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One of the beautiful things about living in Eretz Yisrael is there are always exciting archaeological discoveries. I don't know how often you hear about these discoveries in America. In Eretz Yisrael, they're always unearthing some new mikvah, some new shul. As Eretz Yisrael is, Baruch Hashem, being built. We encounter as we excavate the ruins of the societies that came before us. Last week, there was an amazing discovery. Not because the discovery itself was so incredible, but because of what the discovery meant. Right outside of the Macha Mitzvah. Near Ir David
The archaeologists that were digging there found beams that were blackened and charred from the roof of a home that had been burnt during the period of Bayis Rishon. During the Churban of Bayis Rishon, as Yerushalayim was on fire, they found the blackened and charred beams from one of those homes. How were they preserved so perfectly? How were they still intact? The plaster from the walls of the homes encased the charred remains of these beams. And so they're excavating it today and finding these perfectly blackened and charcoal-burnt beams. But what's amazing about this discovery is not finding the remains of the Churban Bayis Rishon. What's amazing about this discovery is what it means. The lead archaeologist from this site, She said that what it means is that when they returned after. Byes Rishon. When they returned to build Byesheini, They did not remove the ruins from the time of Byes Rishon Which is what we naturally would have thought they would do.
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If you were to build a home in a place where there was a terrible fire, you would first remove all of the home that had been destroyed. The people who returned for Byesheini made a conscious decision. We're going to build our homes on top of the ruins from the homes of Bayis Rishon. And that's what kept them intact. That's an unbelievable thing that they returned. Imagine the emotionality. They returned from Galus Bavel. They came to rebuild their homes. Somebody at some point must have raised their hand and said, 'Chever, don't clear away any of the garbage. Build on top of it.' Personally, I'm always suspicious of archaeologists. I always wonder how they know these things. Maybe it's just a theory. How do they know? But in this case, we know that they're certainly right because it's a Gemara in Baba Basra. It's a Gemara in Baba Basra 60b, and I'm going to read to you the words of the Gemara inside because the sensitivity to the language of Chazal here depicts something that for us is fundamental.
Taner Abbanon, We learned in a brayso. Keshechar of Habayis b'Shnia, Rabu Prushin b'Yisrael shalolecha baser v'shalolishdais yayin. At the time that the second base Hamikdash was destroyed, there were many people that they were pious. They separated themselves. They became ascetics. They were not interested in drinking wine or eating meat. Listen to the words here because these words are so sensitive. Nitpa lahem, Rabbi Yehoshua. What does Rabbi Yehoshua do with these people? Nitpa. What does nitpa mean? It means he joined them. He became secondary to them. He joined their group. And he said to them, Armelahem, banai, My children. How come you stopped eating meat? How come you stopped drinking wine? Amruloh, the children, These unbelievable yidden who had separated themselves from eating meat and drinking wine said to their rebbe, We should eat meat, the meat that we once used to bring as a carbon in the mizbeach.
The Achshav battle, and now we no longer have the ability to bring karbanos nishtayayin. Shemnaskin algabe amezveach the Achshav battle. We should bring. We should drink wine, the wine that we once used to do nisla hayayin with. Now we should drink it. You hear the pain? Do you hear how the Rebbe related to them? For them, the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash was an experience. It was something they were living through. They could not bring themselves to eat the meat that they no longer had the ability to sacrifice. They no longer had the ability to drink the wine that they once brought the nischayayin from. And Rav Yehoshua, sensing their pain, Nitvul, he joins them. That's what a good rebbe does. A good rebbe doesn't stay on top. A good rebbe is nitvul. He gets down in the dirt where his talmidim are. He says, "Banai, My children." He relates to them in a very human way. Arma lehendi responds to them because it's a conversation that he has to have with them. He says, "Imkain lechem lo nochal shakvar batlu minachus."
