Tisha B'Av: Returning to Each Other

2:49 He lives in this community. I live in that community. And never the twain shall meet. Be'cetera, it's not nice. It's not nice. For that, we have churban abayas up until now. Does that make sense? And anyway, what is the beis hamikdash? Because if we go back to that maimer chazal and we say the beis hamikdash was the destruction of eight zim ve'avonim So you'll forgive me for speaking this way. But what's the big deal? So you broke a house. She broke a house. When I was in yeshiva back in America A chaver of mine His father Okay, so the person was a chasid. They went away for Yom Kippur. They came back, Mitzvah Yom Kippur. Their house was burnt to a crisp. Something went wrong with the electricity in the house. It burnt down the entire house. He literally lost everything. You know what I kept hearing?

3:55 It's just stuff. Al eitzim va'avonim. It's just It's just brick and mortar. Things can be replaced. So if we're really going to refer to the base of mikdash al eitzim va'avonim So then let's go the full nine yards. It's just eitzim va'avonim. The problem is that we don't understand why the Rebbeinu Shlom created the world. We have to go back to the beginning. The Medrash and Parashas also say Hakadosh Baruch Hu desired to have a dira b'tachtona To have a dwelling place down below. What does it mean to have a dira? What does it mean that the Rebbeinu Shalom wanted a place to live down here with us? About four or five months ago, I was walking in Los Angeles. I was walking down Pico Boulevard. There's a bus stop. It's a bus stop on Pico. And I saw a man lying on a bench.

5:19 Clearly, clearly homeless And he didn't even have the I don't know what the word is. He didn't have enough inside of him to even beg for money. He didn't look at me and just go "Hey, man, you got any cash?" He didn't say a thing. He just looked at me. And I saw the hopelessness in his eyes. It's the only way to describe it. I was walking with a bunch of the chavravim, some of whom had been in the same situation. It's like my heart broke. The chevr started telling me In LA and Pico These guys are all over the place, all the time. You just see the chevr like just mamish Just sitting there Pushing nothing. I started to think, what does it mean to be homeless? Is the pshat in being homeless that you just don't have a house? That can't be the pshat. If you just don't have a roof, you don't look that homeless. You find the shelter. You find something.

6:41 Then I thought maybe the pshat was this: to be homeless means that you're truly alone. You have nothing, and you have no one to turn to. If you had somebody to turn to, you wouldn't be homeless. My father once told me Anything that money can solve is not a problem. So I said to my father, "That's easy to say." When you have money. He said, "No, you're misunderstanding me. If money can solve it, it's not a problem." If a person gets sick and it's just a question of paying for the right doctor, it's not a problem. If it's just a question of paying for the right medicine, it's not a problem. It's when you can't solve the problem with money that it's a problem. When it's not a question of the right doctor When it's not a question of the right medicine, then it's really a problem.

7:41 I said, "Yeah, but you don't have the money." "My father said, 'In our community, you always have the money.'" You look around. Such unbelievable chesed in our community. There's no such thing in our community as not having the money. It's very rare that you find from our community people that are truly homeless. Because in our situation, even if somebody was about to lose their home There's no way it would happen. This guy on the street, chevra. Mamush didn't have a home. He didn't have anybody in the world to turn to. Nobody that he could say I need a helping hand. Just a sea of humanity that passed him by. And you saw by him that the hopelessness was so deep, the despair was so deep that he Pasha didn't even have the guts to ask for a couple of bucks. Was once speaking to my brother about getting a job after college.

8:59 And he said, "In our community" If you can't get a job Something has gone terribly wrong in your life. Who did you go to camp with? Who did you sit next to in school? Who were your friends in college, and who were their fathers? We live in such a small community, Tavroh. There is no such thing in our community as not having connections. And this guy Mamish had nothing. If we think about the Rebbeinu Shalom And Chaver, let's be kai for a moment. Let's think about the Rebbeinu Shalom L'chol apachos, at least as a human being. Obviously, he's much more than that. Let's try to understand it from where we're coming from. Nesava kadosh barachol yislo yisbarach dira b'tachtein. Before the Rebbeinu Shalom created the world, he was mamish perfect in every sense of the world. He was perfect. Infinite. But with no one to share it with He had no dira.

