Tisha B'Av: A Torah of Loneliness

2:32 Tomorrow we're not supposed to learn a Torah of brokenness anymore. But we're in galus. That's what happens in Kodesh. In Kodesh, we feel disconnected from Hashem. Maybe I'm alone. Maybe all of you guys feel the Rebbeinu Sholom in every single moment of every single day. But I have a feeling that I'm not alone. I have a feeling. I don't know all of you personally. But I have a feeling that I'm not the only one that feels disconnected from Hashem. For me, it's even more frustrating because 16 years ago. I made a decision in my life that I wasn't going to feel disconnected from Hashem anymore. It was the summer after my senior year, before I went to Israel for the year. I made a decision. I'm not going to feel disconnected, and I started investing in my yiddishkeit. And here I am, 16 years later, and I have a newsflash for you. I still feel disconnected from Hashem.

3:31 B'cholah, why does the Rebbeinu Shalom give us a morning where we have no Torah, no regular? Geshamak, no Tosefus, no Rashi. Why does he do this? So I want to tell you a story that you all know. It's brought down in the Medrash in Eicha that Avram Avinu went to the Rebbeinu Shlom and said, 'Please don't kick out my children.' Did I go through the Asar and the Sionos? Did I have the ten tests for nothing? Not Kadosh Baruch Hu is not. He's not impressed by Avram Avinu's arguments, and he goes to Yitzchak. And Yitzchak says, "I was ready to sacrifice myself on the Akedah." Was that for nothing? And Hashem is not impressed by his argument, and Yaakov and Moshe, and down the line Not impressed. Until he comes to Rachel Imenu, and it's interesting that Rachel is called Rachel Imenu. Leah is not called Leah Imenu Bilhah and Zilpah are not called Imenu. Only Rachel is called Imenu.

4:39 Finally, comes to Rachel And Rachel says to him I gave up everything for my sister. My sister shouldn't be embarrassed. And this argument, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is impressed by And it's Beschus Rachel Imenu that ultimately we will be redeemed—a very strange thing. Why was Rachel any better than Avram, any better than Yisroch? I want to tell you something so powerful. Go back to the story—the story that you've learned so many times before. But now, learn it like an adult. When you grew up, you heard a story. Rachel didn't want to embarrass Leah. So she ended up sneaking in Leah that night. We owe it to ourselves to get the adult version of the Torah. So the actual story is like this. Rachel, Meino understood, as did Yaakov, that there probably was going to be some sort of trick with Lavan. And they made a secret pact.

5:42 Made a secret pact So that Yaakov would not be able to be fooled by Lavan. Rachel comes along. And she tells that secret to Leah. The ultimate act of betrayal to your future husband. And who is this husband? This husband is going to be the forefather of all of Klal Yisrael, and you are going to be the mother. And you betray that trust So that your sister shouldn't be embarrassed. And Leah goes, and she gets married, and then ultimately Rachel does get married, but Leah is the one having children. Leah is the one having children, and finally Rachel comes to Yaakov, and she says, "Enough is enough." Give me a child. And the Torah tells us that Yaakov Vina was furious with her. And he said, "Hatachas elo kim anochi." And Rashi says, 'What does Hatachas mean?' 'V'chibem koim cha ani.' Am I in the place of Hashem?

6:40 Ultimately, she does have a child, and what does she name that child? Yosef. You know what Yosef means? I want more, like a desperate mother who needs more. She needs more. And finally, she has Benjamin, and she dies in childbirth. She dies in childbirth. Do you know that? The pain of a mother who carries a child in her womb and never gets to raise that child. She only has enough time to name him. And even that doesn't really happen. He ends up being Benyamit, not Benoni. And ultimately, where is she buried? Not in Maras Amachpelo. She's not with Yaakov Avinu. She's buried on the side of the road. You know what it means to be buried on the side of the road? It means you're forgotten. Yosef had tzadik. His whole life was upset about this. He was upset his whole life. He wanted to understand this. Why is my mother so tortured?

