Dear Friends;
I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah on Tisha B’Av;

” Parsha in a Nutshell ”
Moshe begins his revision of the Torah to the assembled Children of Israel, reviewing the events that occurred in the course of their 40-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, rebuking the people for their failures and sins, and encouraging them to keep the Torah and observe its commandments in the land that G-d is giving them as an eternal heritage, into which they shall cross after his death.

Moshe recalls his appointing of judges and magistrates to ease his burden of judging people; the sending of the Spies and the people’s subsequent rejection of the Promised Land, so that G-d decreed that the entire generation of the Exodus shall die out in the desert. “Also against me,” says Moshe, “was G-d angry for your sakes, saying: You, too, shall not go in there.”

And at the end of the parsha, Moshe gives assurance to his successor, Joshua, who will take the people into the Land and lead them in the battles for its conquest: “Fear them not, for the L-rd your G-d, He shall fight for you.”

” Dvar Torah ”

“Mourning”, is a period of time that a person grieves for the death of a loved one. Mourning can be a very difficult and devastating period of time, since when a loved one passes away it creates a vacuum in the family members’ lives which is very hard to fill. So, how can a mourner cope with the pain? How can he find comfort and solace?!

Well, our sages tell us that in order to receive comfort and feel relief from the pain of mourning, G-d has blessed us with a sense of “forgetfulness”. As the time passes by, and as much as we try not to, we start to forget about the deceased. And as we tend to forget, slowly, slowly, the pain starts to go away and we begin to get a feeling of comfort. If G-d forbid, the human mind didn’t have the power to forget, then the mourning period will never come to an end and the people will continue to mourn for the death of a loved one till the end of their lives. Although, memory is one of the great functions of the mind, but on the other hand, the lack of memory, or forgetfulness, is a great blessing that Hashem has bestowed upon!

Tisha B’Av (9th of Av) is also a day of mourning. We are mourning for the destruction of our two Batei Hamikdash (Temples) which were destroyed almost 2000 years ago. We are not simply grieving over a magnificent building which was destroyed a long time ago, nor are we crying over the Temple’s physical structure which was burned, but rather, we are crying because the Shechina (G-d’s presence) has left us. It seems that our connection to G-d has been lost. Since the destruction of Beit Hamikdash, we can no longer witness open miracles; we can no longer bring sacrifices for Hashem on daily basis and we cannot perform the Yom Kippur services in the holy of the holies. And above all, we no longer had any true Prophets that could relate to us the words of G-d. To this day, many people still cry heavily and mourn on Tisha B’Av because we’ve lost our connection to G-d.

But the question that comes to mind is why can’t we find comfort after so many years? Why doesn’t the formula of forgetfulness work in the case of Tisha B’Av? Why do the tears still come out of our eyes and why doesn’t the pain go away? Surely 2000 years should be enough to forget!! Why should the Tisha B’Av mourning be any different to the mourning for a loved one?? After all, we tend to forget a loss of life after a few years, but it seems that we can not find comfort for the loss of our connection to G-d after 2000 years?!

Once again, Rabbi Frand comes to the rescue and gives this beautiful explanation. He says that the formula for forgetfulness only works when the person is actually dead. Only after you bury the deceased, you can start to forget and find comfort. But if the person is only missing and is still alive, then you can not forget about him! Yaakov Avinu continued to mourn for his son Yosef, for a full 22 years and couldn’t find comfort– because Yosef was not dead; he was still alive! Accordingly, if we still feel the pain, if we still express the sorrow over the loss of Shechina, then it surely means that our connection to G-d is not dead. It is still alive! We just don’t see it, but the connection is still there! Although, the Shechina is not among us anymore, but we are confident that Hashem is watching over us and protecting us from the far.

On the day of Tisha B’Av, “Tachanun” is not recited because the day has elements of joy to it. Although, Tisha B’Av is the saddest day marked on the jewish calendar, it’s the ultimate day of “hope”! Because we strongly believe that Mashiach is going to come and build the third Beit Hamikdash and the Shechina is going to come back and live among us once again. The question is not “if” Mashiach is going to come, but it’s only a matter of time, “when”?! Even though, we might not have the “zechut” to see the Beit Hamikdash rebuilt in our times, but we are confident that our children, our grandchildren or great grandchildren will have the merit to see the glorious Temple build once again. And because of these happy thoughts, we don’t say Tachanun on this day.

Keep in mind my friends that we have a G-d who is invisible. Although we can not see him, He can see us. We can not hear him, but He can hear us. We can not touch him, but he’s still in touch with us! He is still watching over us and He will never abandon us! And that’s the true message of Tisha B’Av…..

May we see the coming of Mashiach very time soon, and hope that next year we will be dancing and celebrating on Tisha B’Av, instead of mourning and crying!
Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin