefer Tzniyusa, in Safra d'Tzniyusa, Hitna'ari me'afar kumi. What's me'afar? Dust. Today, says the Gra, we are dust. Tzion, ki hi beit chayeinu. Tzion is what? Beit chayeinu. It's life, our life. When we left, it was like death. The churban, the churban was like death, and Klal Yisrael was ta'am ta'am mita. It was the taste of death. When the Churban took place, leaving Yerushalayim was like kever. It was like being put into the, being lowered into the kever. The nations ate us like the worms who eat the met. But yet we were left in a body, a dead body, but a body. When we had the yeshivot, the Amoraim, the Tanaim, but that we lost also. So now we're considered like a body that was eaten and completely disintegrated. Tarved, it's called tarved. Tarved is when the body disintegrates and all that's left is dry bones. And that's Yisna'arim me'afar kumi. We ask Hashem, He should awaken us from afar, that we're right now disintegrated completely. This is what was alive. Klal Yisrael was alive b'zman Beit HaMikdash. Today, afar, like met, because we lost two things: Beit HaMikdash, which was the mekor hachayim for us, and we also lost, rabotai, we also lost Tzion. Tzion ki hi Beit chayeinu. This was the mekor of our life. I want to tell you about the Beit HaMikdash a little bit. Unbelievable. The Gra writes that we have no musag what a simple Jew, what a simple Jew was like in the time of the Beit HaMikdash. It's beyond that. There's a beautiful medrash. The medrash brings down that there was somebody called Yosef Meshita. You know about Yosef Meshita? You heard of him? Yosef Meshita was a boged. He was an oived avodah zarah. The Romans told him to go into the Beis Hamikdash and take out whatever he wants he could keep. All right? He went in, he took out the menorah. And then they decided, no, no, no, the menorah is not for you. The menorah is not for a person. It's meant for royalty. Maybe a king should use the menorah. Go in and take something else. He says, I'm not going in again. I'm not going to do it. So they told him, we'll take off your taxes, we'll give you, we'll do for you. No. The end was they tortured him tremendously because he didn't want to go back in. Ask the Ponevitcher Rav, an apikorus, a minute ago he was ready to go in. He went in. So what changed? Says the Ponevitcher Rav, one minute in the Beis Hamikdash. All it did was take one minute just to be inside, for one minute, and the person changed completely, to the point that he was ready to take all the yissurim, all the torture, not to go in again. This is what the Beis Hamikdash did for people. One minute. All it took was one minute. The Yad Avish...

That we all know that the Beis Hamikdash brought chochmah. Yirmiyah Navi, the philosopher, asked Yirmiyah Navi, what is he crying about? Beis Hamikdash, it's a house. And he explained that all my wisdom comes from where? From the Beis Hamikdash. That's everybody knows. But this part maybe you don't know. How did the wisdom come to people in the Beis Hamikdash? Says the Yaaros Dvash from a paitan called Yosef ben Gurion. You hear the name Ben Gurion, you think, oh, there was a big paitan called Ben Gurion, Yosef ben Gurion. And the Yosef ben Gurion, the paitan says, Yaaros Dvash, chelek aleph, that it came as asmos, which means when the kohen would walk on the floor of the Beis Hamikdash, from the floor to his feet would go chochmah. And that's why, says Yaaros Dvash, you were not allowed to wear shoes. The kohen walked barefoot because it would be a chatzitza between him and the wisdom that he got from the floor of the Beis Hamikdash. Yaaros Dvash, Reb Yonis Nayvshitz. He continues there, Reb Yonis Nayvshitz, and he says that the Beis Hamikdash was such that the kohen who was there, everyone, no matter who it was, didn't have to be the Kohen Gadol, he had such ruach hakodesh that he would look at your face and he would say, You, you need to bring this and this type of korban because you did this type of sin. He spoke about this from the Netziv once, if you remember, that the kohen knew exactly like a doctor. The only difference is it wasn't upon examination, it was upon looking. You looked at your face and go, you know something? You could use a little tikkun in this thing and that thing. Okay. Now you understand what the Beis Hamikdash is. Now you understand the me'ein, a little bit, a little bit of what the Beis Hamikdash is. You know, rabosai, I was wondering to myself, how many mitzvahs we lost just about the fact that we don't have a Beis Hamikdash and that we don't live in Eretz Yisroel. Do you know how many mitzvahs we lost? How many taryag mitzvahs are there? How many aseis are there? Two forty-eight. How many are left after Churban Habayis, when we got kicked out of Eretz Yisroel? You know how many are left? Ninety-four. Tzadik daled. Again, how many did we have when the Beis Hamikdash was around? How many are left with? Ninety-four. How many lo sa'ases? Sixty-five. How many are we left with? A hundred seventy-something. I think it's a hundred seventy-four. Tell me, are we in the same situation that we were? Yeah. You hear, rabosai? Yeah. This is what it means, rabosai. This is what it means. And we don't even realize how we've fallen. We don't even realize what we're missing. So the yesod of the Beis Hamikdash is to know, beginning, what the Beis Hamikdash was. Now we have to understand what it is, where are we holding now. What is churban? What is churban? It says in the pasuk, Heishiv achor. Yeminoi. Says the Chazal, Hashem knew as long as he's in the Beit Hamikdash, the Beit Hamikdash cannot be destroyed. So what did HaKadosh Baruch Hu do? Heishiv achor. Rabbi Yochum left, and once he left, automatically it was able to get destroyed. So the yesod of churban is histalkus haShechinah. Churban, rabosai, is not something that was. Churban is something that's constant. It's keseder. This I'm sure you all know, but we have to say it over anyway. There's a very famous Gemara. The Gemara in Sanhedrin, daf kuf daled, says that Rameir used to cry every night. Why? Because there was an almanah in his vicinity, and the almanah used to cry every night that her husband died. Rameir heard this, he would get up and he began to cry for the churban, to the point that he lost his eyebrows. His eyebrows fell off. The talmidim came and saw that the Rebbe looks sick, so they decided that they have to find out what it's about, and they found out what it's about, and they moved the Rebbe away from the almanah. The Gemara seems to say that when he heard the almanah cry, he got up to cry for the Beit Hamikdash. And the mefarshim ask, what's the connection? Why is the almanah's crying me'orer churban?