7:43 Yaakov Avinu tells him at the end of his life, "Don't worry. The real reason that this all happened is that Rachel could end up on the side of the road. When Klal Yisrael is leaving, when we're being kicked out of Eretz Yisrael, we're going to stop at Fur Kever, and it's going to be in her slus that we're ultimately redeemed." What is going on over here? What is this story? Now I want to teach you the Torah of what it really means to be broken. Listen very carefully now, because I'm going to tell you something that could change your entire life. The most painful feeling in the entire world. The feeling that could tear a person apart. The feeling that makes a person want to go and leave this world is the feeling of loneliness. Have you ever had a fight with a good friend?

8:41 Not just your good friend, but your best friend. How do you feel in that moment? The person that you trust more than anybody in the world And now you feel betrayed by him. You know what you feel? You feel lonely. You feel purposeless. That's the Torah of Rachlimena. She had the greatest gift that anybody could ever have with another person. She had the gift of a secret. Do you know what it means when you tell someone a secret? When you put your arm around them and you whisper something that's so important to you? You're saying my intimacy is reserved for you. These walls contain us and nobody else. That's why when a couple gets married They don't say, "Oh, I'll go live over here and you go live over there." What do they build for themselves? They start off in an apartment. And so, Shimon, you get married, you'll remember your first apartment. I remember my first apartment in a basement in Farakoy. It was such a hovel that every time we took a shower, the entire apartment flooded.

9:55 I remember my second apartment. I was zeicher to raise three children in the ghetto in Farakoway, where there was a triple homicide on my block. But every time I go back to the states and drive by that house, it holds a special place because that's where I really started building my family. And then I moved to Eretz Yisrael. I had two apartments here before I moved into my house. And this house will always be a special place for me because it's the place of the greatest secret in the world. It's the secret that I built with my wife. It's the secret that I'm building with my family. It is the single most intimate thing you can ever do to another person: to tell them a secret. That's why today, in today's ridiculous world of brokenness Secrets aren't treated like anything special. In fact, there's an entire website. It's not just a website; it's a social movement. Called Secrets. You guys heard of this?

10:57 It's the whole thing where we say lashon hara about other people, and we and you don't even have the option of putting in your name. You must be anonymous to break the secret. Because in today's broken world, there is no such thing as intimacy anymore. That's what Rachel had. She had a secret with Yaakov. She didn't just have a relationship with him. She wasn't his friend. She was Rachel Imenu. This was the mother. She was the wife of Yaakov. And she didn't just give up that secret. Chazal tell us that Leah didn't even know. Can you imagine that? Imagine that you're good. You have a secret. You have a relationship with the most special person in the entire world to you. Not only do you tell Leah this secret, but you tell it to her in such a way that she doesn't even know that she has the secret.

11:52 Leah never knew that Yaakov was supposed to marry Rachel. She never knew. The whole time that Rachel was complaining, what was Leah thinking in her mind? My little sister is acting like a spoiled child. She's trying to invade my territory. But whose territory wasn't really? It was really Rachel Imenu's territory. And where was Rachel Imenu? Listen now to the words that I told you before, but try to hear them in a whole new way. Yaakov Avinu was upset, and he's saying to Rachel, 'Am I in the place of the Rebbe Nisholam?' What is he really saying? He's saying in a subtle type of way. But the Torah says that there was a shtickle pass there. Doesn't mean that Yaakov Avinu was flying off the handle. You understand? Yaakov Avinu said something that revealed that he was a little angry. You know what Yaakov Avinu was saying?

