“He cut down the towering stature of Adam, the creature He had fashioned with His own hands,

He had just stepped into the treasure house of Eden when he was evicted. Thus God demonstrated to him that the couch is too short.”

We cannot think of all the death and destruction of Tisha B’Av without going back to the first sin and the first exile that soon followed; Adam in the Garden.

We cannot think of Adam’s sin, so soon after being fashioned by God, without wondering whose fault was it that Adam sinned? Is it possible for us to live without sin? Were we always destined to live in exile? The first “Eichah,” – “Ayekah,” is a question to one who has lost his place: “Where are you?”

We think of the spectacular failures that led to Israel wandering the desert for forty years, and the destruction of the two Batei Mikdash and Beitar and automatically think back to that first day, so soon after God fashioned Adam, and reread the question and respond to God’s, “Where are You?” with our own question of “Eichah?” – “How could this be?” Or, “Could it be otherwise?”

Tisha B’Av takes us to the core of the human struggle to soar and create, to master ourselves, to “conquer” the world, which inevitably confronts us with the possibility of sin. We begin by remembering the tragic events of Tisha B’Av, but soon go to reflecting on the failures that have haunted humanity since the Garden.

It is easy for one who is mourning to think back on humanity’s slips and weep, “Eichah,” “Alas!” However, we too can reread the “Eichah” to “Ayekah,” a simple question that has more than one answer, “Where are you?” We can respond as Adam did not, “We sinned, but are prepared to repair.”

The true tragedy is when we are stuck in the “Eichah” mode, focusing on failures and the difficulties of a creative life. The solution is a simple rereading of the word as “Ayekah,” to take time to reflect and ask ourselves, “Are we where we want to be?”

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

“Everything came to a standstill”. “Shavat” – This is based on Lamentation 5:15: “Gone –Shavat – is the joy of our hearts, our dancing has turned into mourning”. The Ibn Ezra explains that the “joy of our hearts” refers to the Offerings brought in the Temple, as in Ezekiel 24:25: “And you, Son of Man, behold, on the day that I take their stronghold from them, the joy of their glory, the darling of their eyes, and the exaltation of their soul, their sons and their daughters.”

The imagery of this prophecy begins with the death of Ezekiel’s wife: (Ezekiel 24:15-27)

One moment Ezekiel’s wife is there and the next moment she is gone. The ‘darling of his eyes” was taken away in an instant. His life was shattered. “Won’t you tell us what these acts that you are doing mean for us?” (Ezekiel 24:19) People did not understand Ezekiel’s response to such a tragedy. They could only understand that the prophet was sending a message to them.

Our lives can change in a moment. Our world can stop. There is nothing we can do but watch. We all remember exactly what we were doing and where we were at the moment we heard of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center on 9-11. Time seemed to stop at that moment. Ezekiel was telling his people that they were functioning in Babylon with the assumption that the Temple was still standing and that sacrifices were still being offered. They still relied on that protection. Ezekiel was warning them that their world would change in one moment; a moment they knew, but refused to believe was coming. Nothing would be the same afterward.

Our lives can change in a single moment. The world is entirely different from one minute to the next. It can happen for good, as with the “Az”! of the Splitting of the Sea, or, it can happen in a negative way, as with the loss of the Altar and sacrifices.

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I have heard people explain the Holocaust as the expression of God’s anger with Reform Judaism, which began in Germany. That would not explain why the Germans massacred so many more traditional Jews, or why Poland and Hungary were burned by the fires of the concentration camps.

People are desperate for answers and will accept anything that will allow them, with a few dashes of cognitive dissonance, to understand our suffering over the ages.

“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” (The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus)

David Klinghoffer made the unforgivable, horrible, and hateful mistake of suggesting that the Bible actually warns us what will happen if we do not serve God with joy and abundance. How could he? I am under the impression that he was fired from First Things (I cancelled my subscription in protest) for arguing the Bible’s point of view.

How strange! We prefer bad reasons and explanations to reading the Bible as reality!

I wonder what would happen if, as Klinghoffer suggested, we listen to the Bible’s warnings and demands: “Because you did not serve God, your Lord, amid gladness and goodness of heart, when everything was abundant.” (Deuteronomy 28:47)

We are quite skilled at mourning and crying. We even manage to mangle happy verses and chant them as lamentations: “My help is from God, Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:2) I don’t know about you, but the verse makes me sing, not mourn. “God will protect you from every evil. He will guard your soul.” Sounds good to me. I don’t want to cry over that verse. I want to yell it out with joy and confidence.