Tears of, of, of, of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. What is one of the other? Bishlama, you cry the almana, you feel bad for her. But why the churban? And the mefarshim explain, very famous, he understood, Reb Meir, that all the suffering, all the pain, is all based on what? It's all based on the churban. And being that it's based on the churban, so therefore all the suffering should be me'orer churban habayit, be me'orer churban habayit. Terrible things happen. Here, there was a student, Taratim, a wonderful boy, very famous, good boy. Everybody knew him. Everybody liked him. Boy X, very good boy, excellent boy. Strange, strangely, he was going to mevaker choleh, he was going to do a mitzvah. See, a tremendous tragedy. He was killed in a car accident this week. Tremendous tragedy. These tragedies, rabotai, is remnants of the churban. The churban keeps on renewing itself. You have children in Japan in jail. You have tremendous, tremendous tragedies. This is all the shoresh, the shoresh of the churban. And what is churban? Yishtalkut haShechinah. Yesh tikun, yesh tikun. We're going to talk, we're going to talk. We're just beginning, rabotai. We're just beginning. I have a lot to tell you. My heart, my heart has so much pouring out that it's going to... A lot of things I want to say. But I think it's important first to understand, understand well what churban is, to understand well what... Tisha B'Av is. You know, Tisha B'Av is yom hamuchan l'peraniyut. If you look at Eicha, it says, 'Zanach Hashem b'Yom apo.' Lo nish'ar sarid v'palit b'Yom charon af Hashem. The Alshich and others say, Yom af Hashem means that the day itself is kavua for af Hashem. That's the wording of the—if you look at the whole Eicha, the yom. It doesn't mean the day that Hashem got angry. The day is Yom af Hashem, the day that Hashem has anger. We're going to learn, we're going to learn at the same time Mashiach was born on this day. Chazal tell us that on Tisha B'Av Mashiach was born. It's interesting, people don't know, the Zohar brings down that this was the same day that Yaakov won the saro shel Esav. Did you know this? What? Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av was the same day that Yaakov Avinu— That's right, that he would mita'abek with saro shel Esav and he won. This was also Tisha B'Av. Very interesting. Tisha B'Av is, the same way it's churban, it's also geulah. Very interesting. The same day. Kara alai moed. Could you imagine? If someone asks you, tell me Tisha B'Av, would you call Tisha B'Av a moed, a Yom Tov? We sit and we say kinot, and then when it comes to saying Tachanun, no, no, you can't say Tachanun, it's a Yom Tov. We don't dress Shabbos. Maybe some have a custom, I don't know. There's a custom like this that people dress Shabbos, this I don't know. Shabbat. How could you dress Shabbos? You know, there is a minhag like this? I don't know. I never heard this. But the halacha definitely says that we don't say Tachanun, and the reason we don't say Tachanun is kara alai moed, that it has a din of a Yom Tov. Very strange, you know. It's strange to understand. On one hand, strange on one hand that it's what? A day of mourning, and on the same moment we say it's a Yom Tov. Kol hamitabel al Yerushalayim zocheh v'roeh b'nechamata. Roeh is lashon avar? Is it lashon hoveh or is it lashon atid? It's lashon hoveh. Usually if you want to say he will, you say yireh, he will see. What is the word roeh? And the mefarshim say, at this moment, presently. So could you imagine that at the moment that a person is mitabel, at that same moment he's roeh b'nechamata, right? It doesn't say yireh. It doesn't say he will merit, that he will see. What does it say? Zocheh v'roeh. He sees. It's interesting.

That at the same moment that we say kinot, we say that it's a moed. We talk about Mashiach Hashem, Ruach Apeinu, Mashiach Hashem. Nilka b'msichosam. We say clearly, we mention the Mashiach, the Medrash. So we have to define this clearly. Aveilus and nechama in the same breath. It's in the same breath. We're sitting on the floor, and at the same moment, what do we do? We say nechama. You know, rabosai, I want to discuss: if churban is histalkus haShechinah, that the Shechinah leaves, how do you bring back the Shechinah? What do we do to bring back the Shechinah? Anybody know? You know, Rabbi Akiva was very interesting. Rabbi Akiva—Makkos says that Rabbi Akiva stood on the Har Habayis, and he sees the shualim, he sees the foxes, and everybody's crying. Makom HaMikdash, the holiest place by Klal Yisrael, now foxes. Terrible. Rabbi Akiva's laughing. It's a big funny story to him. So they asked him, why is he laughing? So he says that from here I see that the nevuah that says, Od yeishvu zekeinim v'zekeinos bichutzot Yerushalayim, right, that eventually, eventually, the Eibishter will give back, the Eibishter will send back. He'll bring back all the Yerushalayim. That's what he sees. So where did he see it from? He saw it from the Churban. It's unbelievable. The epitome of the Churban. What does he see? He sees the Atid that there'll be yeshuah and geulah. How does he see it? How does he see the Atid that there'll be yeshuah and geulah? It's unbelievable. Where everybody's sitting and crying, Rabbi Akiva sees the Atid. You know what the answer is? Shechinah is everywhere. Churban is not to be able to see the Shechinah. Geulah is when you see the Shechinah. If you look at the Makom HaMikdash and you see Shechinah, you see Hashem is not here, that's Churban. But if you look in the Churban and you see that Hashem is here, that Hashem is showing us, Hashem is with us, there's no histalkut haShechinah. The opposite. Hashem is showing us that od yeshvu zekeinim u'zekenot birchovot Yerushalayim. Yeah? That itself means that it's not histalkut haShechinah. Histalkut haShechinah is the way we see it. Hashem doesn't leave. Hashem doesn't go anywhere. What is it? Hashem becomes covered. The gilui of the Shechinah is not revealed. The Churban is, where is Hashem? You know, I grew up with a beautiful song. It was a song that was created in the Novardik yeshiva. I'm going to translate it for you from the Yiddish. Wald, a wald is a forest. Wald, wald, vi tif bistu? How deep are you? Very thick. Sorry, excuse me, it starts a little differently. It starts like this. Zun, zun. Zun is the sun. Sun, where are you shining? Wald is the forest. Forest, you're very thick. If the forest wouldn't be so thick, then you'd be able to have the sun shine through. Shechina, Shechina, Ribono Shel Olam, where are you? Golus, golus, you're very thick. If the golus wouldn't be so thick, then the Shechina would shine through. It's a song that they would sing in the Novardik yeshiva called Wald, wald. Forest, how thick are you? If the golus wouldn't be as thick as the forest, just like the—

