For the last three years, ever since the creation of the State of Israel, many of our fellow Jews, good, synagogue-going Jews, have been coming to me with a very intelligent complaint. “Why,” they ask, “must we observe days of national mourning such as Tisha B’av when we already have a State of Israel? Why cry and mourn over some catastrophe which occurred almost 2,000 years ago when today G-d has helped us and the ingathering of the exiles has begun?” And this, my friends, is a query which is difficult to answer. Why, after all, will it be necessary for us to fast tonight and tomorrow, and observe the other laws of Tisha B’av, when the Jews in Israel now have a healthy, progressive government, which is something for which we have dreamed so long? Of what use is it to remember a past tragedy? In short, what meaning does Tisha B’av have for a Jew of Today?Before we attempt to answer that question, let us make one important observation on the nature of Tisha B’av. And that is, that Tisha B’av is an occasion which requires more than memory. Remembering alone is a dull, passive act. A memory by itself is merely a stagnant picture momentarily projected on the screen of one’s mind, and is overlooked as any dull commercial is overlooked by a typical television audience. It may be entertaining but it means little if anything. No, Tisha B’av does not mean remember, it means reliving. It means, if I be permitted to paraphrase the Passover Haggada, that בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא ראה בחורבנה של ירושלים, that in every generation every Jew must feel as if he himself lived in Jerusalem as it was being destroyed by the cruel invader, as if he himself was one of the faithful onlookers who wept endless tears as they watched the בית המקדש, the Holy Temple, go up in flames, desecrated by the inhuman legion of Rome, and then threw themselves bodily into those very same flames. Every Jew must feel as if he personally were uprooted from his own sweet Palestinian soil …

It is an irony of tragic coincidence that the period of mourning ushered in by the death of Morris Behrman is contemporaneous with the season of national Jewish mourning which began seven days ago and culminates the day after tomorrow in the Tisha B’Av fast, commemorating the destruction of both Temples. The deep sense of anguish of the individual mourners is enhanced and aggravated by the common grief of all Jews. For in a way, just as the national tragedy is felt by all our individual coreligionists, so is the affliction of one individual human being or mourner shared by all people endowed with sensitive spirits and sympathetic souls. The sound of the soul departing from the body, relates an ancient Jewish aphorism, is heard from one end of the world to the other. And indeed Jeremiah, in the very first verses of that monumental national dirge, the Book of Lamentations, exclaims: איכה ישבה בדד העיר רבתי עם היתה כאלמנה — “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people; how is she become as a widow.” This prophetic comparison of the tragedies of national destruction and widowhood is no mere poetic metaphor or simile; it rises from the deep knowledge of a soul tormented and in anguish. For national exile and personal misfortune, while differing in degree, are the same in kind. The grievous point of similarity between the calamity of Jerusalem and the woe of the widow lies in that one word “בדד” — solitary. The great...metropolis of Jerusalem remains alone, a ghost city, bereft of its proud sons ant gay daughters. The widow and the orphan feel desolate, robbed of a parent or mate by the bitter irony of Fate. How oppressive the solitude, how terrible the loneliness.But this feeling of Badad, of solitude, is not restricted to the Prophet or the mourner• Loneliness is a stark reality which people, all people, fear all their lives• Is not the fear of Death essentially the fear of eternal loneliness? Is it not a fear that the cruel rhthym of Time will obliterate …

(1) ומפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו exposes Jewish philosophy of J History (2) for accordance with this needs of thinking. Sages inquired us to resign חורבן בהמ״ק. many amounts in לפנים משורתה, for שניית חינם: immunity: using; etc. ok. (3) However: enable us these answers might be, doesn't explain why בהמ״ק destroyed – hand of G-d should have destroyed Netanel Bunk of Judea... Palestine stock exchange, place of immoral indictment, theaters (תיאטרות וקאקסאות) etc etc.