12:46 He was saying, "Am I in the place of God, and are you in the place of Leah?" Meaning, he's saying, "You want the children?" Who told you to leave? Who told you to give up the secrets? Even though we know that Yaakov and Rachel had a tremendous relationship, and there was a tremendous ahava, there was also a separation. Am I in the right place? Am I in the place of the Rebbeishem? Are you in the place of Leah? And Rachel felt terribly alone, and that's why Rachel was not zayecha to get to be buried with Yaakov Avinu. Because in a certain way, Yaakov Avinu's wife was Leah. Terribly, terribly lonely. The Torah of brokenness. The Torah of brokenness means to be lonely. Is there anybody in this room? Because if there is somebody in this room, I want to be your Talmud. Is there anybody in this room who could say that they're so connected to their avodah sholom that they don't feel lonely anymore?

13:48 Let me tell you, Meis. About a week before Shavuos I started feeling pain. Pain in my stomach. I ignored it. I had shirum to give. It was a Wednesday night. Thursday morning, I ordered. I had shir to give. I went into yeshiva. My stomach was hurting so badly that I went home early. I couldn't stay in yeshiva. Thursday night, I gave shir in the neighborhood. I gave shir. Friday morning, I made a concession. I'm not going to play basketball. Every Friday morning, I play basketball. This Friday, I'm not. That's how I knew I really wasn't feeling well. I said, I'm not going to play basketball this Friday. Friday night, I gave shir in the neighborhood. Shabbos morning, my stomach was hurting so badly I had to walk slowly to shul. When I got to shul, I said to myself maybe I should speak to a doctor.

14:37 Finally, it occurred to me. I'm a little slow. This is a doctor in the shul. I went over to him. I said, "My stomach's really hurting me." So he said, "after davening, we'll do an examination." He came back to me five minutes later. He goes, "You know what? Let's do an examination right now. So we go out into one of the side rooms in the shul. Does an examination on me And he says, "I think like forty percent chance you have appendicitis." Forty percent chance you should go to the hospital. Said. I walked home. I called an ambulance for myself. I'd never done that. I never called an ambulance for myself. I really don't call ambulances for people. I'd never been sick in my life. I figured to myself This is just going to be one of those stories, like a guy with a bad stomach ache thinks he has appendicitis and shows up at the hospital. I came to the emergency room. It was empty.

15:29 They did an examination on me. The doctor says to me, seventy percent chance you have appendicitis. And I'm ready to operate right now if you want. But if we wait two hours, you can have a CT scan. And then we'll know 95 percent. So in my head I'm thinking to myself I don't want you to cut me open for no reason. Better to wait the two hours. I do a CT scan. CT scan comes back And they said to me, "Vada, you have appendicitis. In fact, it's so inflamed that we can't do surgery." Because the surgery would be too dangerous So I said to the doctor I said that's so weird because I'm feeling much better. And that's when the doctors got a very concerned look on their face. They said, "You're feeling better?" I said, "Yeah, I almost don't feel like I'm in pain."

16:22 They said, "That's very bad." I said, "Why?" Because as long as the appendix is inflamed, you're in pain. What happens when you're not in pain anymore? It's because your appendix ruptured. Baruch Hashem, I was in the hospital. There are people that die from that. I was in the hospital. They said, "Don't worry, recovery time will be five to seven days." I'm thinking to myself Five to seven days. This Shabbos. I'm going to miss Shavuos in yeshiva. I have a yeshiva. I'm going to miss Shavuos in yeshiva. This is terrible, but I'll for sure be home before Shabbos because I'm not the type of guy that's going to be there a full seven days. Just like I'm not the type of guy to go to the doctor in the first place. Shavuos comes. I'm running crazy fevers all day long, up and down, because when your appendix ruptures, all the poison that's inside of your appendix spreads throughout your body.