I would like to suggest that when the Talmud teaches that “We lessen our joy when the Hebrew month Menachem Av begins”, means exactly that: lessen, not eradicate. Perhaps a little joy is in order.

We can celebrate the fact that the Temple is still so real to us that we continue to mourn more than two thousand years after its destruction. We can rejoice in the fact that, although his own generation ignored him, we listen to Jeremiah 2400 years later as if he was still alive. We can serve with confidence that all the murder, pogroms, crusades, wars, suffering, poverty, torture and more have not been able to destroy our faith. We continue to serve God and to strive to rebuild His Temple.

Perhaps a little more joy in our service will make our mourning more meaningful and potent.

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

Question 1:

Genesis 3:9: “God, the Lord, called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

How did Adam hear the question?

“They heard the Voice of God, the Lord, walking in the garden toward evening.” (Genesis 3:8) What did they hear? Was the Voice saying something? Or, did they just hear a “Voice”?

Moses could hear God’s Voice, speaking to God, from between the two Cherubim. (Numbers 7:89: See Rashi)

The Children of Israel saw God’s Voice, in their highest moments when standing at Sinai and receiving the Ten Statements.

Adam and Eve were able to hear God’s Voice even after they sinned.

Let us rephrase our question: How did two people, so elevated that they could hear “God’s Voice walking in the Garden” hear God’s question: “Ayeka/Eicha – Where are you?

Did these two elevated beings hear “I don’t know where you are”? “I am no longer connected to you? “

Or

Where did your action get you?

Adam’s answer indicates that he chose to hear the former: “I was afraid because I am naked, so I hid.”

What if he had chosen to hear the latter and simply admit and confront what he had done?

The way we hear a question determines our response: How do we hear the Eicha?Ayeka of Tisha B’Av?

As victims, and we sit in mourning because there is nothing we can do?

Or

As people able to change the situation?

Question 2:

Deuteronomy 1:12: “Eicha, How can I alone carry your contentiousness, your burdens, and your quarrels?” We chant this to the lament of Eicha.

How does this follow the previous verse: May God, the Lord of your ancestors, add to you a thousand times yourselves, and bless you as He has spoken of you”?

It is almost a cry of feeling too limited to handle the reborn and grown nation.

“You answered me and said: “The thing that you have proposed to do is good.” : You decided this based on your personal enjoyment! You should have said ‘We prefer to learn directly from you, the master, who has suffered so much for us.” (Deuteronomy 1:14: Rashi)

Moshe’s question, “Eicha” – “How” – comes after rejection, frustration and a sense of limitation.

When we ask Eicha – How can we handle the challenges of life and exile? – Are we asking with a sense of rejection by God? Do we ask as people who feel limited?

Question 3:

Isaiah 1:21; “Eicha, How has she become a harlot!”

Isaiah speaks of the greatness and devotion of Israel even as he rebukes them. Isaiah had seen and heard the highest Angels in heaven praise God. He understood passion and real love of God.

Isaiah challenged his generation with his version of the Eicha question:

Are you going through the motions of intimacy by bringing offerings, praying, visiting the Temple, and celebrating Shabbat, without a relationship that will manifest itself in everything you do, especially how you relate to others?

Are you having a relationship or are you a harlot?

Question 4:

Lamentations 1:1: “Eicha, Alas, she sits in solitude.”

Jeremiah gives Voice to God’s cry and asks the fourth question of Tisha B’Av:

What are you doing with the potential God has given you?

Do not be as Adam and Eve, so elevated that they could hear God’s Voice, but did not properly understand His question of “Ayeka”.

Do not ask “How” with a sense of limitation.

Do not serve God, with all the potential of each and every blessing, prayer, Mitzvah, and word of Torah, without a sense of the relationship imbued in each.

Jeremiah’s question of Eicha – Alas! What potential has been wasted! – can be transformed into the first “Ayeka” and we can answer by acknowledging our mistakes and understanding that God is only asking us “Do you know where you stand and who you are capable of being?”

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

The popular conception of genius is that it is an inborn gift, yet an increasingly large body of research suggests the opposite – that genius is always the product of sustained effort. A case in point – Mozart:

“Standing above all other giftedness legends, of course, [is] that of the mystifying boy genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, alleged to be an instant master performer at age three and a brilliant composer at age five. His breath-taking musical gifts were said to have sprouted from nowhere, and his own father promoted him as the ‘miracle which God let be born in Salzburg.’