The sun would shine through in the forest, the Shechina would shine through in the galus. Galus is a thick forest, that's what it is. But if you could see the Shechina within the forest, so you're not in the thickness of it. It's there. You hear it? You hear it? You hear what we're saying? Reb Akiva was able to look in the forest, in the darkness, and see the Shechina. He wasn't in the forest anymore. See, that was Reb Akiva. Akiva was able to see that. Churban is histalkus haShechina, that we don't see HaKadosh Baruch Hu. What's the shoresh? What's the shoresh of the churban? Where does it come from? Does anybody know what the shoresh of the churban—anybody knows? The Gemara that says, Bechiah shel chinam. I'm going to tell you two more Gemaras. There's one Gemara that says that it actually has to do with the eigel. The Gemara in Sanhedrin daf kuf beis says that originally we suffered from one eigel, but by the time the churban came, we actually were suffering because of three eigels. Yeravam made an eigel, there was two other eigels that were made in Tanach, and by the time the churban—so Gemara in Sanhedrin daf kuf beis. So the churban was a result actually of not one, but actually three eigels. Then the Gemara goes on to say that whenever we have trouble—so mefurash in Gemara in Sanhedrin, Sanhedrin daf kuf beis, kuf beis amud beis—the Beis Halevi learns that the yesod of churban is actually the bris bein habesarim. That when HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, Ki ger yezaracha b'eretz lo lahem, Mitzrayim. We left Mitzrayim early. Had we taka been metakened everything that happened in Mitzrayim, then we wouldn't need another churban. But the fact that we still didn't finish all the tikkunim that were necessary in Mitzrayim, for example, we made an eigel, this you shouldn't be looking at me matmia. We learned this last week from the Marami Pano. It's interesting how the Marami Pano and the Beit Halevi say the same yesod. Ein l'maaseh bnei Yisrael, we said last—remember last week—that because of the eigel, we're not finished with Mitzrayim yet. We still have more Mitzrayim to finish. Had we not done the eigel, okay. So it's interesting, the grit bein hapsarim of Mitzrayim is actually affiliated with who? Is affiliated with the fact that we still have a churban because we still need galut to finish off Mitzrayim. Says the Beit Halevi, we'll prove it. If you notice that the night of Pesach is the same night as Tisha B'Av. You aware of this? Oh yes, sure. Hisbani bamrorim, hirvani lanah. What's hisbani bamrorim? Maror, maror, marorim, maror. Because the night of Pesach is actually the same night, falls out the same night as Tisha B'Av. You know, we eat an egg. The plate, the Seder plate has an egg, the tur, the Rishonim tell us, why does it have an egg? You know why we have an egg on the Seder? You don't know why? Tisha B'Av. The night of Pesach is the night of Tisha B'Av. I don't know if you know the kinot. Maybe the Sefardim, I'm not sure you have the same kinot as Ashkenaz, but there's a famous piyut: B'tzeisi miMitzrayim, b'tzeisi miYerushalayim. Left Mitzrayim, and I left Yerushalayim. It could have been b'tzeisi miMitzrayim. It could have been b'tzeisi miMitzrayim. What happened? We didn't do well, so therefore now it's b'tzeisi miYerushalayim. So we see the connection. It's clear. The connection is very clear, that Mitzrayim would have been the final galus, but because we didn't do properly, so therefore what? It's now b'tzeisi miYerushalayim. The Sefardim have this piyut, b'tzeisi miMitzrayim, b'tzeisi miYerushalayim. You know, there's a Peldik medrash. The medrash says that the reason why we went to galus is because we didn't eat matzah. You knew about this medrash? Oh yes. Galta Yehuda me'oni, says the medrash, Eichah, me'oni shelo ochlu lechem oni. They didn't eat matzah. What happened? Nope. In the time of the churban, the reason why the churban, one of the yesodos of the churban is...

You know, me'oni, me'oni, shelo achlu lechem oni. Ma pshat? Ma pshat? Ma pshat? You see a big yesod from here, rabosai. You see a big yesod, big yesod. So years ago I said the pshat is because lechem oni, Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim. How do you forget that? Not eating matzah shows lack of hakaras hatov to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Hashem took you out. You don't appreciate the nissim. It says, Anochi Hashem Elokecha asher hotzeisicha me'eretz Mitzrayim. The Rishonim say that you have to thank Hashem and believe in Him. Why? He got you out of Mitzrayim. So if you start chipping away at that hakaras hatov that we should have for Hashem for all that He did for us when He took us out of Mitzrayim, and further, you don't eat matzah. Not eating matzah might be a sign of not appreciating all the other. It misses in the Anochi Hashem Elokecha asher hotzeisicha me'eretz Mitzrayim. But the truth is, I wanted to say a little bit deeper this year, and that is, and we're going to discuss this. You know, Klal Yisrael has a tachlis, is a journey. In our journey, we're supposed to move ahead. We're supposed to grow. We're supposed to take the lessons of the galus and never repeat the mistakes. If lechem oni means that we didn't eat, and it means that we didn't what? Keep the Pesach. We didn't take yetzias Mitzrayim and the lessons that were to learn in Mitzrayim. So what happens? We have to go back and start again with those lessons. Klal Yisroel is supposed to grow, mi'dor l'dor, till the end of times, when we have the Shleimus. The not eating lechem oni means that we were receding backwards instead of proceeding forwards. B'tzeisi miMitzrayim, b'tzeisi miYerushalayim. There's a comparison. The galut is sometimes where we didn't fix, and we're still back to the problems and the things that we're supposed to fix from the avar, and we don't fix them. So meila, what happens? We have to go back into galut. It comes back to us. Rabosai, listen carefully. I went through all the Gemaras and Chazal on why the Churban Habayit happened. And you know what I realized? We do the same thing again and again. Haven't changed. We haven't changed very much. It's the same thing over and over and over again. Instead of moving ahead, we recede backwards. And then we wonder, Hashem, how come? How come? How come we're in galut? I'm going to discuss all the different Gemarot, the reason for the Churban, and you'll be scared to see we're still in the same boat. Galut, galut is a— What do you call that when it keeps on coming back? Huh? A reoccurring. A reoccurring. Maybe I can tell you a joke. Can I tell you a joke? The reason why I don't feel bad saying this joke is I heard this from my father, who said it from his father, my grandfather. And it's not a joke as much as it is a tremendous lesson in life. A person once went into a restaurant, and they served him meat or chicken. It didn't look very appetizing. It looked like it was, it looked like you had to have kavod for it, derech eretz, because it was older than the person who was eating it. Okay? Kitzer, he didn't want to eat it. So what happens? So the meltzar, the waiter, comes over and says, I suggest you to eat it. You know why? Because if you don't eat it today as the meat, you're going to get it tomorrow as blintzes. And if you don't eat it tomorrow as the blintzes, you're going to get it the next day as kreplach. You know, kreplach is the, what they put the meat in. So eventually you're going to end up eating it anyway, so you might as well get it over with now. At some point you're going to end up getting it. You know, the lessons of galut is the same thing. Either you take the lessons.

