By Yochanon Gordon
It’s nine minutes to three on Tuesday morning and I’ve woken up in a cold sweat to type these words. I’m lying in a dark room without my glasses on, squinting to ensure that the words that emerge are spelled correctly. This has nothing to do with deadlines, as I’ve been much later. It has to do with the fact that it’s 2022 and we’ve arrived again in the Three Weeks of mourning, which means the Beis HaMikdash hasn’t been rebuilt and we are still in exile.
I was asked to daven Shacharis for the amud on Sunday, the 18th of Tammuz, which was a makeup of the fast day of the 17th that fell out on Shabbos. There is something mystical about eating on an appointed fast day due to its convergence with Shabbos. I’m always reminded of the Talmudic dispute and am moved by the opinion in the Talmud of Rebbi Yehuda HaNasi, which suggests that once the fast day has been suspended it could never be made up. It sounds like a Torah opinion and a tefillah at once, and there is something messianic about that.
The Rambam himself does this in his laws of the red heifer when he enumerates the nine parah adumahs throughout history and then says that the tenth one will arrive in the messianic era, concluding, “May he come speedily in our days.” Many commentators ask on the seeming incongruity of the Rambam inserting a prayer for the redemption in his book of laws. It must be that the Rambam is alluding to the fact that it is a law that one must pray for the redemption. It almost seems as if Rambam couldn’t hold himself back from praying with the mention of the tenth cow. There is an urgency in Rambam’s words that we need to learn from.
Although I generally don’t like davening for the amud, as I’ve never really gotten so comfortable with nusach, I obliged this time around, not realizing that I’d have to belt out the selichot for the fast day. It all went smoothly until that dedicated, responsive pizmon, which, to be quite frank, I completely butchered. As a consolation for messing it up the way I did, I said to myself that it’s important not to get too used to mourning. There is something consoling in the fact that I haven’t quite figured out the mournful nusach of 17 Tammuz Selichot.
I remember when my father was sitting shivah for his mother who passed away five years ago. You definitely read about it at the time, as it was between the aufruf and wedding day of my brother Nison and sister-in-law Shayna. This particular day, my father had joined his siblings in Crown Heights, in their childhood home at 635 Montgomery Street, between Kingston Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue, enabling the locals to pay their respects without traveling to the Five Towns.
Rabbi Manis Friedman, my father’s first cousin through marriage, was among the visitors that day and he commented on the convergence between the shivah and the wedding day. He said then: “The Rebbe came to pay a shivah call to my great-grandfather and namesake upon the loss of his wife, and he told my elter Zaide then, ‘If someone is lenient on the laws of mourning upon the loss of a loved one in this world they are lenient upon the soul in heaven.’ And then he continued: ‘People who are stringent in the laws of mourning in this world cause a stringency upon the soul in heaven.’”
There are some people who just look so comfortable mourning, and to me there is no greater chilul Hashem. Perhaps G-d is waiting for us to shed the sackcloth and demonstrate that we’ve had enough of mourning and are ready to be redeemed! There is the famous joke about why Megillas Esther has a few parts that are read to the morose tune of Eichah. The answer given is that even Litvaks have a mitzvah of being joyous on Purim. I know it’s only a joke, but somehow it seems that there is a lot of truth to this one. Or, as the Russian aphorism goes: Every joke contains a little joke. I wish it weren’t so.
I recall a story that I heard before my chasunah. Rav Avrohom HaKohen Pam, the late venerable rosh yeshiva of Torah Vodaas, once observed that there was no more powerful prayer than that uttered by the bride and groom under their wedding canopy. He then continued, “How is it possible that there have been so many weddings with tearful prayers uttered by chassanim and kallos and we still haven’t been redeemed? The rosh yeshiva answered his own question with the sad reflection that they indeed want the geulah sheleimah and even daven for it, but they respectfully request that it come after the chasunah.
We have a tradition to break the glass at the high point of the chuppah ceremony, which accompanies, according to some traditions, the recitation of “I bring to mind the memory of Yerushalayim at the height of my joy.” Because the truth is all joyousness is mired in sadness and is truly incomplete as long as Yerushalayim lay in ruins. There is no political solution to the ruins of Jerusalem, although the candidates campaign as if there is one. The solution lies in our hands if we would just sense the urgency in ushering in the redemption. If we can no longer make it through a wedding without being able to express it in its fullest measure.
There is an old Chassidic tradition that dates back to the Ruzhin dynasty, which was later embraced in Chabad circles, to throw berelach, which are berries, on Tishah B’Av to passersby in shul. It’s a symbol of discontent with having to yet again mourn the loss of the Temple and Jerusalem. Chassidim are not natural mourners, and the thinking is that if we don’t give it the reverence and solemnity that it demands, perhaps G-d will finally remove it from us. I remember the first time I saw that tradition in practice coming from the Litvishe world that I had grown up in; I was filled with the zealousness of Pinchas, righteously indignant against the mockery that was clearly on display. Thank G-d, I have since realized the importance of not growing accustomed to mourning and to working tirelessly to remove the need for it altogether.
I admit that this piece has been lacking the structure that many of my pieces contain. However, exile in and of itself is the ultimate absence of structure, or should be anyway. When we reflect upon how long we have sat here, having to routinely switch our shoes and lower our chairs and that it hasn’t given way to an urgency to end it all that itself requires a lack of structure.
It is 11 minutes to 4 a.m. and I feel like I’ve jotted down the thoughts and feelings that had jolted me from my slumber. I will head back to sleep and hope that the rise of the sun ushers in not only a new day, as it does when it rises each morning, but a new era and a new consciousness.
May we welcome the return of structure with the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash and the expansion of the walls of Jerusalem today.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.