He says, 'Chevra, if you're not going to drink wine or eat meat, don't eat bread either, because we don't have a carbon mincha anymore.' And they said, 'Fine, so we won't drink any, we won't eat any bread.' Efsheh bepeiros, peiros lo nochal shakvar batlu bikurim. Efsheh bepeiros acherim, Mayim lo nishdesh shakvar batlu nisach mayim. Shasku. They went back and forth. He said, "You can't eat bread." They said, "Fine, we'll eat payros." He said, "You can't eat payros. There's no more bikurim." They said, "We'll have different payros." He says, "Chevre, you're going to live without water? There's no nisachamayim anymore." And at that point, they can't say anything because nobody could live without water. You realize that these people were in so much pain that they were willing to give up meat, wine, bread, peiros. The only thing they couldn't give up was water because they said, "We don't have water, we'll literally die." So what do we do? Amr lehem. So Rav Yeshua answers them, "Banai, my children." Hear the sweetness of Rav Yeshua. Banai, my children. My children who are in terrible pain.
Ba'ov armelachem. Shalol lehisabel kol ikar yevshar shakfar nizr gzeira. He says, 'Guys, to not mourn at all—that we can't do, because the base of mikdash has already been destroyed. But to mourn to the level that you guys are mourning, you can't do that either.' Klal Yisrael is not capable of having this level of mourning. We're not capable of living for thousands of years, and to not have the ability to eat meat and drink wine and abstain from bread, we can't do it. So it's too much. Rather, he tells them, 'What should you do? Plaster your houses and leave a space. Leave a space. I'm sure you've seen it here in Eretz Yisrael. When you enter into a home in Eretz Yisrael' There's an ama by ama space, a zeich lechorban, a place where our house remains incomplete. That says, Rav Yosheva, is how a yid is meant to be mesava. You're not meant to leave this world. The yid has to continue to engage in this world, but to go so far, to lose yourself to the avelus, that Rav Yosheva says is inappropriate.
What is Rav Yosheva telling us? There are three possibilities when it comes to destruction. Possibility number one is the pain becomes your identity. There are people like this. They walk around in the world. They've suffered terrible losses. Ten years later, twenty years later, thirty years later, they can't move on. They have no capacity in their lives because the loss is so dramatic. They have no capacity to continue living. But because the pain has become their identity, you're so loyal to what was lost, you sometimes become incapable of building something new. There is a second approach when facing destruction, and that's the approach that we call amnesia. I have to build, so I have to forget about what was. I can't focus on the loss because I have to build. I never have time to process. I never give myself space to actually understand what it is that I've lost.
A lot of our babis and zaydis were like this after the Holocaust. They had to pretend as if it never happened. Of course, they couldn't. But in an effort to rebuild Yiddishkeit across the world. Many moved on, pretended that it didn't happen, refused to talk about it. No judgment. When faced with the horrors of the Holocaust, none of us could understand what that's like. There's a third response. This is the response that Chazal tell us is the appropriate response. It's the response of Rav Yosua. Don't live in the ruins. Build a beautiful new home around the visible truth of the destruction that came before you. That is the achrayus of every one of us in this room. We must build livable homes, plastered homes, strong homes. We're going to be in gullis for a while. But our homes must contain a visible absence. To leave the ruins in place does not Chas v'Shalom mean that we refuse to heal? And it also doesn't mean that we yield to amnesia, pretending that it's not there. We are meant to remain shattered. A yid is meant to live in a state where he's conscious of the destruction that's happening all around him.
That which shatters us must become the architecture of our new homes. This is the avodah today. The avodah today, befrat, living in these times in Eretz Yisrael. I know that almost all of you do not yet live in Eretz Yisrael, but Ezer Hashem, bekarv mamish, you will. But in our homes in Eretz Yisrael, And just because you don't live in Eretz Yisrael, distance does not give license to cognitive dissonance. A yid must live with visible absence. To build homes that are strong. But to walk through life pretending that there's not absence is deeply inappropriate. To pretend that since last Tishah B'av, 200 soldiers have not been killed is to build a home. That ignores the charred remains of those blackened beams in Yerushalayim Yerakodesh, which were so beautifully encased in plaster. To walk around and not see the pain of other yidden in every single form.
