They tell of a certain disciple who was seated by the
seder table of his rebbe, HaRav Yitzchok Hutner
zt'l. He was so emotionally overcome that he
accidentally spilled some wine on the snowy white tablecloth.
Seeing his confusion, his host said, "A seder table
without wine stains is like a Yomim Noraim machzor
without tear stains."
There are parshiyos that teach us all about tears and
tear stains, the tears that were suppressed inside the heart
of Aharon HaKohen over the death of his two sons. "And Aharon
was mute." Say Chazal: "When someone sheds tears over an
upright person, those tears are counted by Hashem and
gathered to be stored away in His treasure vaults." There is
a lesson to be derived: if tears that are shed outwardly must
have their proper outlet of expression, tears that spill over
inwardly are all the more potently capable of scouring the
stains of a soul with a cleanser and purgative together with
the stains of the tears.
*
When the river of the soul overflows its banks, its waters
cascade in all directions. The most searing of tears erupt
from the volcano of the soul. And let not the tears of a
simple commoner be light in your eyes, for in the merit of
four tears, we gained greatness. Tears may be set off by pain
or by joy. Some are salty, others watery. Each person has his
individual tear reserves, a duct hidden behind the corner of
his eyes. And each person knows what triggers off the
flow.
For some, the aperture is rusty from disuse, in others, the
hinges are well lubricated and turn easily, in and out, from
constant use. Sometimes the tears are one's daily fare,
dripping from him at a steady pace like a festering wound
producing pus. Sometimes the flow is wet and watery, like a
steady fountain, and at other times, the tears dry up like
the scab of a wound covering up the healing process
underneath.
"The gates of tears are never sealed."
If this is true, why were they created altogether? What is
the purpose of gates that are never shut?
Said the wise man: In order to arrest the tears of fools and
deny them admittance. When a foolish tear seeks entry, the
gates of tears spring to life and close in.
And what constitutes such "crocodile tears"? Let us examine
how many songs of praise the world sings over tears. How many
pillows are drenched with them. How many cheeks are scalded
as they course down. And the tear remains a single tiny
droplet, round, salty and sticky, slipping out clandestinely,
bashfully, from its hiding place and inching its way down in
the open, leaving thick traces before it disappears.
Leah's eyelashes fell away from the force of her tears. There
was a woman in Rabban Gamliel's neighborhood who wept every
night over her tragic plight. Her tears were contagious, and
hearing her sobs, he would weep along, until his eyelashes
fell away. It is the nature of tears to strike sympathetic
chords in others and make them weep along. One tear draws
another, the lone tear is joined by succeeding tears that
fall rapidly, forming a string of pearly teardrops. Some
tears are stopped in midcourse by the flick of a hand, while
at other times, they flow in a dizzying torrent that defy the
ordered course; they gush forth with such force that nothing
can stop them.
Tears can we wiped off a face, but they cannot be effaced.
Nothing cries out louder than a tear; nothing is heavier than
the lightweight tear. It is born from a special state of
distress but its course through the pathways of the soul is
charted. For when the eye tears, the soul underneath also
tears and tears. Not every soul allows itself the relief of
expression easing itself out between eyelashes with telltale
dampness. Some prefer to weep inside, and the tears remained
suppressed and contained in the eye of the stormy soul
within, ashamed to show their face in the open, perhaps out
of modesty or something akin to it.
Chazal said: "Tears come amingled." "Moshe transcribed [the
Torah] amidst tears and the letters ran together." Tear,
dim'a, is akin to demai. And what does that
mean? Elsewhere we find this word applied to terumah
(Mechilta 22).
It is the confusion of a soul that is shaken out of its
serenity and sheds a troubled, disoriented tear. Any
upheaval, a drastic change for the good or bad, gives birth
to tears. Heightened emotion brings them on. Quarrels,
strife, misunderstandings, dissension create the well
lubricated faucets of tears. Tears water the ground that was
prepared for them. They are not light like a round soap
bubble, not air bound, bursting upon contact with the ground.
Tears run along solid channels; they need a footing, they
course along the route that was prepared for them
beforehand.