17:11 By the time Mitzvah Shabbos rolls around the next week I'm having terrible fevers. I'm not out of the hospital. Sunday morning, the doctor comes in, and I said to the doctor, "I said, why is this happening? Like you said, five to seven days, and I feel like I'm getting worse. He says, 'You are getting worse.' So I said, "Well, that's not good." Like Israeli doctors, they're very tough. Because you are getting worse. So I said, 'Why am I getting worse?' He said, 'What happens is that you've developed an abscess, meaning around the inflammation now, there's this scar tissue that's built up that's not allowing the medication to treat the poison that's in your body.' But the abscess is not so big So we're having trouble finding a doctor who will literally stick a syringe inside of you and drain the poison from the abscess. So in the meantime, I had been because they didn't have so much room in the hospital. Instead of being in the surgical ward, I was in the ears, nose, and throat ward, which is not where you're supposed to be if you have appendicitis.

18:14 Can move on. They moved me down to the surgical ward. And they moved me to the intensive care unit of the surgical ward. Finally, they found one doctor who said, "I'll do it." And they put me on the CT and they stuck a syringe in. And how much How much anesthetic do they give you? The same amount as when they're pulling a tooth. And I can feel it inside of me. I can feel them pushing the syringe inside of me. And he thinks he got all of it, but he's not sure. They send me back up, and I'm still running crazy fevers. It's not helping. Another week goes by. Another week goes by. I've been in the hospital now for three weeks on a five to seven day procedure. Still had surgery. Finally, my case had become so famous in the hospital that they started having meetings about my case. Why is he not getting better?

19:15 So one morning, because they're obligated to do this, not because they want to Not because they want to scare you. One morning, the doctor comes to me and he says, "So I have to talk to you about what we think is going on over here." He says, "Most likely, this is just appendicitis." Most likely, it's just appendicitis with an abscess. But on the CT scan now, it's showing quite a large mass And we don't really know what that mass is. When you're a patient, you hear the word mass. You all know what that means. I don't like to even say the words. You all know what it means. Means that maybe you don't have appendicitis. Maybe you're growing something inside of your body. I know if any of you remember on the first night when Rabbi Benifits introduced me, he said we weren't sure if Rabbi Berg was going to be here this summer.

20:13 I didn't know. Just a couple of weeks ago. So there were days when I was too sick to daven. There were days when I was in the hospital and I was too sick to daven. The fevers were so high and so up and down. I push. I was there for come out a month. I lost twenty-five pounds. I didn't eat. In fact, at some point, my legs started to atrophy. To walk from one end of the hall to the other was very, very difficult for me. And now, on top of everything, they're telling me Could be that it's not appendicitis. Could be the reason you're in here. It's something else. But they tell me, don't worry, it's probably not that. And then they move me into a room with a 27-year-old kid who came into the hospital with back pain. He'd come into the hospital with back pain six months earlier.

21:04 And now he was having stomach pains. And they said to him, probably the back pain just moved to the stomach. But he also had been in the hospital not one week, not two weeks, and finally, in the third week, somebody decided to do a biopsy. And it turns out that his back pain didn't just move to his stomach pain. Turns out he had yinamachlo. And here the doctors are telling me, it's probably not that. Just like they told my 27-year-old roommate. And we're sitting in the room together, talking. I never thought this would happen to me. Baruch Hashem, it turned out that it wasn't. For me, for him, it was. For me, the inflammation has gone down. I'm able to be here this summer. I'm waiting any day now for surgery. The hospital is going to call me and tell me to come in for surgery. That's the way it works here. Any day they call you, they say, "you're coming in." They haven't given me a date.

21:56 I was in the hospital just last week while you guys were in Chispan. I went to the hospital. I stopped by the surgeon. I said, "When's the date?" He said, "Don't worry. I didn't forget about you. Sometime in August." Chaver You know what it means to daven when you think your life is on the line. You know what it means to daven when you have to hear the words that nobody wants to hear. It's the loneliest feeling in the world. We're the generation that's going to bring Mashiach. We know that we're the generation that's going to bring Mashiach. We're Ikhves of the Mashiach, but we feel like the Akev. We feel so distant, so removed. So crushed. That's what we feel. Who's connected to their Yiddish guy today? Who's connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu today? But this is the Torah of Rachlimena The Torah of brokenness.