To read about it on social media and in the newspapers. And to not have it impact your life in a way where the absence creates the visible architecture of our lives is a profound failure. Chaver, this is your home. This is not a tourist attraction. The Kotel Amaravi is not Cinderella's palace. Marasamachpela is not the teacups. Kever Rachel is not—it's a small world after all. You don't come to visit Eretz Yisrael the way that you visit Florida. And if you come home You will see in our home in Eretz Yisrael that we have unbelievably strong walls. And unbearable pain. That's what it means to live as a Yid in this country. I don't know if this archaeologist knew this Gemara in Baba Basra. But I know she was right.
Of course, Yids built their homes on the charred remains of what came before them. They were unwilling to forget the past, and they were unwilling for the past to define their present. Their future defined their present. They lived in the dialectical tension of past and future. We all know the Gemara Numa 9b that tells us that the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of Sanhacinim. We are meant to build homes that answer the very reason for the destruction of our previous homes. And we are the very definition of insanity. The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results. The greatest moment of my life was October 8th. After the horrific destruction of October 7th, all of the categories of Yidden fell away.
No more Ashkenazim, and there were no more Sfarim. There was no more right wing. There was no more left wing. There were no more charedim, Tzionim, mizrachnikim. They didn't exist. All there was Jews. Jews who knew how to live for each other. Jews who knew how to die for each other. The Yerushalmi in Yoma says, "Call dar sheino nivne biyamav malav alaf lakasuv kilu echrivu." Any generation that does not rebuild the Beis Hamikdash, it's as if they destroyed the Beis Hamikdash. And all of the commentators ask the famous question, 'Why? I didn't destroy the Beis Hamikdash. At best, I didn't rebuild it. But to say that I destroyed it, I'm not around. The Beis Hamikdash is not around. How could I have possibly destroyed it?' We all know the famous Gemara of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. I'm just going to repeat the story very quickly.
The story is that there was a man who made a party. He sent his messenger to invite his friend Kamtza. Instead, the messenger made a mistake and invited the host's archenemy Bar Kamtza. Bar Kamtza came to the party. There was a confrontation, and he said, 'Please leave the sunda.' They went back and forth. Bar Kamtza said, 'Please let me stay. I'll pay for half of the sunda.' And he threw him out. The chachamim were there and they were watching and they did nothing. And that ultimately led to the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. The Gemara says the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. But Kamtza wasn't even there. The Gemara should have said the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because the host and Bar Kamtza had a machlekas. What's Kamtza got to do with it? Kamsa was the man who never received the invitation. He wasn't at the party. Rabbi, I want to be very honest with you that I had a different answer to this question six hours ago. Six hours ago, I was prepared to come in to give this shmuuz and I had a completely different answer.
This morning, I was listening to Rav Ephraim Goldberg's shmuuz that he gave last night in Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida. He told the following story and I realized there's a different answer to this question. I think a more profound answer and a better answer for us in this moment. Rav Goldberg told the following story. A couple of years ago in Florida, there was a man who hung a sign outside of his home with an unflattering picture of Rav Goldberg. And under the picture there was a caption: "Rav Ephraim Goldberg is the reason Mashiach is not coming." And for those of us in the room who are in the public space, you understand how difficult it is to be called out in public like that. It was difficult for his children. It was difficult for his wife. It was difficult for him. Imagine, Chaver, if it was you that somebody hated you so much that they hung a sign outside of your home saying, 'Rav Ephraim Goldberg is the reason Mashiach isn't coming.'