10:01 He had nothing that was other than him. He was homeless. Doesn't mean that the Rebbeinu Sholom isn't perfect. His existence is perfect. But he had yet to share his life with another. So the Rebbeinu Shlom created something called "other than him" And the pinnacle of everything that he created was something called the Beis Hamikdash. So let's talk about the Beis Hamikdash for a second. The Beis Hamikdash was his dira. The Beis Hamikdash was his home. The greatest nachas that grandparents get. Is when their children come home. When my parents made Aliyah, they made Aliyah before I did. The biggest fear that my parents had when they made Aliyah was that we wouldn't follow them. Because if we didn't follow them, then when would they see us? When would we come to visit? So when we made Aliyah My father felt like It's coming together. It's coming together And even though my parents are long since retired Every summer my father puts up a pool in his backyard so that on Friday my kids could come swimming

11:38 And they put out ice cream and pizza. And my kids sit in their pergola. And I watch my father and my mother every Friday afternoon. I watch them sit and get naches. Just enjoy them. What's the big enjoyment? What's the big enjoyment they're in? The big enjoyment is that you have a dira, you have a bias. A place where your children, your kinderlach, can come back to, where the ainoklach can come back to. That's the big naches. It's where things feel right. So we had a liel eregim. We used to come back. We used to make our pilgrimage to the Rebbeinu Sholom to say, "We're back." We've come home. We returned. And when we did in Avera When Chas V'Shalom, it felt like there was a period in our relationship with Hashem. There was a little bit of a separation, a little bit of a cloudiness between us and God.

12:36 So we came back to our bias, and we said to the Rebbeinu Sholom We've come back. We made a mistake. Please cleanse us. And like a mother cleanses a child, the Rebbeinu Sholom would cleanse us. And that's why it's called the Beis Hamikdash. We translate the word kodesh very poorly. We translate the word kodesh as sanctity. What would a sanctity mean? What does that do for us? How do we understand that word? So al pi pnimi es atayr al pi chasidus. I once heard a much better translation of the word kedusha. The word kedusha means transparency. That's really what kedusha means. Kedusha means that I can see through all of the garbage to who you really are. That's what kedusha means. Based on mikdash means that's the place where we saw the rebbeinu shlo. I'll tell you a story that I heard many years ago from Moshe Weinberger Shlita.

13:46 The Rebbe said that a person came to him with his wife. They were having marital difficulties. They wanted to sit down. They wanted to sit down to discuss what they could do differently in their marriage. So they sit down. The husband The wife. And Rvohaimberger, and the Rebbe says, "who wants to go first?" So the wife says, "I'll go first." I'm sorry. The husband says, "I'll go first." So the husband says, "I don't know what she wants from me." I don't know what she wants from me. I make a good parnasa. I'm a good guy. I wake up in the morning. I go to a kol haboker. Then I daven. I come home. I quickly grab something to eat. I jump on the L and double R. I learn a daf yomi on the train. I get to work. I work hard. I'm an honest man. I'm not a criminal. I'm in the city all day.

14:50 I get home. Six thirty, seven, seven thirty at night. I run out. I run out to Mirif. I try to learn a little. I come home. I do the homework with the kids. You know the story, Shaver. You've seen your parents do it. I take out the garbage and change the light bulbs. I know what she wants from me. And the whole time she's talking, the woman is sitting there, the wife is sitting there, and she's shaking her head. And the husband says, "You see, even now" Even now, I can't do anything right. So if Weinberger turns to the wife and he says What's bothering you? So she says, "You think I married him to make a parnasu?" You think I married him to change the light bulbs? You think I married him to take out the garbage? I married him because of the way he once looked at me.

15:47 Because of the way he looked at me under the chuppah. And when's the last time that he looked at me that way? It's been so long since we've just pashed and spent time with each other. Just hang on the couch. Just had a good talk, not about the kids. And not about work and not about stress But just like we used to when we were dating About our hopes and our dreams, just to see each other for real. When's the last time that we did that? Because we got so caught up in life that we lost each other And that's what it means to have a bias without having a mikdash. Because in a mikdash we could see each other. We could see Rebbeinu Sholom, and that means we could see each other. And to see each other, chevr, it doesn't mean to see the yarmulke that we wear Or the shrimp that we wear Or the bekasha that we wear Or the bekasha that we don't wear Or to say he's from this chassidus or he has this hashkafah.