Early, because if not, at one day you're gonna have to deal with it. It ain't gonna go away, rabosai. So you might as well deal with it now, better than later. It's gonna keep on coming back, and it's gonna come back, come back, come back. What are the reasons for churban, rabosai? The Gemara in Gittin daf pei ches tells us, bitul Torah. You know this Gemara? The Gemara says clearly that they oved avodah zarah, the different bati dinim, yet what was the final? Amazger, right? The Gemara says that it was bitul Torah. Remember the Gemara? Huh? No, amavdaris nedarim. That's azam Torahsi, that's a little different. But bitul Torah, there's a very famous Gemara that it was because of bitul Torah. All right. The Gemara in Nedarim, pei aleph amud aleph says, 'Al mavdaretz loy barchu baTorah techilah,' because they didn't go and make birchas haTorah. It's so bad. Is it so bad not to make birchas haTorah? So bishleim, you come and you say bitul Torah. All right, I hear that. But shelo barchu baTorah techilah? So the mefarshim all say, the Ran and all the Rishonim, it lacked in chashivut. When something is chashuv, you make a bracha on it. But if it's not chashuv to you, so you don't make a bracha. So this is why. All right, it's so bad. It's such a big aveirah. Is it one of the yehareg v'al ya'avor? Three cardinal aveiros. You know, the Gemara says that one of the reasons Bayis Rishon was nechrav was because of shfichas damim, giluy arayos. It was big aveiros. How could it be that all of a sudden, on the same plateau, on the same level, we have, shelo barchu baTorah techilah? Unless maybe that's what we're supposed to learn from here, that when there's no chashivus haTorah, it's just as bad as the three great aveiros. Maybe, maybe. I'm thinking of something else, Rabosai. But let me tell you over many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more Gemaras. There's a Gemara in Shabbos, daf kuf yud tes, that because of the tashbar, the tinokot shel beit Rabban, charva Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim was destroyed. Yerushalayim was destroyed because of bitul tinokot shel beit Rabban. No, bitul tinokot shel beit Rabban, which means the children, the yeshivot for the little children. Now, I just want to say something very sharp. You'll forgive me. I don't know if it means literally that there were no yeshivot. Maybe it meant that they didn't take kids into the yeshiva. Maybe they had sinat chinam, who gets in and who doesn't get in. Maybe only certain people from certain homes, depending on the bank accounts that they have. Yeah. That's why I'm saying I don't have to speak it out clearly, but I pretty much mean that. I don't know what bitul tinokot shel beit Rabban means. It can mean many things. Just dai lechacham, dai lemevin b'remiza. You know, there's a very interesting Gemara. The Gemara says that Mordechai, when he went into the malchut, Mordechai HaTzadik, פירשו ממנו סנהדרין. His friends stood away from him. They got angry at him. רצוי לרוב אחיו, לרוב ולא כולם. Gemara Megillah. Asks the Nesivos a very nice question, the Nesivos HaKodesh, Nesivos. He asks the question: How come he was so mez—what's the word in English?—he was considered, huh, ostracized. That's the word I'm looking for. So ostracized. He meant hatzalah. He meant to save the Jewish people by going into the government. So the mefarshim say, you see from here that af al pi kein, you have to sit and learn, and you shouldn't be busy with hatzalah. All right, trust in Hashem. The Nesivos says a different pshat. The Nesivos says, you know Mordechai was a rebbe for little children. The Gemara says clearly that when Haman came, he was sitting and teaching little children, kameitza. Says the Nesivos, charvah Yerushalayim because of tinokos shel Beis Rabban, right? So the best hatzalah, the biggest hatzalah, was the tinokos shel Beis Rabban. So this, if you give up the tinokos shel Beis Rabban to go into hatzalah...

What are you doing? This is more atzalah than this. ... can deceive us, ah. Yafeh me'od, yafeh me'od. Deceives us. Beautiful. Now you know why he said good pshat in the Gemara. Now you know how he learned good pshat in the Shulchan Aruch, because he was good. He understood. You hear the pshat, rabosai. They didn't have a p'sul in him that he was osek in hatzalah. They said, This hatzalah is more. You look at the Gemara. The Gemara says, unbelievable, that the world stands on Tinokos shel Beis Rabban. The next piece of Gemara there, Shabbos kuf yud tes, that the whole world stands al hevel pihem shel tinokos shel Beis Rabban, so the greatest hatzalah you could do is to teach the children. What are you giving up that to go into the malchus? Tinokos shel Beis Rabban. There's another Gemara, rabosai, in kuf yud tes amud beis that says, Shmirah Shabbos. They didn't keep Shabbos properly. And since they didn't keep Shabbos properly, meileh what happened was avdah ha'aretz. That's what caused the churban. You think they were mechalel Shabbos? I don't think so. You know why? So we're going to learn about this. When the Gemara says, Sha'alu lachachamim, sha'alu lanevi'im, they asked everybody, Al mah avdah ha'aretz? If they were being mechalel Shabbos, you don't think that the answer would be pretty obvious? I want to tell you more. The Gemara says, based on the pasuk, Tzachaku al mishbateha. You know where the pasuk is? It's in Eicha. One of the pesukim in Eicha is Tzachaku, which means that— Sachak, which means that they made light on the mishpateha. Says the Gemara, ביטלו השמיטות. They didn't keep shemitah. Didn't keep shemitah. There's another Gemara, which also the Targum brings down, גלתה יהודה מעוני. Oni, no tzedakah. They didn't care about aniyim. They didn't give tzedakah. You know, there's a beautiful pshat. There's a beautiful pshat from the Chida. Beautiful. It says in the pasuk, we learned in Chazon Yeshayahu, haftorah, צדק ילין בה, ועתה מרצחים. You remember the pasuk? Go ahead, read it. Read the pasuk. Tzedek. It's beautiful, Chida. Let me tell you, rabosai, you don't know what the sefarim have with the Chida. You guys don't even know. There's something out of this world. Go ahead. צדק ילין בה. צדק ילין בה. What does it mean, tzedek? Yalin. Yalin means to sleep overnight. ועתה with what? An aleph or an ayin? Ayin, which means now, מרצחים. What does it mean? Says the Chida. When it came to tzedakah, tzedek yalin bah, tomorrow, tomorrow. אבל רציחה, עתה — right away. Now, that they took care of right away. To do a bad thing to another guy, that was, oh, I don't know, I got to take care of it right away. You come to me for tzedakah, צדק ילין בה. Chida. Reb Yisrael's knife just brings it down. You know, they say over a story about a guy who robbed a shul. He walked away with five hundred dollars in cash and thirty thousand dollars in pledges. Tzedek yalin bah. Tzedek yalin bah. L'machar, come to me tomorrow. Guy came for tzedakah, no problem, come to me tomorrow. Also, come to my secretary. But if it's a matter of, oh, I'll take care—oh, it's the tickets for the game, let me take care of it right now. V'atah. Now, atah, with a nun. V'atah meratzeh. It's beautiful, beautiful stuff. Yeah, tzedek yalin bah. So they didn't give tzedakah either. Yeah, what's going on here? Yeah, they didn't give tzedakah. Okay. Chametz b'Pesach, I told you, right? They didn't— with the matzah, right? Galta Yehudah me'oni. Okay. The Medrash says, Shelo hochichu zeh et zeh. Medrash Rabbah, Eichah, in the petichah. And one of the reasons churban was because that they didn't eat matzah. They didn't rebuke. They didn't give tochachah, excuse me. The Gemara in Shabbos, daf kuf yud tes amud beis says another reason: bizui talmidei chachamim, shehayu mevazin talmidei chachamim. You know this Gemara?