The tear is a window unto the soul; it reflects the person
who released it, reveals the path it followed, its
destination, and what it mowed down along its course. There
is much to be learned about the natural form it took upon
appearance, what it wore on its head, how it was shod, for
tears expose to light the depths of their owner. "I dissolve
my bed with my tears."
The tear may appear as a purifier, cleansing the chambers of
the soul, penetrating the lump of pain threatening to choke
the throat, that round congested sensation at the swallowing
point that constricts the measured passage of the breath of
life. A depressing, suppressing tear embodying in its tiny
dimensions a world of pain, a mirror-image of the tear in the
heart which, emerging to the open, liberates the suffering
hidden from the eye via its passage through the eye...
"R' Chanina's daughter passed away but he did not weep. His
wife asked him, `Was it a chicken that you removed from the
house?' He said to her, `Shall I suffer doubly, bereavement
of a child and blindness, too?' `And the clouds return after
the rain' refers to a person's sight which is damaged through
weeping. R' Yochonon said in the name of R' Yossi ben
Katzarta: There are six kinds of tears, three beneficial and
three detrimental. The bad ones are tearing from smoke, from
weeping in mourning and from straining in elimination. The
tearing caused by medicine, laughter and of fruit, like the
smell of mustard seed, are beneficial" (Shabbos
151).
"My eyes shed cascades of water over the desecration of Your
Torah." Said Chazal: Regular weeping comes from suffering.
Regular laughter is a sign of joy. But when we see weeping
from joy, it is far greater than weeping from laughter. Its
characteristic sign is the joy and relief one feels after the
catharsis of weeping.
Joy comes to usurp the place of the pain that preceded it; it
is the transformation of mourning to joy, "Gladden us
according to the days that You afflicted us, the years we saw
evil."
From out of the depths of suffering appear the tears of
happiness on the wet cheek basking in pleasure. Those who sow
with tears of sorrow shall harvest with the tears of
exultation. The very eyes which exuded salt water during
times of sinful agony are the very eyes that are capable of
seeing from the distance the tear of sweet happiness.
"Would that my head be filled with water and my eye a
fountain of tear." Would that the tears that flow from my
head should emerge from my eye, that the fountain of tears
behind my eye originate in my head. The brain should ennoble
and bless the wellspring of tears and channel the pathways of
its course. The head should control and contain us from
drowning in a sea of tears, a sea of endless waters. It
should produce tears of wisdom, not of meaningless folly.
"And Aharon was mute. It does not say that he was silent,
because silence only denotes absence of speech, weeping and
sighing, but muteness indicates a quiet acquiescence of the
heart and an inner acceptance and serenity" (Shem
Olom).
At first he wept aloud, but after Moshe spoke to him, he
became silent" (Ramban).
A Point of Contention
"Were it not for David's prayer, all of Israel would be
impoverished dealers of fatty substances. Fats are an
unsightly thing; they adhere to clothing to make it
disgusting, and only poor people bother to deal with such
things" (Sota 49; Rashi).
The gala fair is in the offing, the time of collective
ingathering. Everyone tries to make his best showing; they
extend their hoofs to show how well groomed they are and
shake off specks and spots from their clothing. They
negotiate with stains and splotches, mud and dirt, ancient
Jewish Judaica. Let us not forget that stains adhere to
clothing and disfigure them. Not in vain did David pray that
the nation of Hashem not trade in fats and blubber. Even
though modesty befits Jews, we know that poverty will always
exist. Still, a person must strive for spiritual wealth more
prestigious than business dealings with stains and blemishes.
"May the Merciful One sustain us in honor." May our
livelihood be earned in dignity. Torah scholars are careful
not to have any specks on their garments, and we take the
modicum of pride in this, and pray that it be realized.
"My tear was my daily bread." From here you learn that
suffering sates a person and stifles his appetite for food.
Elkana asked Channah why she wept and why she did not eat. We
learn from here that weeping feeds [it substitutes for
eating]" (Yalkut Shimoni 301).
May our tears bring the ultimate joy of the Final
Redemption!