23:00 Is that when you are in your loneliest place There's only one place to turn. The only place you can turn is to the Rebbeinu Shalom. My father has a saying. He tells me all the time. He says, "If money can solve this problem, then it's not a problem." So I said to my dad, "I said it's easy for you to say you have money." My father, Baruch Hashem, is blessed with money. It's easy for you to say you have money. Because you don't understand. If money is the problem, then it's just a question of getting money. When money can't solve the problem Then you're in trouble. That's a problem. What do you do when money can't solve the problem? What do you do when hiring the best doctor may not help you? What do you do then? Where do you turn then? So Racheli Menu said something to Hashem that nobody else in the world could say. Avram Avinu, you were ready to die for Hashem. You jumped into the Kifshonai Eish.

23:58 Yitzchok, you were ready to die. And Ike das Yitzchok, yes, all of you, unbelievable. But Racheli Menu said something to Hashem that's more powerful than anybody else. She said to him, Rebbe Nachshon, I know what you are going through. You think you are lonely, Hashem, because Hashem is so lonely. He's lonely because none of us are paying attention to him. I had a conversation this year with a rebbe in a high school in America, and he told me that nobody in the high school talks about Hashem. They don't talk about Hashem in his high school; it's not a topic of conversation. They learn a lot, but they don't talk about Hashem. So he was talking with the Catholic math teacher in the teachers' room. They were talking about the fact that they don't talk about Hashem. A Catholic teacher is bewildered by this. He doesn't understand.

24:49 If you don't talk about Hashem, what are you talking about? So he says, "Well, we teach them halacha, we teach them Gemara, we teach them Mishnayot, we teach them Hanach, we teach them Musar." And the Catholic teacher says to him Isn't that like teaching the body without the soul? The Catholic math teacher understands better than what we don't understand. The Catholic math teacher understands. How do you not talk about Hashem? That's the craziest thing. And yet it's so normal to us, right? Another Rashi, another Tefus, another Abaya, another Ravah, but without a Nashama. That's the craziest thing. So who's lonely? As lonely as you are Hakadosh Baruch Hu is lonely from us. He's begging for us to return to him. Racheli Menu can say the two most powerful words. In the entire English language, you can say the words 'me too.' Hashem, you're lonely. I know what you're going through. My whole life was lonely.

25:55 Everything that I was supposed to be, I gave up. Just not to embarrass my sister. Have you ever paid attention to the way that high school kids speak with each other? You ever pay attention? This is what it sounds like. It sounds like. Who's going to be the one to get the last word and make the other person feel stupid And the person who has the sharpest tongue, the person who's able to say more than anybody else, the quick line that's going to jab a person, that's the coolest guy in school. Nobody could best this guy. He's got a great line for everything. He's brilliant. Do you know that there's a tshuva from Rishlam Zalman Arubach that asks the following question: Are you allowed to turn off a light on Shabbos? Just to make sure that somebody doesn't get embarrassed. Imagine that you're in a room and you see that somebody else is about to embarrass somebody in public.

26:51 So maybe you should quickly turn off the light. Because turning off the light is only an ishah darabana But embarrassing that person in public. That's an ishah daraisa. Maybe you should turn off the light. This was a real shilah that Yerushalmi Zalman asked. Rav Yisai Racheli Menu gave up her whole life not to embarrass anybody. Because she knew how to live with Hashem. I'm going to finish with this last vort. I'm sitting with a bunch of tzaddikim tish above morning. Boiling hot Beit Meir, and all you guys want is to get closer to Hashem. I feel like I just want to give you so much Torah, but what can we do? We're out of time. I want to share with you one last vort for all the people who feel like misfits, for all the people who feel lonely, for all the people who don't feel connected.