I don't know if I could handle that. And Rav Ephraim, a couple of years ago, He told this story apparently in BRS. And this Tishavov last night he told the seifa of that story. The seifa of that story began after October seventh. Where Reuven Goldberg and the other Abanim from BRS came to Eretz Yisrael on a mission. I'm sure you know about these missions—people coming to Eretz Yisrael. They go to Nova and see all the chesed that's going on. They take them around to the bases and make barbecues. On one of the nights in the Jerusalem theater, they were going to have a night of chizuk. The famous Israeli musician Yonatan Razell, whose music has inspired so many of us, was playing piano at that night of chizuk in the Jerusalem Theater. Rav Goldberg's daughter was in seminary for the year; she was also at the Jerusalem Theater, sitting a couple of rows behind Rav Goldberg.
And she texted Rav Goldberg and she said, The man who hung that sign outside of his home is here in the audience tonight. Rev. Goldberg read the text, and then he said to himself, "I'm not in control. I don't know what will happen. Whatever happens, it happens." And surely enough, as the onatan is playing his music. And everyone in the audience has their arms around each other, swaying back and forth. Rav Goldberg sees this man who hung a sign outside of his home that said, "Rav Ephraim Goldberg is the reason Mashiach isn't coming." He sees him walking down the aisle towards him, and he has no idea what's about to happen. He comes, and he faces Rav Goldberg, and he looks at him and he says. Is there any room for me in there? Is there any room for me in between you guys who have your arms shoulder to shoulder?
Can there be a space for me to stand with you and sway and sing together? And Goldberg said that he looked at the man and he said, "Do you want there to be a space?" And he said, "Yes, I do." And they moved aside. He slipped in. He put his arm around this man, and this man put his arm around Rev Goldberg, and they sang. And yesterday, Rev Goldberg said that he spoke to this man. He said, "What changed?" They never litigated the past. They never went over all the pain that this person had obviously felt that Rev Goldberg had caused them. They never went to therapy together. They didn't sit down and hash it all out. They healed simply because this man asked if there was a space for him in there. And Rav Goldberg said yes, there is. In my mind, there are two heroes to this story.
The guy who hung the sign up outside of his home must have felt a tremendous amount of pain and anger toward Goldberg. I'm sure he felt justified in what he did. But on that night, after October 7th, in the Jerusalem theater, he had the courage to say, "None of this actually matters. None of these machleks matter." He had the courage to go next to Zev Goldberg and to say, "Is there space for me in here?" And the other hero of this story is Zev Goldberg, who, despite the fact that he was very publicly shamed Said, "Yes, there is space for you in here." That's how Klal Yisrael has to heal. Yidden have to be willing to ask each other, 'Is there space for me in your community?' And our communities need to create space. Despite the fact that there are very real conversations that need to happen about how we move forward as a community, we cannot have those conversations until each one of us turns to the other and says, with courage and vulnerability, 'Is there space for me in your community?'
And our communities need to respond and say yes. There is an unbelievable amount of space for you in our community because, despite the fact that we see the world differently, Yirei Yidden, Ami Yidden, Yidden are meant to have their arms around each other. Chaver, the story of Kamza and Bar Kamza is not a story of a man who came to a party and was kicked out of the party and was embarrassed. That's the sefer of that story. The rasha of that story, well before Bar Kamtza got the wrong invitation, was that there was a chevrah And that chevrah included the host, and that chevrah included Kamtza, and they had a circle, and their hands were held very tight. Well before Kamtza ever met Bar Kamtza, Kamtza and the host held their hands so tight that they let Bar Kamtza know there is no room for you in our circle.
Well before the symptom of the disease, there's a disease. Well before the party, the disease was already firmly entrenched in the architecture of Klal Yisrael. There is no room for you in our party. And if Chas v'Shalom you show up and say, 'Please, make some space for me' You will be met with disdain. And wise people will sit by and watch. It is the responsibility of wise people to stand up and say that there must be room for every single yid, not the ones you like, not the ones that you see the world in the same way as. We have a responsibility. To make space for those yidden that have hung up signs and say you're the reason Mashiach isn't coming. Those are the yidden we need to make space for. And you might say to yourself, "I'm 15, 16 years old." I'm an NCSY kollel for the summer.
