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The next scheduled issue is for parshas Eikev. HaRav Avraham Zvi Margolis Explains Why It is Hard for Us to Mourn
Regarding the selfsame questions which disturb us year after year, HaRav Avraham Zvi Margolis, Rav of Carmiel, asks why we don't see what they saw seventy-eight years ago, when our people truly lamented the Churban. Perhaps, at least, ostensibly during the period of Bein Hametzarim, we mark a check on the laws written in the Shulchan Oruch but feel a lesser concentration of sorrow and pain over the Churban itself. Each year, this question surfaces in deeper intensity.
The truth is that we need not go further back in time. About a decade ago, there was a Jew in Carmiel to whom a grandson was born during the Three Weeks. He approached me and said, "Kvod HaRav, I am very joyful but how can this be if we are now during a mourning period?" I told him that I envied him because in truth, there are not many people who truly feel pain and sorrow now.
This was a 'simple' Jew and we tend to think: What can he already understand about the concept of the exile of the Shechina? And yet, he felt what each of us is supposed to feel — how can we be happy during this period?
I remember how, several years ago, we launched throughout the northern area a project called "The Traveling Beis Medrash." A group of avreichim gathered in one of the shuls of baalebatim in a city or settlement and began studying in partnership with a resident. At the end of the period, there was a summing-up address.
One time, after such a talk, one of the locals approached me and said, "This is the first time that I understand why it is forbidden to study Torah on Tisha B'Av." This was the first time that he enjoyed Torah study. Up till then, he thought that Torah study was an obligation, something you had to do!
This is the third in a series of articles and essays about tznius was first published in print in 1995, 29 years ago.
29 years ago there was a rally about tsnius in the Jewish home in Bnei Brak that was attended by more than 10,000 women. Unlike a political rally that is short on content, the remarks of the great rabbonim at that gathering are definitely worthy of preservation and study.
The words of HaRav Zilberstein deserve careful study, and should probably be read several times. Rav Zilberstein develops a concept that is a little different from what we are used to hearing in discussions about tsnius. He shows that slavish imitation of fashions is a result of a lack of content and insufficient Jewish pride. One who truly understands what life is all about will not be concerned with external glitter.
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The Gaon, R' Leib Chasman, the mashgiach of Yeshivas Chevron, sat in his room in the yeshiva and was very downcast. A student entered and asked: "Rabbenu, why are you so sad? "
R' Leib pointed to the bed in which his wife, the rebbetzin lay, and said: "Where will she go? Why shouldn't I be sad?"
The student did not understand his mashgiach. R' Leib explained: "It is written: `And the Land shall vomited its inhabitants' (Vayikra 18:25). I heard that one of the kibbutzim is raising rabbits for human consumption. The Torah says that the Land will vomit us out. I'll go wherever my feet take me. But the rebbetzin is ill. Where will she go?"
These words were said before the Chevron massacre, and to our sorrow, they were fulfilled. Chevron expelled the finest and the most saintly members of the Jewish Nation. Because we are all responsible for one another, he had to leave Chevron, and the words that he said came to pass.
There does exist a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, albeit a 'cold peace,' but an agreement nonetheless. Egypt has taken upon itself to mediate between Israel and Hamas and the meetings thereof take place in Cairo. But as the days go by, it becomes increasingly apparent that the one most responsible for the war in Gaza is none other than Egypt.
It will be remembered that 19 years ago, Israel evacuated the entire Gaza Strip, destroyed the flourishing Israeli settlements there and transferred everything over to the Palestinian Authority. Within a very short time, Hamas seized control over the entire Gaza Strip and began planning its war against Israel. But a war requires weaponry, lots of it. Huge, almost incredible quantities of arms were discovered there during the ten months of war, and that is not the end of it.
Where did Hamas obtain such mega-amounts of arms? How did it succeed in supplying and delivering it to the Strip which enabled Hamas to establish a flourishing industry of arms production? After all, Gaza does not have a harbor on the sea or even an airport.
The answer is apparent and obvious: the Egyptian border served as the main artery of transportation, free-for-all transshipment for arms of all kinds and raw material for their production. The site known as the Philadelfi Corridor served for all of this smuggling, but in order that this remain hidden from the Israelis, the smuggling took place underground via a elaborate system of tunnels built over the years.
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Outstanding Articles From Our Archives
Opinion & Comment
A Talk Delivered by HaRav Yitzchok Hutner on Erev Tisha B'Av, 5739
Shall I Fast?