16:56 That's not mikdash. That's just stuff. That's getting caught up in the details of life. Without paying attention to the essence. Chaver, I want to tell you a not so secret in Klal Yisro. You could worship idolatry. And the Rebbeinu Sholom could forgive you. Could worship idolatry. Seventy years. You could even commit murder. Illicit relations But if you can't see the beauty of another Jew Then there can be no beis hamikdash A house where all there is fighting. It's just a house; it's not a home. The most frustrating thing as a parent? The most frustrating thing as a parent is to watch your children bicker. It's the most frustrating thing in the world. To watch your children just argue over nonsense, and as a parent, all you want to say to them is Really? You have so much in your life. You're finding such nonsense to fight about.

18:14 It drives parents up the wall. Because you have so much in life, how come you can't see the beauty of each other? Is the Rebbe in yeshiva? His name is Reversal. Some of you may have heard of him. He was a world-famous DRS hockey player back in the day. He was in Long Beach. Still an ice skating ring in Long Beach. Used to be an ice skating ring in Long Beach. He was there with his brothers. And they were skating around. And they were beating up on each other as brothers tend to do. And a woman Not their own mother But a random woman Came over and started yelling at them, saying, "Hey" Don't do that to your brother. And then the brother that was getting beaten up He said, "They don't mean it. They're just my brothers. We're just playing around." The deepest secret. Is that even when we behave this way?

19:28 Why do we behave this way? We behave this way because of the love that we have for each other. So why can't we just say it? Why can't we just look at another Jew from another community, somebody that's not like you, and just go, we might disagree on so much, but that has nothing to do with the love that I have for you. Think about how that conversation would go. I was on a plane to America. Chaver, I want to tell you, as Chatai Ani Masker Ayom, I'm happy to admit to you my sins. I can't stand when the plane gets delayed because people don't want to sit down in their seat. They need to rearrange so that everybody is sitting only in a place that they feel comfortable. Honestly, it drives me up the wall. Drives me up the wall. I wish I had more patience, but it makes me crazy.

20:17 So I'm sitting in my seat And there's a couple of Chaver that won't sit down until they could rearrange the whole plane. And I'm sitting there Waiting and waiting for the plane to take off. And finally, it was very beautiful to watch. The truth is These secular Jews that really could care less about these things were very helpful. Probably more helpful than I was. They all moved around to accommodate this couple of chavrusa. So I'm sitting in the middle aisle. I'm sitting on the aisle seat. Three seats down from me There's a guy. Turns out that he's a conservative rabbi And in front of us are these four Hasidish shechivra that have finally found their seats in the aisle right in front of us. This conservative rabbi He asks this young guy, who looks maybe twenty-one or twenty-two years old. He says, "Can I speak to you about what just happened?"

21:14 The guy says, "Sure." He goes, "With respect, could you please explain to me?" Why is it that you refuse to sit next to that woman? So this Hasidish young man, he says to him, 'Listen to me. The halacha is millions of dollars.' This is my understanding of the halacha. So I very kindly asked her to move. I appreciate that she did that for me. The conservative rabbi says to him, "Would you mind hearing a response?" He said, "No, of course." It was a very respectful conversation. He says, "Can we talk about how that woman must have felt when you refused to sit next to her?" We only have daladamos shalalacha, and we have to all live within those daladamos. So the guy says, "You're right" But that just means that she needs to learn the halacha because then she won't be insulted. So the rabbi responds He goes, but she doesn't know the halacha. They went back and forth.

22:17 It was a very respectful conversation, and after a couple of minutes, it ended. For those of you that know me, you know I can't keep my mouth shut. So I asked this conservative rabbi. Would you mind if we spoke for a couple of minutes? He said, "No, sure." I said, "Why'd you ask him?" Why'd you ask him? He goes, "Because I think it's not right. I think it's a chilul Hashem." I said, but you felt comfortable to ask him. He goes. I said, and it was an incredibly respectful conversation. He said, of course. I said, would you have had that conversation with somebody who was Amish? If an Amish person got on the plane and refused to sit next to a woman, would you have felt uncomfortable? He said, no. So I said, think about the incredible ahava yisroel that both of you have for each other.

