Why Cry?

9 av 5771

Tisha b’av

Why cry?

The truth is.. It’s hard to cry when you know you’re supposed to. When you are sitting in a room with a lot of people and feel like you have to cry but don’t want people to see that’s when the tears come rushing through.. It always happens like that. But on 9av, we can still be in a room with so many people who might actually be crying, but why can’t we bring ourselves to cry? Why didn’t I cry tonight?

I guess the fact that I didn’t should be a reason in and of itself to shed some tears. A really long time ago we had a beautiful stunning holy place where Hashem Himself rested. It was almost as if you were stuck in that moment of clarity you have when your saying shema yisroel for the last time on yom kipper all the time. That clarity, that closeness, was there and so clear, so evident. We became comfortable, too comfortable and relaxed. We became lax in our mitzvos, in our avodas Hashem..we stopped going to the bais hamikdash on the shalosh regalim, we stopped being nice to each other we stopped being the people that made us special. Our ahavas yisroel was going down the drain and every sin we did was paid for. With every step in the wrong direction we lit a small flame that eventually burnt down our beautiful bayis. Without that source of light shining onto the world and us we were put into a whole of darkness. What any normal person would do when they are thrown into a pit is to try and get out but no.. Not klal yisroel… we decided to just make a little home here inside this chalal- this void this empty space of darkness. We just made ourselves comfortable here… we made it nice and cozy.. But what we don’t realize is that ITS STILL A DARK PIT.. No matter how much u try to make a dirty disgusting whole your home by cleaning up the dirt and hanging up some nice leaves—it will never be anything like you true home.. But I guess after a while..After so many years, your memory of what home sweet home is begins to fade and all you can remember is this pit, being in this pit, this whole, and this cold cave without light. Kind of like that whole that samara was thrown into in that movie the ring… yikes…lo alenu.. But umm we have turned galus into a “beautiful” place.. We made big homes and hung up fancy pictures we go for lunch instead of going to bring karbanos we go on vacation to Europe instead of trekking to the bais hamikdash to bring bikurim we have bar mitzvahs in clubs with mixed dancing instead of boys being SO excited to be chayev mitzvos learning torah with their fathers in its honor… were really making this whole quite nice.. But no matter what… no matter how long we camp out here we can never forget the warmth and comfort of the courtyard we gave our hearts to Hashem in.. We cant forget the holy face of the kohen gadol when he walks inside the kodesh kedashim we cant forget these things or else well lose owner ship there is a gemara that talks about returning lost objects… one who finds a lost object is chayev to return it to its owner in the case where the owner has lost hope of finding this lost item the finder can keep it… we must not give up hope of finding our bayis because when and if chas v’shalom we do…we will lose ownership over the holiest matana Hashem will ever ever ever give to us ever.

If it hard to cry today, just think about how sad it is that we became so comfortable, so lax. People don’t even remember their bayis anymore… today… Jews are NOT marrying Jews, Jews are NOT keeping kosher, NOT keeping shabbos- literally flicking off and on the lights, getting in their cars, going to concerts ON SHABBOS, the day that is meant for just us and Hashem. Just imagine a husband and wife having an anniversary, the husband goes out buys her favorite red roses, cooks a special dinner get nice table cloth and nice silverware all for his wife to show his love, he cancels all his appointments shuts off his phone and wants to give his wife all his attention and what does she do? She comes home tells her husband “um what’s that? I like daisies” says “oh sorry I already ate dinner- no thanks” tells him how he doesn’t have good taste because that tablecloth is horrible looking makes a manicure appointment and leaves while talking on the phone to a friend. Could u imagine the chutzpah and this is kivyochel what we have today… we have a broken relationship with the husband that only tried to give to us. Hashem only tries to give to us- this world was made for us and how do we repay Hashem? By disgracing His Holiness its pashut not the way to live we cant do this anymore. We have to reach out we need to help people we need to care … this is the reason we should cry.. We should cry because Jews hurt each other today, we should cry because Leiby, a beautiful child had such emunah to trust a yid, and that yid was not trustworthy to say the LEAST… leiby that amazing unbelievable little boy, that yidden with yiras shamayim dream of having, his rebbeim said he had so much kavana when he davened- what nachas his parents must have had from him! And he was taken from us from one of our own people- what darkness we live in.. It’s a dark whole and we must not stay comfortable here.

We should cry because we see first hand people who don’t keep shabbos.. That while people sing lecha dodi with full hearts others are watching the baseball game, that while we bow “boee kallah boee kallah” other people are bowing down to basketball players and rap singers and these people are our brothers.. What’s even worse is that even when we throw emes in their face they don’t know its emes.. They turn away.. They don’t want to know… what could be worse than watching the people you love most throw their lives away? By wasting time focusing on such gashmiyus by getting such pleasure from the most fleeting things… the hardest part is that after 120 Hashem is going to say what happened? What did u make of yourself… what they’ll see is what they could have been and what they were- the distance between the two will be far too great- too much to bear and their neshamos will say please one more chance at shleimus… but at that point its too late that shame.. That’s gehenom…

We have to cry over these things.. Cry over these matzavim and we have to try our best to strengthen our own mitzvos because as rav dessler says SO beautifully “ what comes from the heart penetrates the heart”… maybe if we all work on our penimyus and do our mitzvos with heart it will somehow capture the neshamos that are far away… its kind of like cutting diamonds with diamonds.. the only way to bring back a neshama is with neshama be honest, let your words be true and real to you.. And maybe that’s how well start bringing Jews back and when they come back we would have formed a relationship a close one if its done with this sense of heart and emotion and with each POSITIVE action we take in the right direction we can start to rebuild .. We can build a latter that’ll take us out of our dark whole in the ground.. back to the light back to the bais Hamikdash back to Hashem…….