You should look up these Gemaras, rabosai, because they're endless. It doesn't stop. I have a list of maybe 25, 25 Gemaras of what they did wrong. You know, I was once sitting on a din Torah, and there was a lady who came complaining about her husband. She brought a whole notebook with her. It was an entire notebook. No, it was unbelievable. She kept a full diary of everything he did wrong. Remember, Rav Leib is zechonah livrachah, Charles Chu's great-uncle, brilliant man, turned around and he says to me, You know, I don't believe one word she says. I go, Why? He says, You know, when you come with a complaint, it's one or two things. But if you have a list of 30 things, you see that shestam, the guy didn't have enough time to do all this stuff. And I thought about what he was saying. It's a good vort. You come and you say, 'Asi, zeh, v'zeh, v'zeh.' If you come and say with an alphabetical order, you see that shestam, you see shestam that it's ta'anos v'al ta'anos. So sometimes I wondered to myself, there's a list of 25 that I found. I'm sure there's even more in the mefarshim. I didn't even go through the mefarshim. I'm talking about the Gemaras. Imagine what the mefarshim explain. Yeah, I'm going to show you something, pelei plaim. Ready? Pelei plaim. One of the things that's brought down, that 'Galta Yehuda me'oni u'me'rov avodah.' What's 'rov avodah'? What does it mean? So 'rov avodah' could mean, me'rov avodah, which means— No, they worked so hard. There was no money, a lot of work, so they couldn't live in Eretz Yisrael. That's the pashut pshat in the pasuk. Sometimes when there's no money and too much work, the economy is so bad, no money, so we have to pack up and call it quits. Targum says a different pshat: meirov avodah, because they used to make their avadim overwork. So therefore they went into galut. Galta Yehuda me'oni, they didn't give tzedakah, and also meirov avodah, that they made their avadim overwork. So I wanted to know who we're referring to. Are we referring to a Jewish eved, a goyish eved? Is the problem because they were over the issur of lo tirdeh בו בפרך? Is that what it means? It's funny to say that the Churban came because they overworked their avadim. Could you imagine? I'm not making it up. You think I'm making it up? If someone came and told me this, I'd say, Ah, which sefer did you find it in? Tell him, you know where you found it? In the Targum, the Targum on this pasuk: Galta Yehuda me'oni u'meirov avodah. Put it away. Meirov avodah. What's meirov avodah? No? You overworked the... Meirov avodah. You hear? Meirov avodah. What's pshat? תגיד פשט. What does meirov avodah? What does it mean, meirov avodah? How could it be meirov avodah? How? Yeah, what do you want to say? Meirov avodah means they overworked their avadim. That's what it means. Now why would that be a reason for a churban? Okay. Let me tell you a few more stuff. Of course, we all know the Gemara Yuma. Everybody hated everybody. ... Ah, there's an Arizal, rabosai, it's kedai just for this to come here today. Today's ... today. Listen carefully. The Arizal says, ... here. Okay, okay, okay. There's a beautiful medrash, rabosai. Yeah, I can. Listen, you guys can keep the artscrolls. I'll learn his Torah. What do you want from me? I learn his Torah all day. Don't worry, I don't need his artscroll to learn the Torah, yeah? I tell you something which is matok. So listen carefully, yeah? Medrash says, ... The malachim came to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, ... it says in your Torah, and when you shecht an animal, v'chisah es damo, you have to cover the blood, kisui hadam. So how come you spilled the blood of the Jewish people in the Churban and you didn't cover their blood? The blood just kept flowing. How come you didn't keep what it says in the Torah? HaKadosh Baruch Hu, ta'anah number two we have on you.

It says, O toved b'no lo sishchatu b'yom echad. That's the halacha. So how could it be in the Churban that you had fathers that were killed together with their children? Tzcharya, the Kohen Gadol, the famous story with the Kohen Gadol. They killed the Kohen Gadol, the Midrash says, and the daughter was making the peroches. She was weaving the peroches, and she ran, Oy, Abba, and they killed her also. And the blood was misarev, it says, their bloods got mixed together. Oy, says, like, so what's with your din, the din haTorah? And third question is, by nega tzaraas, the Kohen says first, we take out the bayit, first we take out all the keilim, and then we, we posek on the house that it's sagur, muchlat, tamei. And how come in the time of the Beit HaMikdash, you left the keilim inside, you let everything burn? Kach katuv b'midrash, she'ar hamalachim hayu lahem ta'anot. HaKadosh Baruch Hu answered them, what should I do? There's sinat chinam. There's sinat chinam, says the Arizal, that's the pshat in the pasuk, Ki hifli mimcha davar. It says by Bein dam l'dam. You see the word Arizal, listen to the Arizal. Ki hifli mimcha davar, when it's a wonder to you, bein dam l'dam, between the blood, kisui hadam and how come in the Churban the dam, bein din, the din of otoved b'no, and what happened, u'vein nega lanega, how come in the nega tzaraas we close up the house, but first we take out the keilim? And the answer is divrei rivot b'sharecha, because there's fights, divrei rivot. Sinat chinam. It's merumaz in the pasuk. Merumaz in the pasuk. In the pasuk. Because the sinat chinam, the Medrash. Beautiful. He found the Medrash in the pasuk, ah? Ivu tadin. The Medrash says the story of the malach. Arizal says that's pshat in the pasuk. He puts it back into the pasuk. I answer you. We still don't have clear the answer to the question: how could it be that many things? How could it be that many things? And how could you compare all these things? Some of these things are chamurot, and some of these things, baruch Hashem, by Torah techilah, and so on. Ivu tadin. What is ivu tadin? Ivu tadin means, very bad when it came to dinei mamonot, there was no truth. You look at a lot of the Chazon is about this. Very bad that there was a lot of ivu tadin. Go ahead, read the pesukim over there. By mishpat, meleiti mishpat, right? Lesigim is all about that, the ivu tadin. Kulo hefshochad. Ah, so what's shochad and shalmonim? So there's a Gra. The Gra says a beautiful pshat. Shochad is before. Before the din comes, yeah? Shalmonim, presents. So shochad is before; you don't have to run after them, they'll come to you. But the shalmonim, the presents that you want to get after for paskening, that you have to run after them. You'll never see them. Once you pasken for them, they're gone. You never see them again, right? So you have to run after them. Cool, like, oh yeah, but some of the stuff that comes after the din, which they promised you, they promised you presents, the money, they promised you, you have to run after that. That you have to run after. The crap. They're telling you, ah, you hear? They were full of corruption. What do you think? You think bribes? It's an old story, eimus hadin. You think the news of today is not an old story? It's an old story. It's an old maiseh. The Gemara in Bava Metzia, daf lamed amud aleph, says, you know why Chorban Yerushalayim? Another reason, another reason, another reason, and that is, sheheemidu divreihem, or dineihem, al din Torah. Which means that they went and everything that they did, take it to din Torah. And I told you this when I came to Lakewood. I was shocked. Every other word the guy tells you, take it to din Torah. Everything, take it to din Torah, take it to din Torah, everything is din Torah. So, sheheemidu dineihem al din Torah. So what's wrong with that? It's so bad? It's very good to go, no? Din Torah is halacha. What's wrong? He wants to know what's wrong with that. What's right, what's wrong, what's wrong? So what?