“The reality about Mozart turns out to be far more interesting and far less mysterious. His early achievements – while very impressive, to be sure – actually make good sense considering his extraordinary upbringing. And his later undeniable genius turns out to be a wonderful advertisement for the power of process. Mozart was bathed in music from well before his birth, and his childhood was quite unlike any other. His father, Leopold Mozart, was an intensely ambitious Austrian musician, composer, and teacher who had gained wide acclaim with the publication of the instruction book A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing. For a while, Leopold had dreamed of being a great composer himself. But on becoming a father, he began to shift his ambitions away from his own unsatisfying career and onto his children – perhaps, in part, because his career had already hit a ceiling: he was vice-kapellmeister (assistant music director); the top spot would be unavailable for the foreseeable future.

“Uniquely situated, and desperate to make some sort of lasting mark on music, Leopold began his family musical enterprise even before Wolfgang’s birth, focusing first on his daughter Nannerl. Leopold’s elaborate teaching method derived in part from the Italian instructor Giuseppe Tartini and included highly nuanced techniques …

“Then came Wolfgang. Four and a half years younger than his sister, the tiny boy got everything Nannerl got – only much earlier and even more intensively. Literally from his infancy, he was the classic younger sibling soaking up his big sister’s singular passion. As soon as he was able, he sat beside her at the harpsichord and mimicked notes that she played. Wolfgang’s first pings and plucks were just that. But with a fast-developing ear, deep curiosity and a tidal wave of family know-how, he was able to click into an accelerated process of development.

“As Wolfgang became fascinated with playing music, his father became fascinated with his toddler son’s fascination – and was soon instructing him with an intensity that far eclipsed his efforts with Nannerl. Not only did Leopold openly give preferred attention to Wolfgang over his daughter; he also made a career-altering decision to more or less shrug off his official duties in order to build an even more promising career for his son. This was not a quixotic adventure. Leopold’s calculated decision made reasonable financial sense, … Wolfgang’s youth made him a potentially lucrative attraction. …

From the age of three, then, Wolfgang had an entire family driving him to excel with a powerful blend of instruction, encouragement, and constant practice. He was expected to be the pride and financial engine of the family, and he did not disappoint. In his performances from London to Mannheim between the ages of six and eight, he drew good receipts and high praise from noble patrons. …

“Still, like his sister, the young Mozart was never a truly great adult-level instrumentalist. He was highly advanced for his age, but not compared with skillful adult performers. The tiny Mozart dazzled royalty and was at the time unusual for his early abilities. But today many young children exposed to Suzuki and other rigorous musical programs play as well as the young Mozart did – and some play even better. Inside the world of these intensive, child-centered programs, such achievements are now straightforwardly regarded by parents and teachers for what they are: the combined consequence of early exposure, exceptional instruction, constant practice, family nurturance, and a child’s intense will to learn. Like a brilliant souffle, all of these ingredients must be present in just the right quantity and mixed with just the right timing and flair. Almost anything can go wrong. The process is far from predictable and never in anyone’s complete control.”

David Shenk – The Genius in All of Us

Quick Question: People often speak of the Genius of the Jewish People that allowed us to survive, even thrive in, two thousand years of exile. Is our “Genius” an inborn gift or the result of sustained effort, nurtured through the environment we create?

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

There is another chapter written for someone else. Josiah was a little kid when he became king. He decided to be a good guy. He undertook a complete remodeling of the Beit Hamikdash. He removed the idols that literally filled the walls. One day they were cleaning the tiles on the Temple floor, when one of them came loose. They lift it up and lo and behold, they find a sefer Torah. Not just any sefer Torah, but the one written by Moses. At that point, it is the only Torah to be found anywhere in Israel. It would seem to be a good sign. They are all excited. And you can trace this out today in the City of David. Archeologists found the seal of one of the scribes of the king. They ran to the room of that particular scribe. They open the Torah, but immediately they see that it opens to the section of the curses. Not a good sign. Talk about mixed messages!

