Rabbi's Derasha

We don’t speak before Eicha or Kinnot at night.  But it’s Erev Tisha B’Av, so I’d like to use this time to introduce things.  

There is a phrase in the prophet Yirmiyahu (6:26), in a verse that predicts the destruction of the Temple.  He tells Klal Yisrael that they will don sackcloth and wallow in ashes in what he calls “Avel Yachid,” a phrase that is hard to translate.   

Most translations call it the mourning of an only child.  So the loss is not just of a child but of everything.  The bitterness is compounded because there is nothing left.  

Others say that it is a mourning which is singular, or unique.  The prophecy is that the Jewish people will not be able to find a nation with comparable pain.  When the experience of pain is shared, then one can commiserate together.  “Commiserate” means to suffer with another.  There is a degree of consolation in that.  I am usually turned off by Jewish bragging of any kind but it is hard to find a suffering akin to that of the Jews.  We have not only suffered; there have been sweet times as well.  But we have suffered and I’m not sure if there’s another nation that has seen the same magnitude.    

The Malbim has another approach.  He translates the phrase as “mourning alone.”  In a year in which Erev Tisha B’Av falls on a weekday, the Seuda Mafseket is eaten alone.  Even if a group is eating in the same place at the same time, everyone eats separately -- this person in one corner of the room and this person in another corner.  As the verse in Eicha says, each is Yeshev Badad, sits alone.  

But why does it have to be so?  The actual catastrophe of this day is communal.  Why do we have to sit alone?  I want to share something from R’ Shalomi Eldar of Rechovot, whose family came here for Shabbotot a few times.  The idea itself comes from his teacher, R’ Yitzchok Shilat, of the Yeshiva in Ma’ale Adumim.  

R’ Shilat pointed out that all of the blessings we say are in the plural.  The source for this is in the Gemora in Berachot, when speaking of Tefillat HaDerech, which we say when we leave town on a trip.  This is the example because it is natural when one sets out on a trip to focus only on oneself.  So the Gemora stresses that even then one is supposed to include others in the blessing.  All the more so for other blessings, which are more obviously for groups or for the nation as a whole.  

There is an exception, however.  When we bless the new moon, we say a Yehi Ratzon in the singular.  It is a prayer for the fixing of the imperfection caused by the moon’s relatively minor status in relation to the sun. But why would we put such a prayer in the singular?  We’re talking about literally cosmic mending here.  Nothing is more universal.  

R’ Shilat says that the logic works in reverse here.  The first thought about such cosmic issues is that they have nothing to do with anyone in particular.  One would seemingly be justified in thinking that this has nothing to do with just lowly me.  But the tension between the moon and the sun is caused by jealousy, and there’s not a person in the world who is immune from jealousy.  Even such cosmic events come down to individuals.  

When it comes to our exile, one is liable to say the same kind of thing.  So much has to occur, so much has to be fixed -- it’s overwhelming.  Nothing less than a full national transformation must take place.  But that’s why we mourn as individuals.  Everyone has to see themselves as implicated, as responsible, and as having a part to play in mending whatever must be fixed.