23:14 If you weren't brothers You could never have had that conversation. We ended up shloosing for a long time on the rest of the flight. It's not my ma'isa chaver. It's not my genius. I ripped it off from Rabbi Doctor Abraham Twersky. Who was on a subway, and a Jew came over to him and he said Twersky is a chesidish man. Even though he went to Harvard, he has a doctorate and he's a brilliant psychologist. But if you just look at him, you see another chassid. This man came over and he started yelling at Rabbi Tursky. Time to move into the 21st century. You have to leave Europe behind. Why do you dress that way? Don't you know it makes us look different? Don't you know it makes other people hate us? So Rabbi Tursky sat very quietly, and then at the end he said to him, "I'm so sorry. I'm Amish."

24:09 Guy starts apologizing. So sorry, I didn't know. I've never been to Amish country, but I heard it's so beautiful. It's amazing what you guys do. We're also caught up in our technology. You guys, without your electricity, and the Rabbi Torsky cut him off. He goes, "I'm sorry, I am actually Hasidish." But why do you have that reaction when I'm a Hasid and a different reaction when you think I'm Amish? But you know what the answer is, Chavro? Because siblings love each other, and siblings argue, and siblings fight in Israel. If you're walking down the street and your kid isn't wearing a jacket Some random stranger might come over to you and go, "Put a jacket on your kid." Who are you? Don't tell me how to raise my child. You know why they get to say something? Because it's family. You know why Jews treat each other so badly? Because we're family.

25:02 We wouldn't treat anybody else like this. So why can't we say it? Because that's what the Rebbe Nishma is waiting for. He's waiting for bais Hamikdash. He's waiting for dear b'tachtanim. He's waiting for one Jew to say to another Jew, "I love you." And beneath all of the fighting is a tremendous amount of ahavas Yisrael. Beneath all of the disgusting rhetoric of this community does this and that community does that, and this community acts like this and this community acts like that, and they hate us. And he, nobody hates Zevra. Nobody hates. It's not hate. It's love masquerading as bickering over nonsense But it drives our Father in Heaven up the wall. So the Rebbeinu Shlomo did us the biggest chesed in the world. And Chaver, open your hearts for a second, because this might be one of the most important things you ever learn.

25:58 The Rebbeinu Shlomo did not have a temper tantrum, and he is not angry. He is not angry. But he did say the following. This is a family. And we're not acting like a family. And if we're not acting like a family, then the entire purpose of creation is not being fulfilled. And for that, all of creation could be destroyed. Because I created the world so that I can have a relationship with another. And where are we, chaver? But I'm not going to take out that anger. It's not anger. It's not what it means. What it means is the displacement of the purpose of the world and the feeling that comes along with that. The Rebbe Nachman is not having a temper tantrum in Shamayim; he's not throwing things against the wall. But it is frustrating that I created the world to have a relationship with you, and we can't have a relationship.

26:55 Like the famous mashal of the father who's very wealthy and is marrying off his final child. Chaver, when it comes to weddings. Everybody fights. Everybody fights over weddings. So the father says to the children, "He goes. I don't want there to be any fighting." Go spend as much money as you need. Keep your receipts. I'll pay you back for everything. Whatever you think you need to spend on this wedding. Go buy it. I'll pay for everything. So the children went out, each one of them. And they bought new suits and new ties. And they got everything they needed: new cufflinks, new hats, whatever they needed for the chasna. They bought it for the chasna that the chasna should be a cover for their father and for their youngest sibling. But there was one sibling that didn't have. In every family, there's one sibling that doesn't have And he couldn't afford to lay out the money So he showed up to the chasna in his regular suit, and his children showed up in their regular suits and regular dresses.

27:58 And the chasna was mamish beautiful. And at the end Each one of the siblings came to their father with their receipts: ten thousand dollars for this one, eight thousand dollars for this one, seven thousand dollars for this one. And the father said, "I'm not paying you back a penny." And they said, "Abba, why not? You told us that you were going to pay us back. We spent so much money thinking you were going to pay us back." And he said to them, 'You see that son, the one that couldn't afford to lay out the money' He's my son. And if you were his brothers, you would have made sure that he was taken care of. But you're obviously not his brothers, and that means you're not my sons. I promise to take care of my sons. And you didn't behave like my sons. You didn't behave like my children.