"In the fourth year of King Darius . . . [the settlement in Bovel] sent . . . to ask Hashem . . . to say to the cohanim and the nevi'im . . . `Shall I weep in the fifth month and refrain [from food and drink] as I have been doing now for some years?' " (Zecharya 7:1-3).
Rashi explains that the Babylonian Jews sent this message to their relatives, asking them to beseech Hashem on their behalf and to ask the cohanim whether, seeing that the Beis Hamikdosh had been rebuilt, they should still weep in the month of Av.
"And the word of Hashem . . . came to me, to say, `Tell all the people and the cohanim . . . your fasting and wailing in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years - was your fasting in My honor?" (7:4-5) . . . The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will be occasions of rejoicing and joy for the House of Yehuda . . .' " (8:19).
The question that the Babylonian Jews asked - whether or not they were still supposed to observe the fast of Tisha B'Av - was a question of halochoh. That such a question was asked of, and that the reply was received through, a novi, as opposed to the Sanhedrin, is without parallel. Moreover the members of the Sanhedrin at that period of the return from Bovel to Eretz Yisroel were the great Anshei Knesses Hagedoloh.
This supports Rabbenu Yonah's statement (Shaarei Teshuvoh, shaar III, 4) that an enactment instituted by a novi is binding in its own right and is known as takonas hanevi'im. [The fasts that were instituted to commemorate the Churban were such takonos.] It is thus correct that a question concerning such an enactment should be directed to a novi. There can be no objection, either, on the grounds that Torah "is not in the Heavens" (Devorim 30:12) [i.e. halachic disputes must be resolved by the Torah Sages using the principles of halochoh, without recourse to Heavenly signs or messages] or that "from here onwards no novi is allowed to introduce anything" (Shabbos 104).
However, the question certainly could have been put to the Sanhedrin just as well. The fact that it was addressed to a novi indicates some particularity on this point.
Opinion & Comment
A Compendium of Remarks from Maran HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv (shlita) zt"l
Part II
This is a collection of various remarks by Maran HaRav Eliashiv about the Churban. Each stands on its own.
Because They Left My Torah
It is ruled in Orach Chaim (747): "One must be extremely careful to recite birchos HaTorah." The Mishnah Berurah (par. 2) writes that one should thank Hashem for choosing us and giving us the vessel that He covets, and cites what Chazal teach us on the posuk, "`Why was the land lost?' - that no one in that generation was able to answer that question. Only HaKodosh Boruch Hu, Who knows a person's inner feelings, knew that although they were engaged in Torah study, that study wasn't important enough for them to recite a brochoh on it."
The Mishnah Berurah (ibid.) adds that Chazal reveal to us that a person is not zocheh to a son who is a talmid chochom if he is not careful to recite birchos haTorah.
Externally no difference could be discerned. We could not discern anything lacking in their Torah commitment. Even the nevi'im and chachomim were asked why the land was lost but they were unable to offer any answer. Only Hashem answered that they left My Torah- that they did not recite a brochoh before studying Torah. At that time they [still] studied Torah. They studied it diligently and fulfilled, "This book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth" (Yehoshua 1:8). The problem was that they could not possibly transmit the Torah to the coming generation. The next generation would not receive the Torah from them since they felt that in the hearts of the people trying to transmit the Torah that Torah study is not important enough. The result: spiritual deterioration of future generations.
[Collection of Teshuvos III Mili De'Agodoh p. 162]
Request of R' Yochonon ben Zakai from Caesar Aspasyanus
Opinion & Comment
Mordecai Plaut
Some years, like this one, we do not have to be reminded to mourn. With our outside enemies openly trying to wreak another churban upon us, we find it natural to seize the tools of our forefathers and cry out to Hashem for help.
It is important to use our physical situation to create and emphasize the mood of the day. The general rule on Tisha B'Av is that one should minimize his personal dignity and comfort as much as possible - in the clothes he wears, in how he sleeps, in how he sits, in what he thinks about - in order to feel more deeply and thoroughly the loss of the Beis Hamikdosh.
Nonetheless, neither our personal situation nor our immediate threats, which loom so large, should prevent us from mourning the general loss that we recall of the Beis Hamikdosh and all that its presence implied.
A mourner, such as we are on Tisha B'Av, must not take his mind off of the subject of his mourning. The limitations on him - not to learn Torah, not to do work - are such as to ensure that the mourning fills his purview.
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