Tisha B'av - What are we mourning??

TranquilityAndPeace

Fri, Jul 20 2018, 1:29 pm

I heard this from Rebbitzen Heller online a few years ago, so forgive me if some of the details are different than she stated.

Imagine that you live in Spain in 1492, and leave due to the expulsion. You are 11 years old, and your family's ship is captured by pirates.

All the children are placed in children's homes on the pirate's remote island. All the adults are killed.

As the children grow up, the boys (your brothers and cousins) are trained to become pirates, and all of the girls (your sisters and cousins) are taught to be homemakers, and are used for the pirate's pleasure once they reach the age of maturity.

A generation passes, and the young women give birth to many children, whose only frame of reference is this remote island with the tyrant pirates as their rulers.

Another generation passes, and now grandchildren are born, and you and your sisters and cousins are grandmothers.

One day, you tell your 12 year old granddaughter about the way life used to be in Spain. Freedom. Spirituality. Healthy family units. Wealth. Pursuit of talents.

Your 12 year old granddaughter looks at you with skepticism, and says, "Grandma, life is good here, we aren't beaten too often, and we have plenty of fish to eat. Why should we pray and long for the days of old?"

Your granddaughter is so removed from all that's wonderful, that she feels virtually no longing to get away from the terrible life in which she is enslaved.

We, living in 2,000 years of exile, are like that granddaughter.

We are so removed from life in E"Y with the Temple, that it's challenging for us to yearn for it. We have no clue what we are missing by being in a constant state of tum'ah without access to the state of tahara.

May we merit the Geula quickly!

SuperWify

Fri, Jul 20 2018, 2:02 pm

Such a beautiful thought, thank you for sharing!

Every Tisha B’av I struggle mourning because I really don’t know what we’re missing. One year I heard the famous Mashal about a world that lost its sun.

One day in a faraway land without warning the sun stopped rising. The world was thrown in darkness. Children and then grandchildren were born to the people that had a world with a sun. These children were born into darkness and only knew darkness, for they had never seen light. A few inventors got together and worked feverishly to recreate the sun. Finally, after many years and tries they invented the lightbulb. They introduced the lightbulb to the masses who were so enamored by the lightbulb that they made a huge party to celebrate the new invention. The older generation watched the celebrations for the sides and wept. “Dear children,” they lamented, “if you knew what the sun was you’d be tearing your clothes and hair out instead of celebrating this weak and fake light.”

I think that biggest tragedy of Tisha B’av today is the fact that we are mourning but have no idea what we are mourning for.

amother

Burgundy

Fri, Jul 20 2018, 2:51 pm

This is my perspective on tisha b'av.

Dear god,
Tonight is tisha b'av. I feel it in the air. I am not ready to embrace everything I feel, so I am fighting the feeling.

I want to be present with everything you offer me to experience, yet I have so much fear around it.

I always thought there was something wrong with me, now I know that I'm just super blessed, without having tools to work with my blessing.

So, dear god, today I won't mourn or go to lectures. Instead I will do my best to be as present as possible with the feeling of the day. I'm afraid of what I'm committing to and that is telling me how powerful it is.

So, with that said, I'm starting to feel a pain descend into the world. But, intertwined with that blanket of deep pain there is a soft light and a glow. By feeling the pain, we get access to the glowing soft light.

How lucky I am to be able to experience the intensity of the day.

Thank you god for the gift of super high intuition and sensitivity. I will do my best to embrace it More and more each day.

Im sorry that I can't experience the world like a normal person. I hope you forgive me for not going to Kinnus.

Anonymous