28:46 That's what the Rebbeinu Shalom was waiting for. So he says I'm not going to destroy you. It's not what we're going to do. It's just etzim va'avanim. But we need to break this home. We need to separate from each other in order to recognize what we've really lost. Because Jews in crisis manage to find each other. Chaver, you remember a couple of summers ago when there was a war here in Eretz Yisrael? Right before that war There was a tremendous amount of sinas chinam. Doesn't matter what the issue is. It's already past. It's already in. It's already in the past. It's already stupidity that's been forgotten. But whenever there's a war from the outside, somehow it matters to us much less what we wear. Somehow it matters to us much less what our hashkafas are. An enemy from the outside creates achdus on the inside.

29:43 So the Rebbeinu Sholom says we have to come at this fundamentally from a different place. It's not the pshat that the bais hamikdash is destroyed. The mikdash was always. Something that existed inside of ourselves Always. It manifested itself in a building when we were together. And when we stopped being together The building couldn't exist. But the base of Mikdash It's right there. Redemption is not even a stone's throw away. The door is right there. The key is in the door. All you have to do is turn the key and walk through it. It's a very simple formula, but for some reason we are the definition of insanity. We do it over and over again with the same result, and we don't know why it happens. We sit there with our jokes. With our cute memes And they're funny. They're all funny. They're all funny. But they're all sick.

30:46 We're the only ones that think we know how the Eved Shem wants us to serve him. Chaver, I got another secret for you. The Rebbeinu Shlom had seventy lanes in his highway. And he thought every single one of them was beautiful and meaningful. If he wanted us to all serve him the same way, he would have made us all the same. The Gedolei Ham never fought like we fought. There's a meisa with Rav kook and Rav yisroel chaim zunefeld. Who were two of the gadol lehadar who had very different approaches to the state of Israel Both beautiful, both meaningful, both coming from a tremendous place of a desire to serve Hashem. And Rav Kook and Rav Yisroel Chaim Zunefeld were walking by each other And Rav yisroel chaim zunefeld turned to Rav kook And he said to him, "May you be up to your knees in blood."

31:41 And the talmidim went, "Ooh." Rav Yisroel Chaim Zunefeld. Really got Rivkuk And the Talmidim of Rivkuk asked them. They said, 'Rebbe, what was that about?' So he said, "Rav Yosef Hayim Zuninvel knows that I'm a kohen" And he was wishing that the Beis Hamikdash should be rebuilt. And I should be up to my knees in blood, bringing karbanos all day long. It was only the Talmidim that understood it as a dis or a rip or whatever you say these days But the tzaddikim knew that they were talking to each other in a very beautiful way. I heard a ma'isa. A rav in Chicago has a very beautiful kahilah. His kahilah, anybody is welcome. Everybody is welcome. And he went to Rav Shach. The winter of Shach to ask him. Tachlis If I've got nine people in my minion And a labavacher walks in Do I have a minion?

32:39 And Rav Shach looked at him and he said Of course. What's the question? He said, "But Rebbe, all of those things that you spoke out—that you said—it goes that wasn't for you to get involved in a machlekas." That was for me. Not that Chas v'Shalom, everybody should now go fighting with each other. I had a chiv to say what I felt was necessary to say. But that was never supposed to devolve into a machlekas. That was L'shem Shamayim. Couldn't understand that. Roshach, who spoke out against the state of Israel so often. But when he heard one day that a helicopter crashed and that four chayyelim were killed, they say he was inconsolable. The Satmar Rebbe, who used to more than anybody, was against the state of Israel. But then he said to his chassidim, "You only hear what I say when my back is to the Aron Kodesh. You don't hear what I say when I'm facing the Aron Kodesh."

33:37 Which means to say you don't hear how I'm davening for every single Jew. Even those that I don't agree with, or that don't agree with me The tzaddikim never meant for us to fight The gedolim never meant for us to fight. But we lost ourselves. We got involved in the pettiness of my community is better than yours My way of serving Hashem is better than yours. Al eitzim ve'avonim. Av five seven Where the state of Israel has to beg Arabs to go up to Harabiya to daven Because if we put a metal detector up Then that causes riots. And when we take the metal detectors down That causes riots. Only cameras. Now get rid of your cameras. There can't be any security measures. Mecca has security measures. Mecca has metal detectors. Harabayas can't have metal detectors. Every museum in the country has metal detectors to protect us from who?