They don’t know what to do. They go up to Hulda. She confirms that the Temple is going to be destroyed. There is nothing Josiah can do to stop it. However, because he is a tzaddik, it won’t happen while he is alive. King Josiah hears about this and hires policemen who go to every single house to search and destroy every idol they can find. He brings everybody to Jerusalem to do Teshuva, has them reaccept the Torah, and bring the korban Pesach. He founds the first Baal Teshuva movement in history, and a massive one at that. He threatens people with death if they don’t do teshuva. He digs up the graves of idol worshippers, burns the bones of their priests, and smashes the altar to Baal that was built. He was just told that there is nothing he could do, yet he refuses to go lying down. When he died (and he died because he didn’t listen to the navi)…On one hand, you have Josiah who decides he has to do what he has to do. On the other hand there were kings who didn’t do anything even when everything was falling apart around them.

The third chapter is directed to those who just don’t want to change and are unwilling to hear that anything needs to change. You find this echoed in verse 8: Even when I cry out and plead, He has shut off my prayer. Or, in 44: You have covered Yourself with a cloud that no prayer can pass through.

That is what Jeremiah was trying to address. Stagnation means that all avenues for change have closed. And the Josiah approach is that the worst situation of all can be changed to its direct opposite.

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

Last year, my father died, and of course it was devastating. But then, there were positive things that came out of it. While a parent is alive, it’s much easier to feel like a kid. But when a parent dies, especially one whom one relies on very much, I and my siblings began to feel much more like adults. We started to take responsibility for things none of us wanted to do so before. It was a terrible passage, but within it, we were rising to a new level where something good could come out of it. The worst thing to do however, when coming into that kind of advantage, is to stagger.

We had this situation in Jerusalem with the First Temple; Jeremiah was going around telling everybody, “You guys are in big trouble. There’s going to be an invasion, the ten tribes will be exiled, and then the Temple itself will be destroyed. You have to change.” People knew there was instability, that there threat of war from Egypt, Babylon, Sancheriv, and the Assyrians. The people didn’t want to hear it. Rabbi ________ wrote it up in the daily newspaper, but they burnt it. So Jeremiah took Eicha and rewrote it. He added the third chapter. The third chapter was added for people who are staggering. They want to protect the status quo, even it is miserable. And because they are tense, they are not able to take advantage of passage.

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

Psychopaths shed light on a crucial subset of decision-making that’s referred to as morality. Morality can be a squishy, vague concept, and yet, at its simplest level, it’s nothing but a series of choices about how we treat other people. When you act in a moral manner – when you recoil from violence, treat others fairly, and help strangers in need – you are making decisions that take people besides yourself into account. You are thinking about the feelings of others, sympathizing with their states of mind.

This is what psychopaths can’t do. They are missing the primal emotional cues that the rest of us use as guides when making moral decisions. The absence of emotion makes the most basic moral concepts incomprehensible. G. K. Chesterton was right: “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”

At first glance, the connection between morality and the emotions might be a little unnerving. Moral decisions are supposed to rest on a firm logical and legal foundation. Doing the right thing means carefully weighing competing claims, like a dispassionate judge.

“Moral judgment is like aesthetic judgment,” writes Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. “When you see a painting, you usually know instantly and automatically whether you like it. If someone asks you to explain your judgment, you confabulate . Moral arguments are much the same: Two people feel strongly about an issue, their feelings come first, and their reasons are invented on the fly, to throw at each other.”

Benjamin Franklin said it best in his autobiography: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” Jonah Lehrer – How We Decide

There is a powerful reasons why our Avodah, or Spiritual Work, during the Three Weeks of Mourning, is focused on our emotions: No matter how reasonable we may be, we base our decisions on our emotions. The Sages wanted us to identify the negative emotions that led to the disastrous decisions that fed Jerusalem’s destruction. “The Children of Israel cried for no reason when they heard the Spies’ report. I will therefore give them a reason to cry!” Powerful negative emotions fed their decision to reject God and lose hope. The Sages teach us to identify those negative emotions and transform them, not the decisions but the emotions, into healthier emotions that nurture moral decisions.

We are feeding negative emotions and decisions when we practice mourning during the Three Weeks without a sense of what we can accomplish. We are grabbing hold of the same negative emotions that led to all the Tisha B’Avs in our history. We must use the Three Weeks to identify the negative emotions that attempt to assert control over our moral decisions.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

…You can be angry, just to get angry, or you can be angry because of a pattern in a relationship. So there is a difference between someone insulting me and someone preventing me from accomplishing something with my life. Hate comes from someone who wants to annoy me, from sin’at chinam. But someone who is out to prevent me from accomplishing my purpose in life, that is not sin’at chinam. The same thing is true with bichiya chinam. If I cry out in pain, there a cry for freedom. It is a loss of a sense of direction. That is to say, “Here I am functioning, trying to do everything I can, but I don’t feel that all my efforts are congealing. I’m not accomplishing what I think I can with my life.

