Category: Tisha B’Av

The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.

The Kinnot

As we have said elsewhere, Kinnot – though we often think of them as telling the story of the destruction – are, in fact, the story of how the destruction was overcome and of the continuation of the story. The Kinnot themselves teach us that history changed, and that history was not destroyed, and that history proved the life of Am Yisrael.

The structure of the Kinnot

The structure of the Kinnot are very directed.

All the Kinnot that were written by Rabbi Elazar HaKalir are related to Megillat Eichah. We then move from themes of Eichah to the rejuvenation of the Jewish people through the Torah. And then, finally, the Kinnot take us to Tzion – to Eretz Yisrael, even though there is no Beit HaMikdash.

Later came the Kinnot for the Holocaust – a topic that I do not feel I can say anything about. Still, the Kinnot for the Holocaust were added to those of Tisha B’Av, and as a result, the Holocaust becomes part of the history of Am Yisrael.

צִיּוֹן הֲלֹא תִשְׁאֲלִי – Tzion (Zion), surely you will enquire

In this Kinnah, Rav Yehuda Halevi expresses the love we have for Eretz Yisrael. We know that the Rambam writes in his Yad HaChazakah that when the Sages would come to Eretz Yisrael, they would ‘kiss the borders of Eretz Yisrael, kiss its stones, and roll in its dust.’

What this means is that the only way to relate to Eretz Yisrael according to the Rambam and according to Rav Yehuda Halevi – neither of whom had the merit to live in Eretz Yisrael – is that you love Eretz Yisrael. What this teaches us is that the fundamental mitzvah that Am Yisrael must fulfill is Ahavat Hashem (the love of God), and according to the Rambam and Rav Yehuda Halevi, that mitzvah can be best achieved in Eretz Yisrael.

In fact, Tzion – in terms of the way in which we use that term – was introduced by Rav Yehuda Halevi.

In Hebrew, the word Tzion can be read Tziyun which is a distinguishing marker. What this means that it represents something and is not like everything else. Israel distinguishes itself because it is not like other places, and that is what Rav Yehuda Halevi says – that he loves everything about Eretz Yisrael and that the only way to relate to Eretz Yisrael is through love.

 

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The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.

הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה’ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם

Bring us back to You, God, and we shall return; renew our days as of old (Eichah 5:21)

The main message of Chapter 5 of Eichah is hope, and its penultimate verse is הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה’ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה which is about teshuva (repentance, lit. ‘returning’).

And what is teshuva? It is the ultimate optimism.

No matter how much I know about myself, and no matter how clearly I see myself in terms of who I am, I can still change and be someone worthwhile because teshuva enables me to start over again.

Guaranteed Teshuva

Rambam writes in Perek 1 of Hilchot Teshuva that God guarantees teshuva on the individual level, on the emotional level, on the communal level, and on a national level. This means that teshuva teaches us that we will be given the opportunity to return to Eretz Yisrael. And the first person who begged for that promise, while looking at the destruction of Yerushalayim and the Beit HaMikdash, was Yirmiyahu Hanavi.

So even while the Beit HaMikdash doesn’t exist, the fact that repentance and renewal does exist is clearly a theological tour de force because it affirms the fact that, even absent of the Beit HaMikdash, there will always be a covenant between God and the Jewish people.

כִּי אִם מָאֹס מְאַסְתָּנוּ קָצַפְתָּ עָלֵינוּ עַד מְאֹד

For even if you found us disgusting, you should not have punished us so much (Eichah 5:22)

The final pasuk of Megillat Eichah expresses that in spite of the fact that we have sinned, God should not have punished us this much because we would have done teshuva. This ability to evaluate and discuss our aveirot (transgressions) and our punishment with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and this ability to speak about and rely upon teshuva, is a powerful testimony to the idea that there is a future and that, ultimately, we have hope.

 

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The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.

אַרְזֵי הַלְּבָנוֹן אַדִּירֵי הַתּוֹרָה – The Cedars of Lebanon, Masters of the Torah

This Kinnah was written by Rabbi Meir ben Yechiel who was one of the Ba’alei HaTosafot and who is talking about the Assarah Harugei Malchut. He is talking about Talmidei Chachamim, Cedars of Lebanon.

Cedar was the wood that was used to build the Beit HaMikdash. Shlomo HaMelech went to Hiram in Lebanon for the wood that Lebanon is famous for, the cedars of Lebanon.

And so here Rabbi Meir ben Yechiel says “There is a Beit HaMikdash! There is a Temple! There are Arzei HaLevanon!” And where is this Beit HaMikdash? It is found among the Adirei HaTorah – the masters of the Torah.

The Aleph Bet and history

In this Kinnah, every line is alphabetical. In doing so Rabbi Meir ben Yechiel is saying that it is not only in Eichah that you have an alphabetical locked-in process. Instead, it continued in history. We had to pay the price, and it was a terrible price. But there were also Arzei HaLevanon.

Every nation in the world from ancient times has managed to disappear. And the reason why they disappeared and why they assimilated was because they had no reason not to disappear and not to assimilate. In contrast, we had the Torah, and those who learn Torah are doing something important for the nation.

גִּבּוֹרֵי כֺחַ עֲמָלֶיהָ בְּטָהֳרָה – Powerful warriors, toiling in purity

What does it mean to toil in purity? The word Amal (toil) was coopted for Torah learning, and in the Beit HaMikdash, the difference between purity and impurity made a big difference.

So the author gave a new definition to Torah and to learning Torah which was the concept of Amal (toiling). The Roman’s thought that if you destroy the leading lights then you destroy the enterprise of Talmud Torah. But this was a mistake because Talmud Torah implies the students and children of Talmud Torah.