34:58 From the very people that are rioting. And we keep begging them. Go to Harabayas. You go to Harabayas. A Jew can't feel comfortable today davening at Harabayas. And the Palestinian Authority spends millions and millions of dollars rewarding the families of terrorists. Freedom fighters For that monster, for that animal that walked in on the night of Ashlam Zacher and destroyed a family forever. Why don't we get it? You think when that monster, when that animal walked into that family's house, he said I'm going to go after the Dati Lu Mi people and not the Charedim. I'm gonna go after Chiloni people and not Mizrahi people. You think he cared? I promise you, he didn't care. He didn't even think about it. He probably didn't even know about it. He just knew it's a Jew. And I'm gonna send a message. So I'll finish with a ma'isah that I heard.

36:20 The Babush Rebbe had his birthday Fabbrieng, and his old friend Rofsalovetsik was invited. They sent a car; I think it was even a limo. They sent a car to go bring Rofsalovetsik to seven seventy. Achever, I don't know if any of you have seen seven seventy. The way it used to be by the Fabbriengs is the Rebbe sat at a very long table. Behind them were the older Hasidim And in the crowd there were thousands and thousands of Hasidim packing their mamash hanging from the rafters. When Rusalovitch came Rusalovitch, of course, had a chavrusha with the Lubavitcher Rebbe back in Berlin. When the Labavitcher Rebbe got drunk on Purim one time and was dressed, he was arrested for drunken disorderly. Rusalovitch came and bailed him out. They were old chavra. So Roshalovitchik came and they sat him at the dais, but out of respect for the Rebbe, he didn't sit right next to him. He sat maybe twenty feet down from him. It was a very long dais.

37:23 And as Roshalovitchik was walking out at the end of the Fabrangen Somebody said to him It seems like the Balshemtov and the Gra have now finally made shalom. They finally made peace with each other. Because after all, the Roshalovitchiks are the Sion. The gra, Rav chaim volozhiner, the Beis halevi, Rav chaim brisker, Rav velvel, Rav Moshe saloveitchik And then ultimately Rav Yosher Ber, Rav Shiva Voayu, and of course the Labavitcher Rebbe, seven generations of Chabad from the Magid Mitzvot, who was the Talmud of the Balshemtum. So it seems like sitting at the same table, sitting at the same tish Finally made shalom. And Rav Saloveitchik turned to this man and he said to him. They already made shalom when we were burnt in the same ovens in Auschwitz. How is it that we could sit at the same table? But it seems cheaper to me that even now In Av five seven With all the enemies that are mamish at the gate That we still can't look towards each other And that Rabbi Say is criminal.

38:40 That's a criminal thing. I was so sure that there would be no Tishah B'av this year. I meant what I said about that first Fabregen, that first Friday night. That first Shabbos. I meant what I said. I'll tell you something. I know that Rabbi Liebovitz really meant it. A couple of days ago, Rabbi Liebovitz started working on the schedule for Tishah B'av. I said we still have another couple of days. We got to bring back Shlomo Katz. It's going to be unbelievable. He said, 'Believe me, I would work on it, but the powers that be above me are forcing me to do this. I want to tell you something.' By me, I'm not such a tzaddik. I know what's really going on inside of me, and I know that a part of me is joking. But when I looked at Rabbi Liebowitz, I saw he was serious.

39:33 He mamish didn't want a plan for this. He mamish did not want a plan for this. He was so sure. But I want to leave you with a message of hope. Because Al Eitzim VaAvonim means that the Rebbeinu Shlom's love for us has not been diminished. Mashiach is born on Tishavu. In a couple of hours, the fast gets lighter, even though it's the pinnacle of destruction, even though that's the time when the Beis Hamikdash was being burned. One of the Chabad asked me before if the Beis Hamikdash is mamish being burned in a couple of hours. Why does the fast get lighter? Because Jews always see hope in destruction. Rav Akiva laughed when he saw the churbo. So we still have chavra a couple of hours until the fast gets lighter. Go over to someone today, not to violate the halacha. But to make someone you wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable with go over to them and make them feel comfortable. Ask them how their fast is going. Something, a little bit something, that we should be able to see each other And in the scus of seeing each other, may the Rebbeinu Sholm return to us our eyes. We will be zoich to greet Mashiach Zakenu in just a couple of hours this afternoon.