Staying "down"
It's a real challenge to stay "down" on Tisha b'Av. To sink into the depression, the suffering and the tears is harder today than ever before.For the last 100 years people have been asking "If we are returning to our land should we still sit and cry?" "Should I still cry over a destroyed city when I see the building all around me? We live in wonderful times & it's so hard to feel Churban. Our galut is comfortable and we can live in our land. We read Eicah in the city of Jerusalem rebuilt with with synagogues, shops, and a Jewish government.
R' Binny Friedman led a small tour through the Old City of Jerusalem last night. Listening to him I heard him struggle not to overemphasis the geula he feels. It's a challenge to walk in places that Jews were forbidden to go and not to feel lucky and hopeful. It's like R' Carlbach's Cracow niggun where the first part is slow and mournful and the second part is happy. It's so hard to just sing the first part.
This morning I heard a Rabbi speak about Kinnah 19, L'Cha Hashem HaTzedaka". He said maybe, 1000 years after the Kinnah was written, we can end the kinnah differently and tell God that we've paid our dues. After Kinnah 21, 10 Harugei Malchut, he reminded us that R' Akiva's Kriyat Shema & R' Elazars Kiddush live on in our being alive and connected to Torah.
Living as we do, blessedly disconnected from pogroms, war, and destruction it so difficult to stay down. It's so hard to cry.
תוויות: Torah
posted by YS @ 11:27 PM
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