I am not the reason Mashiach isn't coming. I am not unwilling to make space for other Jews. I'm just a kid. I'm not the rav of a shul. I'm not a Rebbe on Kollel. I'm not a leader in my community. And if you say that, if that voice is in your heart right now, I want you to know that you are sadly mistaken. Not only are you the future leaders of Kollel Yisrael, and I say that with not just optimism, I say that with the knowledge of how many young men have come through NCSY Kollel who have become the leaders of Kollel Yisrael. But more importantly, Chevrat, we have the opportunity to do this every single day in NCSY Kollel. This notion of clicks This notion of "I'm in this chevrat and you're not" We live that out as children, and then we live that out as adults. You have the ability to stop the cycle of violence right now. You have the ability not to sit with the same friends that you always sit with in the chadar okel, to go over to a group that you ordinarily would have nothing to do with, to sit with them, and to invite others to sit with you.
I miss Meron terribly. Full disclosure: I have not been back since the Meron tragedy a couple of years ago. Why I haven't come back is a personal matter. I want to tell you what I miss about it. I used to go every Lag BaOmer, every single Lag BaOmer. I used to go to Meron to visit Rishon LeZion. But I never went to the kaver. It was too many people. Didn't feel comfortable for me. And I'll tell you the truth. I wasn't the guy who was going to see the Rebbe's bonfires either. I didn't need to see big maduris. I didn't need to see the small maduris either. Every single year on Meron on Lag BaOmer. I went to the same place, I went to the Chadar Ocha, and they give you when you go to the Chadar Ocha if you're willing to work. They give you a T-shirt. They give you swag. They had swag even in Meiron, and I like free stuff. They'd give me a T-shirt that would say that I'm a volunteer, and I would sit behind a tray of kugel or a giant pot of cholent. And I would sit and I would serve Yidden food.
Because to me that was the great expression of what it means to be a Yid on Lag BaOmer. When you go to Meiron on Lag BaOmer, you would see tables and tables of all different shapes and sizes of all different Yidden: Vizhnitz and Babov and Ger and Satmar and Lubavitch and Svardim and Ashkenazim and Modern Orthodox and Yeshivish and Charedi. And Mizrahi and Chilonim, everybody sat at the same tables and ate their cholent and ate their kegel. That's beautiful. I miss it. I miss watching Yidden sit at the same table because if we don't sit at the same table, how are we going to figure this out? How many times can the Rebbeinu Shalom patch us in the face? Because when the Rebbeinu Shlom patches us in the face, we go, "Oh, right, we're all Jews, we're all Jews." Hamas didn't come through those walls to kill Sfard and Merashkin Azim, Charedim or the Dati Leumi and me; they came across to kill Jews. So we always remember, in the face of that patch, we always go, 'We're Jews, we're Jews, we're Jews.' And then slowly but surely, the ultimate act of insanity, we pretend. As if those blackened and charred remains don't exist.
Each one looking at the other and saying, 'You're the reason Mashiach isn't coming.' And each one is absolutely assured that they're 100% right. When they don't realize that the reason Mashiach isn't coming is because we stand across the aisle from each other, pointing fingers at each other, putting up signs and saying, 'You're the reason Mashiach isn't coming.' How many times can we do the same thing over and over again? The Talmud Rebbe said that he has a mesora in his family about a story from Ve'li Melech of Ljensk The Ha'ilager of Melech. Ve'li Melech of Ljensk wanted, like many tzaddikim, to come to Eretz Yisrael. Our days were very spoiled. We come to Eretz Yisrael like it's nothing. I imagine that for many of you, you've been to Eretz Yisrael many times. Some of you, dozens.
