Rabbi's Derasha

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Shavua Tov, Sarah

Rabbi Feldman's Derasha

Here is the Derasha + a short statement about Foothills Park.


The afternoon of Tisha B’Av is a puzzle.  There is a certain let-up in the mourning.  Most restrictions are of course still in place.  But we get up off the floor, and for the Davening in the afternoon we are back in Talit and Tefillen.  Are we getting up from Shiva early?

Two passages of Davening at Mincha signal that we are in a very different place in the afternoon than we were in during the morning.  For one, at the end of the repetition of the Amida, we say Kaddish with “Titkabel.” This is the request we include in every Kaddish following the saying of the Amida. We ask that our prayer be accepted.  

In the morning, however, the Shaliach Tzibur leaves it out.  Under the circumstances, we feel it is presumptuous or inappropriate to include it.  We have been pushed off; it is a day in which we feel admonished or rebuked.  Our prayers are not welcome.  The saying of Kinnot, which normally precedes this section of Davening, has only intensified these feelings.  This is the reason we do not greet each other on Tisha B’Av, both in greeting and in saying goodbye.  Walking around under such a cloud, it makes no sense to try to connect to each other.

The second difference is the inclusion by everyone who is saying the Amida of “Necheim.”  This is the long extension to the blessing that requests the building of the Temple amidst a re-settled city of Yerushalayim.  

Among the commentators on the Gemora, there were many who thought the inclusion of this extension just once during the day was odd.  Either say it in all three services, they argued, or leave it out.  But those objections are based on a misunderstanding.  Those commentators see it as a prayer that characterizes the day as a whole, like when we say “Yaale V’Yavo” on a holiday.  It is not.  It is a special request inserted during a strategic time of the day.  It is saying that the afternoon prayer is precisely the time to plea for the restoration of Yerushalayim.

So the afternoon is different.  But that sets up something truly perplexing.  The afternoon is actually the time when the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed.  The fires began in the afternoon and continued into the next day.  Most of the destruction took place on the 10th of Av, which is why we still have some restrictions on the day of the 10th. So why at the height of the destruction are we relaxing?

The reason for this is that once the destruction finally took place, there was nothing more to do in trying to ward it off.  There was no more rear guard action to attempt.  Once the loss is irrevocable, there is no way to look but forward.  The final blow against the second Beit HaMikdash means that the expectation for the Third Beit HaMikdash, and the ultimate redemption, could begin.  

It was known during the time of the second Temple that it was a provisional era.  Tisha B’Av, was even observed during that time.  People knew that the destruction of the first Temple was THE watershed of Jewish history.  They did not think of the interregnum as the time between two periods of Jewish sovereignty but really between the domination by two foreign powers.  The Jews return for a time to Eretz Yisrael was the intermediate time.  It was granted by Hashem as a time to build up for exile to come.  The flowering of the Oral Law begins with the Men of the Great Assembly just after the return from the Babylonian Exile.  The entire project serves as a bulwark against the exile which was anticipated.  (Those who call R’ Yochanan ben Zakkai the creator of the Oral Law that has buoyed the Jews through exile are distorting his role; this has all begun centuries earlier.)

Thus, as the destruction finally comes, we look forward to the final Nechama, which is not a re-framing of the loss in a more positive light.  It is a Nechama of restoration as pictured in the prayer of Nechaim, may we see it speedily in our days.

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Leaders of some of the African American churches in Palo Alto have engaged with Palo Alto city government over the last two months.  The goal has been a dialog about the experience of African Americans in Palo Alto.  City government, particularly the police department, has been very responsive.

One of the issues that has been raised over the last few weeks is the restriction at Foothills Park that excludes non-Palo Alto residents.  Although the restriction was never based on race, and is not applied that way today, at least one of the pastors has called on the city to change the protocol and to allow non-residents as part of a general effort to re-think exclusionary policies of all kinds. Many clergy have joined that call.  The City Council is considering the matter at its meeting next week, and I too believe it would be beneficial for the city to study the matter with a view toward figuring out how to open up the park more broadly.