27:39 The pasuk says, "Evan maasu habonim." They were building the Beit Hamikdash. The halacha is they were not allowed to cut the stones. They took whatever stones they had and put them together. But there was one stone that was mius. Mius means disgusting. There was one stone. It was a misfit stone. Didn't look like all the other stones. They couldn't find a place for it. So Eben Moshe Abonim. It was a mius, thick of stone, so they threw it away. What ended up happening to that stone? Has the pasuk finished? Eben Moshe Abonim. That stone When they were building the roof over the Kodesh Hakodashim There was just it came together in such a way that there was one place that was so misshapen that they could not fit another stone in there. Until somebody remembered What about that one miyistikah stone? What about that stone that didn't fit anywhere else? Maybe that stone will fit. And they went and they found that stone that they cast away.

28:37 And they picked up that stone and it was a perfect fit. Highsularosh pino became the roof right on top of the Kodesh Hakadosh, right on top of the Evinapino of the Beis Hamikdash. Why? May Eis Hashem Highsazos, because it all comes from the Rebbe Nachman. You feel like a misfit. You feel disconnected from your Yiddishkeit. You feel like I don't get exactly where my place is. Perfect. May Eis Hashem Highsazos. You should know that your unique mission, nobody can replace it. I'm sitting in a room full of soldiers, and every single one of you has a different mission. And if all of us come together and we all do our mission, we are mamish going to make the biggest difference in the world. But if even one of us doesn't do our mission If even one of us looks inside ourselves and we don't see the ravenshulim inside ourselves, we can't find Hashem in our lives.

29:33 The whole thing is off. You have to know that your avoda is to be the gag, to be the roof. You are going to be the roof of the Kodesh Hakadoshim. You might feel like a misfit. You might feel like I don't fit in with this Yiddishkeit. You should know me es Hashem haizasos he neflas beinenu. You're going to be the biggest peli. You're going to be the biggest wonder. You're going to be the most amazing person in all of Yados. And at the end of days, in the times of Mashiach, when it's opened up and it's revealed to us what your role was. You're not going to be able to believe how important you were. But today we feel the Torah of brokenness and we don't remember that. We feel the Torah of Rachli Menu. We feel so lonely. And Hashem is crying out to us, and He's saying, 'Me too. Feel lonely together with me.'

30:22 If we feel lonely together with the Rebbe Nachum, maybe we won't feel so lonely. This is the last Tishav. I don't want to see you guys next summer like this. I'm not interested in doing this again. Not interested in I wish I could say I'm fasting. My whole life I didn't want to fast. Who wants to fast? The doctor told me this year I'm not allowed to fast. Not allowed to fast. You know what I mean? I feel broken that I'm not allowed to. I wish I could fast. I'm jealous of everybody in this room. Today I have to drink. I haven't drank yet, but today I have to drink. Today I have to eat. I have no choice. The doctor is telling me. I asked my rov. Rebbe said, "You have to do. You have to do what the doctor says." I said, "Rebbe, is there a way that I could be mitzam saying that I should?" Rebbe said, "Look, you have to listen to the doctor." I'm not interested in doing tish above anymore.

31:10 Not interested in it. I'm interested that by the time next year we roll around This is going to be a day of devad simcha. It's going to be a day when we're all coming to the base of Megiddo. And we're joking. We're joking around. Remember last year we were sitting in Beit Meir. We were running back and forth to Chisbin. We didn't know what the Rebbeinu Shem was planning. He took three children from us. The whole world couldn't figure out what's going on. We're davening. The kids were already nifter from the first day. But where did that davening go? It turns out that there was a whole system of tunnels under Eretz Yisrael that we never would have discovered if it wasn't for these three boys. And now we're at war, and the whole world is against us, and the UN is condemning us. As if we're a bunch of murderers, as if we're a bunch of animals. This is what we want. We couldn't figure it out. This year we can't figure it out. It's the Torah of Tisha B'av. We don't know what's going on. By next year we're going to know clearly. By next year the whole thing is going to be clear. We're going to come back to Rachel L'imeinu. We're going to daven. The Rebbeinu Shlomo is going to reinstate our true and proper place in the world.