It's so bad. At least they go to the din Torah. Today would be the opposite. Sue him in court before the din Torah. At least they go to the din Torah, no? Why? ... al din Torah. The Medrash Eichah says another thing. You know what the problem was? Gasut haruach. A lot of gaavah. Gasut haruach. Medrash Eichah Rabbah says that the reason why Yerushalayim was nechrav, because they had a lot of gasut haruach. The Gemara in Sanhedrin, daf kuf daled amud beis, says hitkarvu la'umot. They were too close to the goyim, too close to the goyim. Huh? I don't know, but the Gemara says, Lecharv Yerushalayim ela ... gasi ruach sheyesh. But there was gasi ruach. That's what the Gemara says. The Gemara also brings down that they weren't mekabel tochachah min nevi'im. It says, Im yehareg b'mikdash Hashem, kohen v'navi. Who is it referring to? Zecharyah, the navi. So the Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer in Kochvei Or explains, Hashem gives you a present. He gives you a navi to come and help you, bimochiach you. What do you do? You don't listen to him, and you trample over him, and you kill him. You leave him on the side of the road as roadkill, right? Any guy who stands in your way gives you a little mussar, you can find him in the East River, right? And if it's not literally that you find him in the East River, you're definitely not gores him. You push him aside. ... So he says, Lo sham'u l'mochichim. And of course, he's a baal mussar, so it was very sensitive to him, Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, at this point. Because the Baalei Mussar probably suffered from this nekudah. But the point is that that's im yehareg b'mikdash Hashem, kohen v'navi. Who's the navi? Zechariah. Hashem sent him, Zechariah, and what happened? Got rid of him. They bumped him off. Okay. There's a very interesting Gemara in Shabbos, daf kuf yud tes amud beis. Maybe this will be something which will remind you. It's brought down that, Lo charva Yerushalayim ela mishum shehishvu katan v'gadol, that everybody was the same. Big, young, and old, everybody, katan v'gadol, hishvu. Everybody was the same, equal. Yeah, I'll give you a story just to give you a little bit of what it sounds like. I once gave two kids a ride, two ninth graders a ride in Lakewood. They were hitching a ride. I picked them up, walk into the car. The first thing they asked me, What's your name? You friend. What am I, your friend? What's wrong with you? What's my name? What do you... How did I answer? Oh, very sharply, you know. Yeah, they got into the wrong car, obviously. So I asked them, I said, What's the difference? What's the difference what my name is? So normally I expected that the guy would say, I'm sorry, he should have realized, right? They didn't finish, because I'm curious. That's all he had to say. I said curiosity sometimes is very immature and a very not nice thing. That was it. Finished. They didn't ask me anymore what my name is. But I realized this yesod: when older people, how many times you walk over in shul, yeah... An older person, an older person, what's wrong with you? You get up, you know, sometimes you come to a simcha, you have little kids sitting on the chairs when older people who are older than them don't have chairs necessarily. By Sefardim it's not as much because you guys have more derech eretz than these young. By Ashkenazim, it's a terrible, horrible, horrible thing that they sit there and then little children sit down and older... But still, is that a reason for a churban? Is still, is that a reason for a churban? You know, there's a very interesting Kli Yakar in Parshas Tzav that says that the problem is that the talmidei chachamim, when nitkarvu la'amei ha'aretz, and that they used to make parties together with the amei ha'aretz. Kli Yakar, very interesting Kli Yakar. Bottom line, with all these things that they did wrong, how could there be such a long list, A, and B, not all of them seem to be equal. Some of them much worse and some are much, much less. You know, rabosai, what I think the pshat is. If you notice, Eichah mentions very little about the Beis HaMikdash. It's interesting that Tisha B'Av we mourn the Beis HaMikdash, yet...

Eicha, the kinot, little, very little. Most of it is about what, Rabosai? Yerushalayim. Eicha yashvah vadad ha'ir, ir rabati am. It's about the city. It's about Yerushalayim. Darkei Tzion avelot. It's all about Eretz Yisrael, Yerushalayim. Why? I'm going to tell you something very shocking. We could live without a Beis HaMikdash. We don't need the Beis HaMikdash. We survive very, very well without the Beis HaMikdash. You know how I know this? Chaim Volozhiner. You know how I know this? I heard this from my rebbe, Rav Pam. You know how I know this? Rav Moshe paskens like this in his sefer Darash Moshe. And the reason why I say paskens, everything Rav Moshe said was psak halacha. Everything Rav Moshe said was psak halacha. You know, they say over that when they asked a bracha from Rav Moshe, Rav Moshe would say, I don't want to give you a bracha, but I want to pasken for you a bracha. Because since I'm a posek, the posek hador, so everything I say has to be niskayem in halacha. So therefore I pasken that you should have refuah sheleimah. Sure, psak halacha. Who's going to argue with the mefurashdige igros Moshe? Would you argue with Rav Moshe's psak? Hashem's not going to argue. Torah lo bashamayim hi. Hashem has to listen. Rav Michl Sherkin used to say over this, that Rav Moshe used to pasken. He used to pasken, 'Yeshaveh refuah sheleimah.' So Rav Moshe, and his darash Moshe paskens this. I'll tell you how Rav Moshe writes it. It says that Shabbosai tishmoru, v'es mikdashi tirau. Shabbos, keep the Shabbos and fear the Mikdash. Says the Gemara, what do we learn from this? That the Beis HaMikdash is not doche Shabbos. You don't build the Beis HaMikdash on Shabbos. Shabbos comes before, takes precedence. Says Rav Moshe, why? Because we don't really need the Beis HaMikdash as much as we need the Shabbos. The Shabbos is much, much, much, much, much more important. Much more important. Shabbos is the way of life. The way of life of a Jew is more important, more important than the Beis HaMikdash. We live thousands of years without a Beis HaMikdash. We cannot live without Shabbos. He says a very interesting yesod, Rav Moshe. You know, a shul, of course, it should be nice, but it's not mechuyav to be nice. A shul could be four walls, a broken bench, like a Chassidishe shtiebel from hundreds of years ago, and a table. He says the goyim, they throw all their money into the church. It has to be beautiful. Why? Because they have no religion besides for the church. Out of the church, there's no religion. It's just when they come to church. So therefore they go and put all their money. We, on the other hand, we have a life besides the shul. We have our homes. We have our business. We're Yidden wherever we go. Says Rav Moshe, therefore, the shul could be a very simple... Because it's not, the point is not so much, the whole religion is the synagogue. It's not. Religion is the house. It's the way we behave in the street. It's a lot more than just the Beis Knesses. So says R' Moshe in the Darash Moshe. Point being, I believe that, you know what we lament? Lament. You know what we're saying Eichah for? We're saying Eichah for what the Yid used to look like, his way of life in Yerushalayim. You know, there's so many Chazalim which are peledik that talk about the chachmei Yaldei Yerushalayim, the wisdom, the wise children of Yerushalayim, right? You know, the Chazalim, many, many, many, many, many, many midrashim about how wise the people of Yerushalayim and the children of Yerushalayim were. Why is that so important? And the answer is, we're trying to bring out that the derech hachayim, and that's the pshat, Tzion ki hi beis chayeinu. It was our home. It was our way of life. Eichah yashvah vadad ha'ir, ha'ir rabasi am. Vateitze miBat Tzion kol hadarah. The beauty, beauty, beauty of Yerushalayim, beauty of what we had, is what we lament, what we say Eichah for.