If there is one word which symbolizes and characterizes this day of Tisha B’Av – set aside for woe and anguish from the time of the Israelites’ obstreperousness towards Moses in the desert, through the destruction of the two Temples, and from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 to Hitler’s extermination order in and against Polish Jewry, all of which came on the ninth of Av, the Black Day of the Jewish calendar – that word is eikhah. It is a simple word, which means “how.” But the peculiar poetic construction of the work, eikhah instead of the more usual eikh has a connotation of woe, of gloom and moroseness. It is the word with which Moses in today’s sidra expresses his exasperation – eikhah esa levadi, how can I bear them by myself? Isaiah in today’s Haftorah chooses this word to bemoan the sad fate of Jerusalem: eikhah, “how is the faithful city become as a harlot?” And, of course, it is the refrain of Jeremiah’s dirges, his Lamentations, known in Hebrew as the Megillah of Eikhah. The Rabbis of the Midrash (Introduction to Eikhah R.) were intrigued by the word, and what they say throws light not only upon the word itself but upon the broader concept which informs this day and the historic events it commemorates. Indeed, they see eikhah as part of a structure which expands Tisha B’av from a day of national mourning into a symbol of the most crucial universal significance. They tell us: kol mah she’ira le’Adam ira le’Yisrael, everything that happened to Adam happened to Israel. Adam was placed by God in the Garden of Eden, Israel was brought by the Lord to Eretz Yisrael, a paradise in its own right. Adam was given a commandment; Israel was given 613 commandments. Adam sinned; Israel sinned. Adam was sent away and expelled; Israel was sent away and expelled into a long and bitter exile. What the Rabbis intend by this parallelism is the teaching that Israel’s exile issues from a human failing rather than a specifically Jewish weakness. By pointing to the identical patte…

ר"ה י"ח ע"ב תצ"ה הואיל מקשה על הגמ' דטיב חובה לקום משא"כ בשאר ג' הצומות שהן רשות מטעם דהוכפלו בו צרות, הא לפי הגמ' תענית די"ז בתמוז נמי הוכפלו בו חמש צרות. ותירץ בו צא דחרבן בהמ"ק עדיפא, ועוד בבט"ב הוכפלה בו צרה אחת, כלומר שני חרבנות. ונראה דהנ"מ בין שני התירוצים האלה הוא אם בזמן בית שני צמו בט"ב חכובה, או רצו מתענין רצו אין מתענין. דלתירוץ הא' צמו בבית שני בט"ב חובה, מטעם חרבן בית ראשון. אבל לפי תירוץ השני של תוס' לא צמו חובה בט"ב בבית שני, שהרי לא הוכפלה בו הצרה האח

Tisha B’av is more than the commemoration of the five specific historic events mentioned in the Talmud, foremost among them the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem six centuries apart. It is even more than the national threnody for a string of tragedies, beginning from the earliest times, and extending through the ninth of Av, 1492 – the expulsion of Jews from Spain – and the same date in 1942: the signing of the extermination order against Polish Jewry by the unmentionable leader of Nazi Germany. More than these alone, Tisha B’av is a condition of the divine human dialogue, it is a quality of the relations of God and the people of Israel. Man does not always perceive God uniformly. Sometimes He appears close to us, nearby, concerned, sympathetic, involved in our destiny, a loving and forgiving Father. “The Lord is near all who call upon Him” (Ps. 145:18). It is a source of joy and comfort to man when he perceives God in this fashion. But sometimes God appears infinitely remote, distant, faraway. It seems almost as if He has vanished from the world, without leaving a trace. God appears aloof, unapproachable, forbidding, uninterested, and ready to abandon man to eternal solitude. There is no greater agony for man than when God thus veils His presence, when He performs hester panim, the “hiding of His face” from mankind. When God, as it were, withdraws from the world and leaves man to his own resources, forsaken and at the mercy of the impersonal and brutal forces of nature and history, man’s life is worse than meaningless. It is this latter condition that is described in Tisha B’av. That black day was the beginning of the long, ages-old epoch in which God and Israel disengaged from each other, when a seemingly impenetrable veil cruelly separated them. The culmination of Jeremiah’s Lamentations sounds this very note: למה לנצח תעזבנו לאורך ימים – why do You forget us for an eternity, forsake us for so long a time? But if so many generations were born and died …

