Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
My dear friends, it always fascinates me that in the holiday of Tisha B'Av, in the holiday of Tisha B'Av, the holiday is called a moed, it's called a festival, which is really odd because it's a time that we know. We sit on the floor, we mourn the destruction of our temple, but our sages tell us it's a festival. How is it a festival when all we do is cry? We don't sit and wine and dine with our family, we don't sing and dance with our community. Instead, we're sitting on the floor and we're crying the destruction of a building that was destroyed over 2,000 years ago. So we need to understand what is a festival over 2,000 years ago. So we need to understand what is a festival. The purpose of a festival is to bring you closer to the Almighty. God says I'm going to make holidays for you so that you become close to me. The festival of the 9th of Av is, in a way, a time, just like every other festival, a way to go and become closer with the Almighty. We know that we do not recite Tachnon supplications on a festival. On Tisha B'Av as well. We do not recite supplications on this day Because, although it's a day of sadness, it's also a day of closeness. Our sages teach us that there are different ways in which you can become closer. You can become closer through joy and happiness, which is the finest, but then there's also a very potent way of becoming closer and that's through sadness. There's happiness that brings you close and there's sadness that brings you close. Tisha B'Av is the festival of sadness, because we take this opportunity to become closer to the Almighty. But what is it that we're lamenting? Lamenting what is it that we're saddened by? The destruction of this building that was in Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago. Our sages tell us in the Talmud Yerushalmi that the generation in which the temple is not rebuilt it's as if it was destroyed in that generation. Meaning is not rebuilt, it's as if it was destroyed in that generation. Meaning it's not that we don't have our temple rebuilt in this generation here, 2024. But rather, if it wasn't built in 2024, it was as if it was destroyed in 2024. So it means we have a new destruction every year, again and again, on Tisha B'Av. So let's just understand. What is this temple that we're referring to.

03:14
So imagine that a person wanted to give a thanksgiving offering to the Almighty. Thank Hashem for the kindness, for the goodness for the blessings. So you'd go up to Jerusalem and bring an offering and thank Hashem. An offering was a valuable thing and will cost a lot of money. It's like imagine bringing your car as an offering here. Hashem, this is for you, showing you I'm not connected to the physical world. I'm giving everything. I'm living for you, almighty God.

03:45
If God forbid, someone sinned, they'd bring an offering to the temple as a sin offering. They would put their hands on top of the animal and say Hashem, god, this should be an atonement. Instead of taking my life, take the life of the animal, and the animal would be slaughtered as an atonement for this person. There was a level, a fantastic level of closeness that was palpable to the people who lived in that generation, the generations of the temple. They were able to bring offerings. They were able to bring the choicest of offerings. The absolute, deepest connection and the greatest clarity was around when we had our temple. So you can ask well, we have prayer, we can go to the synagogue and we can, and we have that similar closeness. So, interestingly, prayer is a replacement for the offerings that we no longer have. Till the temple was destroyed, we didn't have these set prayers like we do today, the morning, afternoon, evening prayers, the Shachar's, bin Hamariv and Musaf.

05:06
On Shabbos and Yom Tov. We didn't have those prayers because we brought it in offerings. We had the ability to have greater clarity. Today it's so hard. We're standing there and praying, trying to remove thoughts. We're trying to remove our business ideas, our business ventures. We're trying to have clarity, business ideas, our business ventures. We're trying to have clarity. It's very difficult. You used to be able to go to the temple and have that clarity right there.

05:31
It's very interesting that in our Musaf prayer on Shabbos we talk about this Yehir otzom nefonecha Hashem alokeno velakav usenu. May it be your will, hashem, shetala b'simchol artzenu sh. May it be your will, hashem, that you should bring us up to our land with gladness and plant us within our boundaries, and there we will perform our required offerings, the continual offering and the orders of the musaf offerings, according to the laws. Every single Shabbos we talk about and we lament that we don't have our service in the temple. This is a very serious thing that we don't have the way to properly connect on the greatest level possible.

06:28
So we know we mentioned in the beginning that we have times of happiness that bring us close to the almighty. And then we have times of sadness, and we all experienced this, this this year. We're on october 7th. We were shocked by the most horrific assault on our people, the most murderous act on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, where we saw in front of our eyes how we all changed. From what, from pain, from sadness, we can get close through happiness.

07:11
But sometimes the sadness that inspires us to do another mitzvah, the sadness that inspires us to keep just one Shabbos, the sadness that inspires us to put on tefillin once or twice or to say a blessing, or to do something more Jewish, to light Shabbos candles, it has an unbelievable power. God should bless us all that we utilize this Tisha B'Av, this day of sorrow, this day of sadness, to accept something upon ourselves, to change, so that we're not the same Joe Schmo that we were last year. We use it as an opportunity to transform who we are, to elevate our relationship, to build a temple within. So we have that closeness through the mitzvahs that we perform. That every mitzvah that we perform be a shining light of our desire to come closer to the Almighty. Hashem should bless us all that we should merit to see the coming of Mashiach. We should merit to have the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem speedily in our days. Amen.