It's not so much the Beit HaMikdash. Not so much the Beit HaMikdash. You know, I was thinking of a me'oreidike pshat, rabosai. Which haftacha—listen to a pshat, rabosai; it's kedai to come just for this—which haftacha was Rabbi Akiva happy when he saw the shual? Which haftacha? Od yeshvu... בכבוד ירושלים. What's that? That's the haftacha? Huh? I understand. Od yeshvu זקנים וזקנות בחוצות ירושלים. I don't know what you want from my life. Could you take the Gemara in Makos? Could you do for me? But it's also the same point. It's the same point. No, no. I don't know pshat. Don't ruin a beautiful, beautiful pshat. Gemara Makos. Rabbi said, listen, it's a me'oreidike, it's kedai to write down this pshat. Rafi, listen to the pshat. Listen, I'm telling you. This you won't hear anywhere else. You know, sometimes my head tells me nice Torah. Sometimes my heart tells me nice Torah. This is the Torah that my heart tells me. Go ahead. Which pasuk? Which pasuk? This is what he's—this is the ultimate, ... ... This is about the Beis Hamikdash. And you know what the answer is? He saw the shekalim in the Beis Hamikdash. That's okay, we could survive that. But the ... is ... is ... beauty of Yerushalayim. That, that, he was—that's what he was looking for. ... It's a ... The life, the life that he had in Yerushalayim. This answers all the questions that I spoke to you about. Some of it is not as bad, but it was signs of the beauty of the life that people had in Yerushalayim. Gasut ruach. Gasut ruach is not the way you're supposed to behave in Yerushalayim. ... the beauty, the beauty of what it was, Beit Chayeinu, the life that we had in Yerushalayim. Hishtabdu, that they worked out, they worked their slaves. So what's wrong with that? What, the ... ... It's something that you might not even know what I'm talking about, but it's something that you have to be sensitive to. Do you remember my grandmother? You remember my grandmother? My grandmother taught me a lot. She was, she was a sign, a symbol of what it was like in Europe by the Gedolim, you know, by the giants of... The aristocratic behavior, the behavior of kavod habriyot. Man, I don't know if some of you remember a little bit. You remember? Yeah, I remember. Of course. You know, we had a goyta, a Polish maid. She was a kleptomaniac. She was crazy. She used to steal every day, every single day. And we used to beg her—beg my grandmother—get rid of her. She's stealing. You know, my grandmother says, I grew up in a home that you can't hurt people. I can't throw a person out of my house. I just can't do it. So we kept the goyta, a Polish maid, who would steal. It was even a game. You know what the game was? After she would steal, at the end of the week, my grandmother would go into her room and take back the stuff and put it back where it belonged. And then she would go and steal it again. It was like a whole zach, a whole cat-and-mouse game that we had every week. My grandmother would come and just clean out the drawers and take it back. And she wasn't embarrassed. She would steal it again, hoping that this time my grandmother won't come and get it, okay? Tell me, in a normal home, they get rid of a—right? ... You get rid of. Lishtabed, to overwork, to overwork.

And remember, the Eibishter knows that I'm telling you the truth. You won't believe this. Once a goyte who came, a Polish goyte, she must have weighed kinaynahara. I don't know what they fed her, maybe they fed her an entire cow, okay? Vatirena ba'aket, it says, by the seven cows that they ate it up, v'lo nira, they weren't able to tell that the cows ate up, ki bo'u el kirbena. Here you were able to tell. Believe you me, we were able to tell. So she couldn't move. So I remember my mother said, Get rid of her. She can't move. My grandmother couldn't. It was too hard to do it. So I remember many things my grandmother would do herself, and the goyte would just sit there. And she would talk to my grandmother. My grandmother would be doing whatever, the stuff for the kitchen, because she didn't have the heart to throw her out. This, rabosai, is royalty, royalty of middos. This is possibly what the Targum means, that they were thrown out of Yerushalayim. Why were they chorban Yerushalayim? Al shehishtabdu ba'avdeihem, because they were meshabed, they overworked, lacked kavod and appreciation. It was a certain abuse of the middos. So even though it's not talking about a big aveirah, we said that loy barchu baTorah techilah, such a big aveirah. You know what the answer is? It lacked the greatness of what Yidden. Yidden loved Torah. A Yid in Yerushalayim loved the Ribbono Shel Olam. He loved Torah. The minute the lifestyle of Yerushalayim changed. Vaybarchu baTorah techilah. You didn't recognize anymore the dor over, the dor that saw the Bikdash, and the dor that, like the goyim says, a simple Jew in the time of the Beis HaMikdash. It started to slip. Meileh, the Ribono Shel Olam was golsa. Ribono Shel Olam sent us out of Eretz Yisroel. So it's true, the aveiros, maybe we're not earth-shattering all of them, and maybe there was a lot. How could there be so much? And you know what the answer is? Because we're not talking about the aveiros. We're talking about the start. Yeah, the not good started to change. Whole life started to change. It wasn't the way it was and the way it was expected to be. So it's true, we're not talking about, You did this aveirah, and that's what... What's the question? And the answer is maybe it's not clear. Maybe it's not one thing. It was just many things, many things, many little things were starting to deteriorate, deteriorate. Vateitzei mi-basyon kol hadorah, the beauty, the beauty left. Another part of the Churban which I think is important that we have to discuss is the bechiyah, the inyan of bechiyah, the crying. Chazal tell us that the Ribono Shel Olam, when He saw the Beis HaMikdash in burning, He cried, bechiyah, cried tears. The Maharal speaks about this point: tears. How could it be that the Ribono Shel Olam has tears? You know, I was thinking to myself something interesting. What is a tear? What is a tear? Do you know what it is? It says, Af al pi she'ninalu shaarei tefila, shaarei dima lo ninalu. The gates of teima are not closed. What is dima? What is dima? Do you know what dima is? Is there anything physical? Is there anything about dima which could be external and not real? It says clearly many times that you could use and say the Shem Hashem, u'velibam, in the heart. Speech, when you talk, it could mean not that it's coming from emes, from a shoresh. Dima is something which is kulei ruchni. It's all ruchni. The ma'aseh is kulei ruchni. So the fact that Hashem has bechi is not a question. The Maharal asks this first question: How could the Ribono Shel Olam have bechi? I would like to argue with the Maharal, and if he'll be upset at me when we come to Shamayim, he'll understand that I meant well. I meant well. I believe that bechi is not a physical...

That's the pshat. Af al pi sheninalu, shaarei tefila, shaarei dima lo ninalu, because it's not subject to a shaar. It's not subject to be closed. A shaar is subject to be closed. Dima is ruchni. You know, I don't know if anybody knows, who was the first person to cry? Do you know, Rafi? It's a Medrash. No, the Eilam doesn't know this? Adam HaRishon. Who gave him the demi? Does anybody know what that is? That was a matanah from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It says in Chazal, it's a famous Medrash, that Adam HaRishon was very much b'tzaar. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm giving you a matanah, and that every time you use this matanah, you'll feel better. That's why when a person cries, he feels a lot better. Why does a person feel— you ever think about it? Why does a person feel better? Empties out. What gets emptied out with tears? What? What is it? No? His feelings. His feelings. Okay, let me tell you a big yesod. Let me tell you a big yesod. Even a goy, not necessarily a Yid, this world has pain when you're close to the Ribono Shel Olam. I started with this. You know, what exactly is churban? You know what churban is, Rabosai? Churban is siluk haShechinah. That's what churban is, siluk haShechinah. You know what geulah is? Geulah is filling that void with Shechinah. Kol hamisabel al Yerushalayim, zocheh v'ro'eh. Right now. It's interesting how, at the same moment where there's aveilus, the inyan of bechi, sifke, to cry, and automatically there's geulah. It's the same, it's the same shoresh. Tears. I don't know if you know, tears can be tears of pain, and there's such a thing as tears of joy. The bechi is something which could be simchah and atzav at the same time. When you're misabel al Yerushalayim, you understood what I'm saying, zocheh v'ro'eh b'nechamasah. At that moment, you feel very close to the Ribbono Shel Olam. The same moment, you cry that you're missing, and the crying that you're missing makes you feel very good that you'll have. It's the same bechi. At the same moment, when a person sits by the kinah and he cries on the siluk haShechinah, the Ribbono Shel Olam is not there, and he's me'orer d'ma'os on the siluk. They say, oh, the Chasam Sofer by the, by the ... mafsekes. Would sit and cry, fill up a cup with his tears and take the bread and dip it into the tears. The tears are a very essential part of the bechiyah, and that's why it was such a big chet, bechiyah shel chinam. Why was such a big thing, bechiyah shel chinam? You cried for nothing. I mean, whatever the aveirah was, it was kefirah. Now, wasn't the aveirah kefirah? So why is it so much the bechiyah? It's a pashut, isn't it just an expression, really, right? I dilma, no, no, no, no, rabosai. Bechiyah brings a person very close to the Ribono Shel Olam. A person who cries by davening, he feels very close to Hashem. Bechiyah is something very, you know, even, it's interesting, even between two people, if there's bechiyah, there's a certain connection. Bechiyah is a me'orer koach. It's a spiritual thing. To take it and abuse it, l'chinah, something which was supposed to be used to bring someone close to Hashem, was used to bring him far away from Hashem. Atem bechisem, bechiyah shel chinam. There's a ta'ina on the bechiyah shel chinam. So the tikkun of it is what? To cry because I want Hashem. The bechiyah of Tisha...

His bacha yisifke as a tikun for the bechiyah shel chinam. So that's the zocheh v'ro'eh b'nechama, so that itself is the nechama. The fact that the Eibishter is there. Rabbi Akiva saw the shualim hilchu boi, he was misnachem. Why? Because he knew that the Ribono Shel Olam was there. The Ribono Shel Olam was telling him, you know, the other Gemara says that he saw the kol hamoni, he heard the big parade, and they started to cry. So what happened? Rabbi Akiva again laughed, and he said that, you see this? Im l'ein osin retzonei kach, l'osid retzonei al achas kama v'kama. So what's the pshat in that Gemara? He saw that the Eibishter was there also. It looks like the Eibishter was masalik Himself. But fakert, the Ribono Shel Olam was trying to send a message to Klal Yisroel that they're having so good when they don't do what they're supposed to do, you'll get much more. So he saw the Ribono Shel Olam in that also. So then he was happy. When somebody sees the Ribono Shel Olam, it makes him happy. The bechiyah of Tisha B'Av, that's what it means by Chazal, that the Mashiach is born on Tisha B'Av. It's an unbelievable thing. On one hand, on one hand, we're crying, tremendous tragedy, and that crying itself is kara laymoyt. That same crying, because the zocheh v'ro'eh b'nechmasa, you feel the Eibishter, you feel the Eibishter. I say it over, and with this we'll end, Rav Gifter, Rav Gifter used to say over. The word moyed doesn't have to mean party. The word moyed means vad, connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Moyed is a connection, vad. Tisha B'Av is vad, that you're connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You can get hit, right? A father who sometimes is very close to his son will hit him. But shivtecha u'mishantecha heimah yenachamuni, because you know he's the father. The bechiyah of Tisha B'Av has in it both nekudos. A, it hurts. I got hit. But that I got hit by whom? So that's the vad, the connection. This is the bechirah, rabosai. So, im yirtzeh Hashem, we should be zocheh takkeh, that we shouldn't need the Tisha B'Av. We shouldn't need it. And the way to fix it, rabosai, is to behave, to behave like a Yid. We're not where we're supposed to be. We're not where we're supposed to be. We don't even know what it means hadarah, the royalty, the royalty of what a Yid looks like, what it sounds like, and the way he should behave. But that's the only way we're going to bring the geulah. But the nechamah within the galus is when we realize and we're connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's the zechah v're'ayah, right now. I can't promise you the third Beis HaMikdash. That we can't promise you tomorrow. That you have to daven for. There's a Mordechai Chofetz Chaim, ... Chofetz Chaim says that just like a schar sachir, you're only over if he asks for it and you don't give it to him. Says the Chofetz Chaim, the sichos, that you have to be tovea from HaKadosh Baruch Hu Mashiach. If you're not tovea Mashiach, then He's not going to give it to you, just like schar sachir, Chofetz Chaim says, that just like pulas—it's in the mechtav—that just like pulas schar sachir, I got to found it very interesting because they all ask the kasha, how could it be? It says in Gemara, Kuf Yud Aleph in Kesubos, that one of the shevuos Hashem made, klal Yisroel promise, is that they won't doichek es ha'sha, and Rashi says, shelo yarbu b'tachnunim, that not to ask a lot for the geulah, that they shouldn't force the geulah through tefillah. So I asked, l'choira, what do you do with this Rambam, this Chofetz Chaim that says you have to be tovea? So it could be the pshat is, marbeh is a lot, a lot, but the word tovea means ad masai. That's it. You're right, it doesn't have to sit, but it has to be in your mind, that's it. We've come to a chlot, he's got to come. And I found this so interesting, the Rambam and the פירוש המשניות, in Kapach, the Kapach פירוש המשניות on the Yud-Beis ikrim, one of them is to believe in Mashiach. He says, le'ehavoi, you have to love the Mashiach, and also l'spallel.

Sheyav, you have to daven that he should come. So there's a chiyuv to daven. So what does it mean? I guess you're not supposed to daven a lot, but you're supposed to daven, now, ad mosai, ad mosai. He's got to come. He's got to come. So this, rabosai, is the yesod. Rabosai, it can't continue. We can't go. It's bursting. The matzav bursts, gets worse and worse, and it's going to burst. Bechiyah. Cry to the Eibishter, ... This year, Yerushalayim.