You get on a plane and you complain that the food on El Al is not so good. You complain that the Wi-Fi is not as fast as you would want it to be, or that the seats don't go back far enough, or that there's not enough room. But it used to be that a journey to Eretz Yisrael took a tremendous amount of time. And there was a tremendous amount of discomfort. The fastest way to get to Eretz Yisrael back then was by boat. To go by land was very arduous, very difficult, very dangerous. And Ravely Melch of Lizensk wanted to come to Eretz Yisrael so badly. So he asked and he said, 'Is it possible to go by land? I don't want to go by sea.' They looked into it and they came back and they said, 'Rebbe, it's impossible.' And so Ravely Melch of Lizensk decided not to come to Eretz Yisrael. The Talmud Rebbe said that he has a messiah. Why didn't Riveli Melech of Lezence come to Eretz Yisrael by sea? Because Chazal say that somebody who goes across the sea is considered a yachid. He's considered an individual. And Riveli Melech of Lezence said
For one moment in my life, I never want to be considered an individual. I only want to be considered a part of the klal. Rav Eli Melech of Ljents gave up on his lifelong dream of coming to Eretz Yisrael to visit because he didn't want it to be said that for one second he was separate from another yid. That's an unbelievable mussar. The Friedecker Rebbe, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, was once asked, 'How can you help yidden about whom Chazal say 'Myelin le'meloy meridin'?' Sometimes there's a halacha that there are certain Jews that are not allowed to be assisted, and yet the Frayda Kirebbe you assist these Yidden. How can you lend them a helping hand when in Shulchan Aruch it says that you're not allowed to help them? So the Frayda Kirebbe responded, and he said there's four sections of Shulchan Aruch. The halacha of Meilim V'Loi Myridin is at the very end of the last section of Shulchan Aruch and Chayshon Mishpat. He said, "First, make sure that you're fulfilling every other halacha, and then we can get up to the halacha of Meilim V'loymeridin." The big tzaddikim knew how to look at those Jews that were not necessarily aligned with our values, and they knew how to stick out their hands and say, "What can I do to help you?" And never chas v'shalom to be separated from any other yidden.
Not for even one moment. And our community bears the responsibility to go first. If we are the community that says that we are loyal to Torah, that we are loyal to Hashem, that we are oriented towards living a life of absolute halacha, then it is our responsibility to stick out our hand first to those Jews that don't necessarily understand why it is that we do what we do. It is our responsibility to go first and to say there is a space for you here in between us. Arm and arm around each other. Chevra Tishbev is a Zeicher Lachurban in the calendar, just like there's a Zeicher Lachurban in our homes. There's a Zeicher Lachurban in the calendar. Not every single day are we Misaval al Yerushalayim in the way that we are today. Most days it is our job to plaster the walls of our homes and to build schools and yeshivas and mikvaos and institutions of chesed. But once a year, for three weeks, nine days, and then ultimately on Tishah B'av, it is our responsibility to look at the charred remains of our people and to ask ourselves how will those charred remains inform the architecture of our new homes?
Will we have amnesia, Pretending? That it never happened. Will we get so lost in the past that we have no ability to build a new future? Or will we bear the responsibility of Tishav to get up this afternoon To go to the Kotel To go to the Kumsitz of the world? To sit together with our arms around each other, and what I ask of you, and what Hashem is asking of us as a nation, is please tonight do not do what we do every single year on Tishah B'av. Please do not sit with your arms around each other. I'm asking tonight if you could have the courage to sit one arm's length away from each other. I'm asking if you could look up at the other Jews that are there. And instead of having them be spectators from the outside, I'm asking you to invite them in to sit between each one of you.
Jews that look like you and Jews that don't look like you, Jews that agree with you and Jews that don't agree with you, Jews that you agree with and the Jews that you disagree with. I'm asking you to look at them and say, "There's a space right here for you." And bezos Hashem. If we put our arms around the other Jews that we love Then we can have the hard conversations. If we can have the hard conversations, we can build the Beis Hamikdash. Not soon. No more. I can't hear of Weinberger say anymore. Can't have any more Tishavos. Now. The Babacher Rebbe had it right. We want Mashiach now. We want Mashiach now can't just be a phrase. We want Mashiach now has to be a call to live differently. So we're going to invite other Yidden to sit next to us and we're going to sing Yibanah Miktosh Bez Hashem this year. It's going to come true.
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