As a regular contributing columnist to this newspaper, I received an email from our editorial staff last week asking for this column earlier than normal due to the office being closed on Tuesday in observance of Tishah B’Av.
The last three weeks I sought to write about ideas that pertained to the Three Weeks and Tishah B’Av as a means of helping myself mentally prepare for the day of Tishah B’Av, which, as I write this, we are one night removed from. I understand the fact that there is a pressing need to have all of the editorial submitted in time in order to have them edited in time to be printed on Wednesday in this week’s issue of the newspaper. However, there is an extremely difficult challenge in being able to write about Shabbos Nachamu and what it feels like to be consoled when we haven’t even experienced the destruction. Now, don’t get me wrong, I recognize the fact that we are in exile even now as I type these words. However, like everything else in Yiddishkeit, Tishah B’Av isn’t just a commemoration of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, which took place nearly two thousand years ago, rather as the day of Tishah B’Av sets in and we assume our positions on the floor it is as if the Beis HaMikdash is once again being destroyed, as our sages state:
“Anyone in whose days the Beis HaMikdash wasn’t rebuilt it is as if it was destroyed in their lifetime.” Therefore, when we sit on the floor in observance of Tishah B’Av we are granted the perspective of what churban haBayis looks like in the year 2024 and what consolation might look like from the ills of society that plague us. However, as I sit here writing these words, we have not yet encountered the destruction experience to know what nechamah might look like thus it is exceedingly difficult to reflect on an experience so far in advance of it and to be authentic at the very same time.
Now that I took about three hundred and fifty words to tell you that it’s Sunday night on an abbreviated week and I have no idea what to write about, I overheard my wife listening to an Instagram live program where the host was discussing what she would be wearing when Moshiach comes and it dawned upon me that that would be the best topic to discuss and would at the same time succeed in raising the expectancy of Moshiach’s coming in a world that is engulfed with wars practically everywhere we turn.
I recall a song that I sang as a ten-year-old as part of the Miami Boys Choir called “When Moshiach Comes.” The lyrics to that song, at least in part, went something like, “When Moshiach comes a celebration of song, dance, and drama.” The truth is it wasn’t a regular song; it was somewhat of an interlude to a medley of MBC songs that were Moshiach and geulah themed. One of those songs, which I can recall vividly practicing for the Miami Experience concerts, which I never actually performed in, is a song called “When.” The chorus to that song went: “We ask, when? When?/ When will this galus end?/ Tell us when? Oh when?/ When will Your throne descend?/ How will the good succeed?/ Can we all be reprieved?/ How we long to see Your glory once again./ We ask, when? When?/ When will these days appear?/ Maybe then, only then/ the truth will become so clear/ the world will be always bright/ with darkness replaced by light./ How we hope to change our story, tell me, when?/ Tell me when?”
It was certainly a favorite song of mine back then but as I reflect on it now there seems to be embedded within it a sadness that would lead a perceptive person to the feeling that our hope in the geulah coming was not at a fever pitch. In fact, it is over thirty years since my friends and I got together to rehearse those songs and I am still here reminiscing about those days rather than in discussion with Eliyahu the prophet trying to resolve one of the teikus in Talmud Bavli that we had been taught for so long he would come to resolve. However, I can discuss what I will wear when Moshiach comes. I recently got fitted for a new kapota that would be really special to wear on the occasion of Moshiach’s arrival. However, I’m still waiting for my second of three fittings before it is supposed to be ready. I am willing to forgo my new kapota for Moshiach to arrive early. I have my regular kapota and a variety of white shirts and black pants that I can choose to wear depending on the weather on that given day.
I asked my son Binyomin who is one of two kids home this summer what he would be wearing when Moshiach comes; he gave me a funny look, which indicated that he hadn’t thought about it much. I told him he’d better think about it because like Mordechai Ben David sang and the Ribnitzer Rebbetzin wrote, “I have good news to tell you, Moshiach’s on his way/No, he won’t wait any longer, he’s coming any day/ so hold on just a little bit longer/ because every word He promised will be/ Just hold on and you’ll see.”
I don’t know about you, but my feeling is that the current events that we are living through have messianic undertones. Like I wrote last week this is a reason to increase happiness and excitement and not to see things through pagan lenses which foresee destruction and Armageddon together with Moshiach’s arrival. Rather Moshiach’s arrival will bring a spirit of light, happiness, and excitement and as the Friediker Lubavitcher Rebbe said his coming will be reported on the front pages of newspapers the world over, which I am certainly looking forward to as well. n
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.