And so they did this monstrous act of destroying the Arzei Halevanon Adirei HaTorah, but they were not able to destroy the desire that Am Yisrael had to reconnect to the Torah. And through the Torah to Arzei Halevanon, and through the Arzei Halevanon to Tzion, and through Tzion to the Beit HaMIkdash and to Eretz Yisrael.

 

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The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.

The significance of Chapter 5

In contrast to the first 4 chapters of Megillat Eichah, the 5th perek is about the future. And why is this so? Because the only reason to generate the energy to be unhappy is because you think that it will have a positive effect on the future.

That is what a lament is, and that is what a Kinnah is. The only way to hold onto tragedy is because you believe that there is a future without tragedy. This is why I think that the most significant chapter of Megillat Eichah is Chapter 5 which talks about the hope.

זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ – Remember, God, what has befallen us (Eichah 5:1)

The first words of Chapter 5 begin זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ – Remember, God, what has befallen us. Here, Yirmiyahu is instructing God to remember.  But does Yirmiyahu think that God doesn’t remember? Does he think that God may forget? The Rambam explains in the Moreh Nevuchim that when we talk about God, we can’t truly talk about God.

God is so ‘other’, that when we speak about God in any kind of human terms, it seems almost meaningless. Nevertheless, we do so because there is nothing else that we can do. But given this, how are we to understand זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ?

I believe that this word is used to convey our turning to God and our asking God to treat us that way we treat each other and our asking of God that He remember the way we remember ourselves – namely ‘selectively’. So we ask God to remember the good and to forget the bad.

The future is real

But who gave us permission to speak to God and say, “Don’t be perfect!”, and “Stack the deck in our favour”? The Torah speaks about the Mabul (flood) and it then states that וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת נֹחַ – ‘And God remembered Noach’ (Bereishit 8:1). But where was Noach? He was in the ark! So what does it mean that God remembered Noach? He is all over the story! It means that God took note of Noach at that time, and this relates back to how God decided at that time to organise the world through selective memory.

Not everything would be punished. Not everything would be destroyed. What this means is that ‘Remember’ (זְכֹר) will allow us a future in Eretz Yisrael, and this is what the Navi Yirmiyahu begs of Hakadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, Blessed Be He). Through this, he reassures us that the future is real, that the punishment is not permanent, and that Am Yisrael will be able, somehow, to recover.

The proof of modernity

Who would have imagined that things could be as good as they are? Even though we like to emphasize the bad sometimes, we must realize that those bad things are part of the course in the flow of things. We live in wondrous times, and it is our obligation to make those wondrous times sustain themselves.

Just like the head of the World Bank may think that they can create a sustenance of goodness, we know that we are obliged to maintain and sustain the devotion of Am Yisrael to the Torah on the one hand, and the devotion of Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael on the other hand.

And while it is not easy to define what that means, we should think in that direction. And so זְכֹר ה’ מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ is our obligation to remember the goodness.

 

The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.

Making use of the Hebrew alphabet

There are a few things about Eichah which are interesting, and the first thing that catches our attention is that the pesukim (verses) of Eichah follow the Hebrew alphabet. Both chapters 1 & 2 have 22 pesukim, with each beginning with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 3 is different because, rather than having one verse for each letter of the Hebrew Alef Bet, it begins with 3 (short) verses which begin with ‘alef’, and continues with 3 (short) verses each beginning with ‘bet’ etc. As a result, Chapter 3 has 66 verses.

Then, in chapter 4, we return to the format of the first two chapters where there are 22 pesukim with each line beginning with a letter from the Hebrew Alphabet. However, the most interesting chapter of Megillat Eichah is chapter 5 which doesn’t follow the structure of the Hebrew alphabet, but which still has 22 verses.

To be clear, this is not the only place in the Tanach where verses follow the Hebrew alphabet. For example, Tehillim 145, otherwise known as Ashrei, follows the order of the Hebrew Alphabet, and Tehillim 119 has 9 verses for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Moreover, in terms of Ashrei, we find that there is no verse for the letter ‘nun’, and according to our Sages, this was done to teach us a lesson.

A hidden message?

Returning to Eichah, the order of the verses in Chapter 1 follows the order of the Hebrew alphabet. However, in chapters 2, 3 & 4, the verse beginning with the letter ‘peh’ comes before the verse beginning with the letter ‘ayin’. Similar to Ashrei, this suggests that Yirmiyahu was trying to teach us something by writing these verses out of order – perhaps that the destruction generated chaos and disorder.

This then brings us to chapter 5 which, though it doesn’t use the Hebrew Alphabet to begin each of its verses, nevertheless has 22 pesukim. There is a kabbalistic book called ‘Sefer Yetzirah’ which tries to explain to us how the world was created using the letters of the hebrew alphabet. Hashem needed some method to create, and the method that was chosen was through using the hebrew alphabet.

According to Jewish thought, the alphabet is understood to symbolize everything that could be. And so, through the use of these 22 pesukim, Yirmiyahu is teaching us that things can change, that there is hope, that there will be a future which we need to look towards.

 

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The following was taken from past Tisha B’Av events with Rabbi Brovender and adapted by Rabbi Johnny Solomon.

אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד – How does she sit in solitude?! (Eichah 1:1)

Eichah was the question, and the Navi Yirmiyahu (the prophet Jeremiah) who, according to tradition, is the author of Megillat Eichah, is facing an inconceivable question.

Is this the end of the relationship between God and Am Yisrael?

That is what Eichah is: not a question among questions, but the ultimate question.

How did God allow this to happen? It seems to contradict the plan.

Yet, as the Megillah proceeds, we come to learn that things can change, that there is hope, and that there will be a future which we need to look towards.

And as we will see, the Kinnot are the story of how this was overcome.

 

Join our community live or via the recordings for our special free, live, and interactive online Tisha B’Av day program. SIGN UP HERE