Page 30 - HaMizrachi Tisha BAv 2021 USA 4fb_Neat

TISHA B’AV READING

Rabbi Judah Mischel
We are All from

Yerushalayim

hen beloved Israeli author, ◆◆◆ the ground, the dawn will break, and we will
Shmuel Yosef “Shai” Agnon return to י ִב ָא תי ֵּב.
was awarded the Nobel Prize In the Torah’s account of Ya’akov Avinu ְ
ָ
ְ
ׂ
ִ
Wfor Literature in 1966, his fleeing his brother Eisav’s wrath, Ya’akov ל ֵא ָר ְשִי ת ֶר ֶא ְפ ּ ת ץ ֶר ֶא םִי ַמ ּׁ ש ִמ ךי ִל ׁש ִה – “He has cast
famous acceptance speech revolved around is alone, surrounded by darkness, and down from heaven to earth the glory of
his Jewish identity, his relationship to sleeping on the cold ground. Suddenly, he Israel” (Eicha 2:1). Reb Shlomo Halberstam,
The Bobover Rebbe, explains this pasuk in
Torah, his love for Yiddishkeit and his kesher experiences a “vision of the night”: he sees
to Yerushalayim. a ladder to Heaven with angels “ascending connection to Ya’akov Avinu. The glory
and descending,” and realizes he is in the (tiferet) of Israel (Ya’akov) is our achdut, our
When asked by Gustav VI, the King of future Makom haMikdash, the place of the togetherness, the oneness of our greater
Sweden, where he had been born, Agnon Holy Temple. family. This is what was cast to the ground.
replied, “Your Majesty, like all Jews, I come Indeed, as is well known and oft-quoted but
from Jerusalem.” Ya’akov Avinu represents and expresses the tragically not yet internalized, the Temple
midda of tiferet, ‘splendor,’ which is the qual- was destroyed due to sinat chinam, baseless
In his speech, Agnon addressed the honored ity of the harmonious uniting of opposites.
assembly and again spoke of his connec- In his night vision, he sees a place and a hatred (Yoma 9b). The Bobover Rebbe con-
cludes that the rebuilding of the Temple will
tion to our eternal capital: “As a result of the time in which he and his brother will be in
great catastrophe in which Titus of Rome harmony and peace, in which the Jewish come through reclaiming our people’s tiferet,
destroyed the Holy City and Israel was exiled family will be reunited. When he awakens, our achdut – our efforts toward shalom.
from its Land, I was born in one of the cities he is inspired to pray, י ִב ָא תי ֵּב ל ֶא םֹול ׁש ְב י ּ ת ְב ׁש ְו The halachot of Tisha B’Av restrict us from
ִ
ַ
ָ
of the Exile, Buczacz. But I always regarded – “and I shall return to my father’s house in she’eilat shalom, greeting one another. In any
myself as one who was born in Jerusalem. peace...” (Bereishit 28:21). case, how can we wish each other shalom
In a dream, in a vision of the night, I saw aleichem on a day when we deeply feel the
myself standing with my brother Levites We too, through shalom and brotherhood, are lack of shalom and shleimut in the world?
in the Holy Temple, singing with them the charged to restore the splendor and beauty Consider: is there someone we are estranged
songs of David, King of Israel…” of Am Yisrael. ‘Ya’akov’ will then rise up from
from, a former business associate, an old
classmate, friend or family member from
Photo: Sharon Gabay now is the right time, the opportune time,
whom we have grown distant? Perhaps
to extend a she’eilat shalom.
It has been 2,000 years since our “brother
Levites” have sung those songs in the Beit
HaMikdash. May we extend shalom and achdut
to our neighbors, sisters and brothers, and
make efforts toward repairing relationships,
and may this bring us closer to our birth-
place, our י ִב ָא תי ֵּב, our Father’s home.

Rabbi Judah Mischel is Executive Director
of Camp HASC, the Hebrew Academy for
Special Children, Mashpiah of OU-NCSY
and founder of Tzama Nafshi.

A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau
mizrachi.org/speakers

30 |