Meturgeman

"May your ears hear what your ears are hearing"

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Location: Kochav Yaacov, Israel

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Tisha B'Av addtional thoughts--5776

Each year I pick up on different parts of Eicha and the Kinot.  This year it was right near the beginning...Eicha 2:1-9.  It talks about all the things Hashem has done to destroy Tzion.  The destroyer was not Babylon...not Nebuchadnezzar...but Hashem.  Our enemies are only the tools He uses...rather than hate the tools, we should take away His reasons for using them.

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I am pleased to report that this year, for the first time in many years, listening to the New York news during the Nine Days did NOT produce any Chillul Hashem stories.  Either they are too busy with local troubles, the Olympics, and those two unfit-to-be-president people that they don't have time, or there are actually less frum Jews making bad headlines.  IY"H it's the latter and will continue.

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There WAS Chillul Hashem at the Kotel again on Rosh Chodesh Av, but it didn't make the international news, and, thank Hashem, no one called the Torah a "questionable object" this time.  The anti-women-of-the-wall people, intent on destroying this most evil group of women, blew whistles all through their davening.  (I guess whistles aren't as exciting to the New York press as thrown bottles and diapers.)

We all know the stories about simple shepherds who could only reach Hashem by whistling, but I don't think that's the case here.  Rather, I think that in their irrational, relentless drive to destroy an evil-that-isn't, these "anti-"s have disrespected their fellow Jews, the Kotel, and Hashem.

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As I write this it is only a few more hours until Tisha B'Av is over.  As I say almost every year in one way or another, if we can get our acts together and start behaving like true Torah Jews, we can make this the last Tisha B'Av of mourning, and meet next year on Har Habayit for a Korban BBQ.