The thing to keep in mind in the evening prayer before the reading of Eicha is to reflect on all those prayers that were not as good as they could be, and did not take us from one point to another. Then, on the positive side, is to understand that any prayer, even one that seems to accomplish nothing at all, does one thing – which is to connect with God. First, we reflect on why we go through these motions so often where we feel that our prayers aren’t getting us anywhere, three times a day, and then to turn it around while we are davening and to understand that by the very fact that I am doing so takes me one step closer to God. So I get to see what I am doing is chinam – without direction – and then I try to impose some sort of direction on it. This is a good way to begin Tisha B’av – both in the act of bechira chinam – the crying, the loss of direction, and then the fixing of it – giving it some sort of direction.

I would like to suggest an exercise. One of the major themes in the Midrash on Eicha is the idea of HaIr Rabti Am – “The city that was very great.” The Midrash tells these almost ridiculous stories about how fantastic, how brilliant, and how wealthy the Jewish people were before the destruction.

One of the most famous stories is that of Marta bat Beisus. She was incredibly wealthy and she wanted some bread. She sent her servant out to buy some wonder bread. The servant came back and said, “There is no more wonder bread. There is only barley bread.” “OK,” she replied, “go get me some barley bread.” By the time the servant went out again to search he discovered there was no longer any barley bread. He returned to report that there was only black bread. “OK, fetch me some black bread.” He again returned saying, “There is no more black bread, but there is some week-old spelt bread.” It never occurred to him, whenever he went out, to get the best quality of whatever bread was there. Finally, in desperation, she herself went out to buy bread. As she was walking through the street she stepped on a pit that had been sucked on by someone who was starving. Rabbi Tzaddok, who used to fast, spat the pit out and she stepped on it. She was so disgusted by the pit that she died. That is a story of how great Jerusalem was. Contrasted with how terrible it became. This is supposed to give us an idea of how terrible the destruction was, and our hearts are supposed to be broken.

Quite frankly, I have trouble relating to Marta bat Beisus. But I think that the Midrash is bringing a tremendous idea that goes the to core of Creation, all the way to the first hint of Tisha B’av, which occurred in the garden in time called Garden of Eden, when God says to Adam, ayeca – “Where are you?” The word ayeca is the same as eicha. This idea is that human beings have tremendous difficulty being great. Jews have the same history of doing this. For example, when the Jews had sovereignty over Israel, they had the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple in Jerusalem. They could see God’s presence play out right in front of them with the most unbelievable miracles. And they never noticed. Quite frankly, I don’t blame them. I remember, I would hesitate to go to spend time with my grandfather. It was great to see him; he was a great man. But I never realized that by being with him, I could be a lot better than I am. So I didn’t see him that often. I had the chance to go see some of the superstars of our generation with my grandfather. But I didn’t go, because I felt guilty. “I could be like Reb Moshe Feinstein, even taller!” But I was afraid. I don’t mean to categorize, but Jews in general have difficulty aspiring to greatness.

Greatness carries tremendous responsibility. There so many examples of this Tanach. Read the first chapter of Jeremiah. God says to him, “Listen, you’re a navi, you’re great. But the minute you accept your greatness, I want to let you know that you will be miserable. So you have a choice. You can be great and be miserable, or you can be comfortable.” This is a choice that confronts many people. And this really strikes at the core of what Tisha B’av is. All of us have this drive to accomplish great things. We all have potential to do so. But in acknowledging this potential, we realize the inherent responsibility. That’s where we get into trouble.

Sometimes we get so caught up in it, we can’t fix the situation. For example, look at Adam and Eve in the Garden. God said to Adam, “Where are you?” Why did they have to hide? All they had to say was, “We ate from the tree; we make a mistake.” Had they said this, they wouldn’t have been kicked out. Everything would have been hunky-dory. They didn’t because there was a set-up, and the set-up was called the Tree of Knowledge. If you read through all the rishonim, it’s quite clear. Basically, they were set up. A human being has tremendous drives. You can’t say to us that the whole world is ours, except for that one tree, and then command us to conquer the world, and not eat of that one tree. You can’t say that because he will go right after that tree – that is what the human being was created to do.