בגמרא ראש השנה דף יח ע״ב, לענין שאר הצומות בזמן שאין גזירת המלכות ואין שלום – רצו מתענין, רצו אין מתענין – כלומר, הדבר הוא רשות. ושואלת הגמרא: אי הכי, תשעה באב נמי? אמר רב פפא: שאני תשעה באב, הואיל והוכפלו בו צרות – דנחרב בו הבית בראשונה ובשניה, ונלכדה ביתר, ונחרשה העיר. והנה יש לחקור אם דין זה שתשעה באב הוא חובה – האם הוא רק בזמן הזה, אחרי חורבן בית שני, או שמא כבר מתקופת בית שני הייתה תענית תשעה באב חובה. בתוספות ד״ה הואיל בשבועין, ותוספות רי״ד מגילה ותענית כו ע״א, דנים: בי״ז בתמוז אירעו בו משה דברים, ולאו דווקא הוכפל הצער, ולכן הוא רשות – כתענית דהוי רשות, רצו מתענין, רצו אין מתענין. תרצו שני תירוצים: א׳ – דהוי ריבוי צרות בבית המקדש, שהוא תקיפא טושיא, ועוד שבי״ז בתמוז לא דמי לתשעה באב שצרה אחת הוכפלה בו – כלומר, הכפלת חורבן בית המקדש. ונראה שההבדל בין שני התירוצים יהיה לענין צום תשעה באב בזמן בית שני – אם היה רשות או חובה. לשיטת התירוץ הראשון, היה הצום חובה מפני אחת הסיבות – חורבן בית ראשון, וחורבן כזה קובע תענית חובה. אבל לשיטת התירוץ השני, היה הצום של ט״ב רק רשות – רצו מתענין, רצו אין מתענין – כשאר הצומות, שהרי לפני חורבן בית שני עדיין לא הוכפלה בו צרה אחת זו, ואין בין תשעה באב לי״ז בתמוז כלום, והתענית של שניהם רשות גרידא. ואמנם דבר זה שנוי במחלוקת ראשונים – הרמב״ם בפירוש המשניות כאן משמע שאף בזמן בית שני קיבלו עליהם תשעה באב כתענית רשות, בו בזמן ששאר הצומות היו רשות. והמאירי על כתובות יח ע״א כתב שבזמן שבית המקדש היה קיים היו השלוחין יוצאין על אייר מפני שהוא חודש קטן, אבל לא על אב, שהרי לא הייתה בו תענית. ומשמע שט״ב לא היה חובה אלא רשות – ובפשטות הגמרא בשבועין שהשלוחין היו יוצאים רק על תענית חובה, לא על רשות. וכן כתב הטורי אבן ד״ה וכשהיה. ויותר נראה, שאמנם דבר זה תלוי במחלוקת הבבלי והירושלמי. שהרי לפי הבבלי נאמר שבבית ראשון הובקעה העיר בי״ז בתמוז, ובבית שני בז׳ תמוז – והקשה השלמי: אם כן, לפי דבריו, נמצא שבי״ז בתמוז לא הוכפלה בו צרה אחת – דהיינו בקיעת העיר – ואם כן, למה לא יהיה הדין שבי״ז בתמוז הוא תענית חובה כמו תשעה באב? אלא ודאי שהירושלמי סובר שהתענית חובה תלויה בחורבן המקדש, ולא בהכפלת צרה אחת – וכתירוץ הראשון של תוספות. ואם כן, בבית שני היה חובה לצום בט״ב …

This is the week when the world will be achieving – hopefully, in safety – one of the greatest triumphs of the human race: the landing of man on the moon. Only time will tell whether this herculean marshaling of technological resources was an act of supreme wisdom, or one of the greatest follies of modern times, spending 24 billion dollars and 10 percent of the national budget on a project that did not deserve it. But no matter what time will show, right now one great paradox stands revealed: on the one hand, the ability of thousands upon thousands of individuals to cooperate in order to send one spaceship to the moon; and, on the other hand, the anomaly of disunity – for not one but two spaceships are approaching the moon, those of the United States and of Russia. It is a symbol of the fragmentation of the human community that the two superpowers had to undertake separate efforts: Russia, in an obvious and clumsy effort to distract from the American achievement, sends Luna 15 to the moon, and the American Congress has nothing better to do than to pass a special act requiring that the United States flag be planted on the lunar surface. How much more promising it would have been had all nations been able to cooperate in pooling their technical resources in achieving this great triumph!But, my dear friends, lest we despair too quickly because of this discord in the family of nations, there remains one consoling thought: the great powers are not always riven by rivalry and torn by dissent. There are times when, after all, all the great nations of the world can come to one common option. It is good to know that within the last few weeks the United Nations Security Council, representing the combined opinion of mankind, finally achieved unanimity: it was united against Jerusalem; all nations agreed that Israel ought to get out of the Holy City. Russia and Hungary, the United States and Yemen – powers of proven peaceful intentions, lovers of Jerusalem all, with vital inte…

