Tishah B’Av is a time when we bring the rush of life to a halt, and sit as mourners over the destruction of our Beis HaMikdash, as one mourns a departed loved one. The difficulty is that as the years and generations pass, it becomes ever harder for us to feel genuine longing for a world we never merited to know. In order for us to connect, even in some small measure, to that same mourning in our own times, we must sharpen and clarify what the essence of this mourning is, and how it is meant to express itself in our lives.
Two Seemingly Contradictory Teachings
In describing our relationship and connection to the Borei Yisborach after the Churban, we find teachings of Chazal that appear, on their surface, to contradict one another. On one hand, the Gemara (Berachos 32b) states regarding tefillah that “from the day the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, a wall of iron has separated Klal Yisrael from their Father in Heaven,” implying that our prayers are no longer accepted as they once were in the time of the Beis HaMikdash. Yet regarding Birkas Kohanim, Chazal state (Sotah 38b) that “not even a curtain of iron can separate between Klal Yisrael and their Father in Heaven.”
The Tosafos (ibid.) already address this apparent contradiction, explaining that no contradiction exists: The statement about tefillah refers only to the fact that our prayers are not accepted in the same manner as when the Beis HaMikdash stood; but with regard to whether the community can be blessed through Birkas Kohanim, no such barrier exists, for when it comes to our Father in Heaven, this is not dependent upon any separating barrier.
The explanation seems to be that because of the Borei’s boundless desire to do good for us, no barrier in the world—not even one as vast as the Churban—can ever interrupt that desire. The Borei’s will to remain bound to His people endures forever. And even after the Churban, Klal Yisrael is never utterly severed; a point of kedushah always remains attached to us that can never be cut off, as Chazal teach (Kiddushin 36a) that whether one behaves rightly or wrongly, we are always called “banim”—children—even, rachmana litzlan, when we are “destructive children.”
Why Tefillah Alone Was Affected
Yet with regard to tefillah, once the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, a barrier of iron did come between Klal Yisrael and their Father in Heaven, because the very essence of tefillah is the expression of needs. A person’s tefillah is rooted in the needs of the world in which he lives, as we already find with Adam HaRishon (Bereishis 2:5, and Rashi there), who had to daven for rain, and only after he prayed were the needs of the world fulfilled. Tefillah, then, is a bond and a closeness with the Borei that draws Him into, and connects Him with, our very lives.
While the Beis HaMikdash stood on its foundation, it was called “Beis HaTefillah for all the nations,” because it was a house that expressed, on our part, an overwhelming closeness to the Borei—a house in which every expression and request of our needs was directed, as it were, eye to eye with the Borei Yisborach Himself. The needs of our world corresponded to His world and to the resting of His Shechinah among us.
Locating the Churban in Our Own Lives
But once the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, the entire realm of our needs no longer belonged to the world of the Borei. Even though the Borei Himself still desires, at every moment and every hour, to do good for us and to bless us—and regarding this, no barrier in the world can ever interrupt Him—we ourselves slipped away and crossed over into a different world, a world in which our needs are no longer eye to eye with the needs of the holy Shechinah. It is we who erected the wall of iron between ourselves and our Father in Heaven.
Now it becomes clear where the Churban truly lies in our lives. The holy Shechinah remains forever elevated; it has never descended below ten tefachim (Sukkah 5a). Rather, the change has taken place within us: In the past, the entire realm of our needs belonged to, and was directed toward Hashem, and in the Beis HaTefillah, every one of our needs was aligned with the will of the Borei. Today, however, b’avonoseinu harabim, we have grown so distant that we barely know what the needs of Hashem even are.
Today we have no true picture of what a world governed by the meticulous observance of tumah and taharah looks like, nor what a world in which Torah is truly one’s sole vocation looks like. Consequently, the entire realm of our needs has become so disconnected that when we express our needs in tefillah, the Borei, as it were, tells us: “These are indeed your needs, and I wish to fulfill them, but they have no bearing upon, and no connection to, My world.” This, then, is the wall of iron—the Churban—that now stands between us.
The essence of mourning is a reality of lack. The avodah of mourning on Tishah B’Av is not meant to spur us to rectify our situation so that there will be nothing left to mourn over. Rather, it calls for a direct and honest introspection—to recognize and identify the terrible void in which we find ourselves: profound anguish over the wall of iron that has established a reality of life utterly disconnected from the will of the Borei, a reality whose every need is so distant from the world of the Borei.
Indeed, we cannot change the reality of our lives; we cannot go back in time through the generations, nor should we attempt to withdraw and construct, as it were, some new place cut off from the reality of the life in which we live. For any immediate attempt to fill and complete that void, or to view the lack as somehow itself good and beneficial, only diminishes and dulls the mourning. Just as a mourner over his departed relative, chas v’shalom, remains immersed in bitter contemplation of the terrible loss that has befallen him—not attempting to revive the deceased, nor seeking explanations during his mourning of how everything is truly for the good—so, too, must we sit on Tishah B’Av as mourners over the dead, and simply gaze with pained eyes upon the terrible lack and Churban in which we find ourselves.
And to the extent that we merit to truly feel the pain of this great lack, we will discover that our authentic will seeks connection with the Borei Yisborach. Through this, may we merit to be counted among “all who mourn for Yerushalayim,” who will “merit to see her joy,” speedily in our days.