This is also hinted at in many Midrashim. Remember the story of the creation of the Sun and the Moon. They were both the same size. The moon said, “We have to be different.” So God said, “Make yourself smaller.” The moon responded, “Why should I make myself smaller? I didn’t do anything wrong. I just want to be different. I want to be me.” God appeases the moon by bringing a sin offering, to say that He needed the moon’s forgiveness for making the moon smaller. Yes, I created you with a drive to be different, but the moment you wanted to be different, I made you smaller.

There are certain basic contradictions in the world. Among the most painful is that we have a drive to accomplish, but we feel limited, and we limit ourselves. That is where we tend to trip up. And that is where the Jews tripped up in the desert. They were about to go into Israel and accomplish tremendous things. But they were terrified. It is easier in the desert, than when you have your own country. It happened at the First Temple, at the Second Temple, and by Bar Kochba. Imagine, you have the Messiah, right there. That’s where we trip up. We don’t appreciate our greatness. This is what we mourn for on Tisha B’av. We have tremendous potential that we don’t reach.

The best way for me to keep this in mind is to picture if I had everything I needed, if I didn’t need to work for a living, and all my needs were taken care of, and I could dedicate my life to one thing, what would it be? And if that picture fantasy that you have is something that changes the world and doing something really significant, then you know that you have that potential. Then you have to ask yourself, what am I doing about it? – At least on a smaller scale. And if I am not doing anything about it, then I know that I have what is called a “Tisha B’Av Issue.” There is one part of me that believes I have this potential, and there is another that isn’t really doing anything about it. That is the frustration that is related in the first part of Eicha.

* * *

Author Info:

Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

“My tent, that You yearned, even before Creation, to align with Your celestial Throne of Glory, why is it forever plundered by the hands of the plunderers?” Each stanza of this Kinah begins with “My tent,” alluding to the Mishkan and the Beit Hamikdash. This developed from, “He bent his bow like an enemy. His right hand poised like a foe, He slew all who were of pleasant appearance. In the Tent of the Daughter of Zion He poured out His wrath like fire.” (Lamentations 2:4)

Rabbi Avraham Galanti (Kol Bochim) explains that we can understand this by imagining the world as the inside of a tent with the cover being the Presence of God that hovers above and protects and nurtures all that lays within. The tent itself is magnificent. It shines its light on everything inside, so that everything within reflects the glory of the tent itself.

We find the first allusion to this idea in the opening verses of the Torah, “And the Divine Presence hovered upon the surface of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2) Rashi comments, “The Divine Throne floated in the air and hovered over the water with the Ruach, or wind, from God’s mouth, and His Word, like a dove that hovers over her nest.”

The creation of the world began with God “Tenting” over the earth. God protected His creation as a mother bird hovers over her nest protecting her eggs.

God used a similar process when creating Adam: “A mist ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the soil. And God the Lord, formed the man of dust from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life; and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:6-7) The Talmud sees that mist as a tent, so much so that it derives the laws of Succah from the verse.

The mist formed a tent and nurtured life within.

The Mishkan and Beit Hamikdash were miniature creations of the world and man. The Mishkan’s coverings, and the Temple’s roof, portrayed God’s Presence hovering over His creation, protecting and nurturing.

This is why we have so many powerful descriptions of “My Tent,” the Beit Hamikdash, in this Kinah: Yearned before Creation, You guided with clouds of splendor, You positioned as a foundation, and more. “MyTent” was a powerful symbol of God’s active involvement in His creation; the world and man.

In is inevitable that we wonder about God’s continued role in Creation and our lives when this awesome symbol was destroyed by God. We, who lived in the safety of God’s Presence are lost when we are forced to live in the “open skies,” of this world, without the clarity of God hovering above, protecting and nurturing.

The Kinah ends:

“After and before,

both this time and that,

in each and every generation God’s anger

and protective shelter are made known.

So why, of all nations,

has He pressed His hand upon me?

This is evident, although my destruction is engraved upon His palm,

nevertheless, my healing is certain, for His anger is but for a moment.

Still,

I wonder,

How has He clouded me

until now

in His anger?

“in each and every generation God’s anger and protective shelter are made known,” we can find God’s shelter even now, without “My Tent,” but as long as “He clouds me in His anger,” I will wonder, where is My Tent.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.