Friends: Tishah Be’av has come too early for the Schwarzschild family – too early in terms of days, and much too early in terms of years. Jewish tradition teaches that man is in many ways symbolized by the Temple, and the Temple by man – for both of them are the abode of God Almighty, and there is therefore an equivalence between them. The Temple possesses a Menorah (a candelabrum), and man must possess enlightenment and wisdom. The Temple possesses a mizbeiach (an altar), and man, if he be truly human, must possess the capacity for self-sacrifice and sacrificial love and loyalty. The Temple possesses the Sefer Torah (the Scroll of Law), and man must be committed to Almighty God and the tradition of his forebearers. The Temple has the kodesh ha-kadashim (the Holy of Holies), the inner sanctum, and man must have depth, an inner life, a heart, a reservoir of goodness and charitableness.And now, but several days before all Israel commemorates the Churban Ha'bayit, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, we here not only the family, but all of us who loved and admired this man, we at this time, experi- ence Churban. The passing of Dr. Ludwig Schwarzschild is no less a grievous trauma for those who were intimate with him, for those who acknowledged the kind of person he was, than the destruction of the Temple was a tragedy for all the House of Israel, not forgotten and continuously observed by our people for some 2000 years.Jeremiah, when he witnessed the destruction of the first Temple, com- posed The Book of Lamentations which we shall read on Tishah Be’av, and which begins with the word Ekhan, "how has it come to pass?" Mrs. Schwarzschild, Marty, Laura: I would like you to know on behalf of all of us who are here, and the many others who couldn’t come in time to this sad farewell, that we Joinyou in this Ekhah. We Join you fully in it. We grieve at this great loss thathas struck your family. This nan was a glorious Temple of wisdom, of culture, of commitment, of…

In their commentaries on today’s special Haftorah, the Rabbis (in their Yalkut) tell us of the following imaginary yet very real conversation: ר' חנינא בר פפא אמר, אמרו ישראל לישעיהו: ישעיהו רבינו תאמר שלא באת לנחם אלא לאותו הדור שחרב בהמ"ק בימיו? אמר להם, לכל הדורות באתי לנחם. "אמר אלוקיכם" אין כתיב כאן אלא "יאמר אלוקיכם." Israel said to Isaiah: Isaiah, our Teacher, would you say that your consolations were directed only to that generation in whose days the Temple was destroyed? Said Isaiah to them: No, I have come to console all the generations. For it is not written, “comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, said your God,” but it says “comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, sayeth (or: will say) your God.” Consolation, then, is not an act in isolation. It is a process, and it applies not only to one specific time, but it is relevant to all times. It is therefore worth pondering: what does this subtle yet powerful psychological transformation consist of? What are the mechanics of this profound personal redemption which we call nechama?I ask this not only as an abstract or rhetorical question. There are practical consequences. People are caught up in the depths of despair and grief. What should or can consolation mean to them? Or, the menachamim, those who go to console the mourners: very often they are at a loss, they do not know how to translate their good wishes into acceptable words. That is why they often do the wrong thing, why the task of offering condolences is often so difficult, why otherwise intelligent people are frequently reduced to silly prattle. Furthermore, in the history of our people we are the great Generation of Nechamah. We are the generation that has gone from the depths of Auschwitz to the heights of the State of Israel. We have experienced consolation. Therefore, it behooves us to understand it, so that we can better understand ourselves and the times in which we live. The answer to our question, the key to the nature of this phenomenon called cons…