Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
The first thing I want to address is that we are at the beginning of a new time in our Jewish calendar and that is the month of Av. When the month of Av comes upon us, the halacha says that we minimize in happiness, we minimize in joy. Now we know that in the month of Adar, where we have Purim in that month, it's a time where we increase in joy. The halacha says Then we increase in joy, and when we come to when the month of Av comes in, we minimize our joy. Now we need to understand something very important. The first thing is that being in a state of joy needs to be a constant. It doesn't say don't be happy. It says minimize a little and in other times it says increase in joy, meaning there's a right time for joy to be increased and a right time for joy to be decreased, but always be in joy and that's an obligation. We're always obligated to be happy. So what are these special days of the nine days, from Rosh Chodesh Av till Tisha B'Av till the ninth of Av, and what is just? So that we get an understanding, what is Tisha B'Av, what is the ninth of Av and how do we make it real? Every year in our calendar, we commemorate on the day. On this day of the ninth of Av, we commemorate the terrible tragedies that befell the Jewish people the tragedies of the first temple's destruction, the tragedy of the first temple's destruction, the tragedy of the second temple's destruction. So much pain, so much suffering, so much that the Jewish people endured. On this day in our calendar, this is a time where we just dedicate ourselves to the pain, to the pain of our people and to the pain of the Almighty, to the pain of our people and to the pain of the Almighty, to the pain of our Creator. So let's understand this a second. Where does this come from? Where does it originate from?

02:35
We remember we talked about this in our Parsha Review podcast, multiple times. In fact, in just a few portions ago, we talked about the spies. The spies, the Jewish people, were in the desert and the Jewish people were excited. They know that now they left Egypt, they're living in the desert. They're soon going to be going into the land of Israel. What happens when you're going to be in the land of Israel? We don't know. We have to send Mossad agents into the land of Israel so that they can spy on the land, so that we can know what the land is all about, what's really going on.

03:14
So, as the Torah tells us, a very tragic incident transpired Is that the spies 12 spies spies one spy representing each of the tribes 10 of the 12 tribes came back with a negative report and it wasn't it wasn't, um, really appropriate, because you don't talk negatively about the land of Israel. In fact, allah says that even complaining about the weather in the land of Israel is considered to be dibas, haaretz is slandering the land, because a land which is so holy, a land which is so perfect, shouldn't be slandered with our own lips. So we don't even complain about the weather in Israel, definitely not about the people. Even complain about the weather in Israel, definitely not about the people, definitely not about the terrain and definitely not about the challenges that we face, which we're going to talk about, some of the devastating challenges that, as a people, we've experienced with our land, in our land and out of our land, as a people as well.

04:22
The Jewish people, when they heard this negative report from these 10 spies, cried, and they cried in vain. They cried in vain. The torah says they cried and god says if you cry, I'm gonna have to give you something to cry about. It's sort of like we manifest. We know this whole like today it's a very hot word out there, manifesting but the truth is that we see this throughout the words of our sages, where our sages tell us you know, if you think good thoughts, good things will happen. If you think positive, it'll be positive. And if you think negative, if you think tragedy, you're just opening up the doorway for tragedy. And the Jewish people cried God says I'm going to give you something to cry about. And in fact both of our temples were destroyed on the same exact day, on the 9th of Av, on the 9th of Av. And that's why we have a day which is dedicated to mourning, to sorrow, to sadness, to tears, where our sages tell us it's a time for tears, where we sit on the floor in mourning and crying for all of the tragedies, not only this one tragedy of the temples being destroyed, but all of the tragedies that befell the Jewish people. So I struggle with this holiday. It's considered a moed.

05:50
We don't say tachanun, we don't say supplications, but we have special kinos, special prayers that we say, and we're going to learn just one of them. We're going to talk about one of them, but I want to share with you. You know, the third, kina. I think just the first part of it is so powerful. Just listen, listen for one second, one second. On this night, weep and wail shall my children, where God is talking to the Jewish people through this special prayer and God is saying for on this night, my holy temples were destroyed and burnt down, were my palaces. Imagine, god's home was burnt down. The entire house of Israel shall voice and lament about my agony V'yivku es asreifo, asreif Hashem. And they shall weep over the burning that Hashem has burned. So there's something which is very, very incredible here is that Hashem.

07:12
We've talked about this many times, particularly in our Thinking Talmudist podcast, where we talked about the importance of understanding pain and affliction. Pain and affliction, you know, as a people, it's really remarkable. We don't spend our time and our lives being angry at the British and being angry at the Spanish for the you know Inquisition and about the pogroms and about the germans in the holocaust. We don't spend our day we. We spend our time building anew. People who came to the united states with nothing were able to build beautiful, magnificent families with hundreds, if not thousands, of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Because they weren't busy sulking about the past, they weren't busy crying about the past. They said we have to move forward, except for one time a year, on the day of Tisha B'Av.

08:16
On the night of Tisha B'Av, the night of Tisha B'Av, when we're all fasting and we remove ourselves from the pleasures of Tisha B'Av. On the night of Tisha B'Av, the night of Tisha B'Av, when we're all fasting and we remove ourselves from the pleasures of this world, from eating and drinking and sitting high in a chair comfortably, we sit on the floor and we lament and we cry and we feel the pain of who? Of the Almighty? The Almighty's pain. The Almighty doesn't like to cause us to have affliction. The Almighty doesn't enjoy bringing pain upon us, but God needs to do it to guide us and direct us and get us to the place where we need to be.

09:05
This is one time a year that we stop and we say we feel terrible and we're going to sit on the floor and we're going to cry for all of the pain, for all of the suffering that we experience, that we cause the Almighty to bring upon us, that we experience, that we cause the Almighty to bring upon us Feeling Hashem's pain and feeling other people's pain is also part of this. If we are able to really feel someone else's pain, to know what someone else is going through, what they're experiencing, it can help us feel what God is experiencing. A parent doesn't want to see their child hurt, especially if the parent is the one who's inspiring that pain. God is our Father in heaven. He doesn't want to see us in pain, even though sometimes he has to allow it to happen, to bring us to the place we need to be, to become better, to improve, to enhance the way we live our lives. So it's a time to feel the pain of the destruction of our temples.

10:21
But the temple was destroyed over 2,000 years ago. So we're crying over a building that was burnt down 2,000 years ago and the one that was destroyed 400 years before that one. What are we doing? What are we doing that we're crying about a building? You know the World Trade Center was destroyed. I remember this as clear as day September 11th 2001. What a tragic day.

10:55
But do we mourn it every year on that anniversary, have a memorial, have a little ceremony and move on? It's not a national day of mourning, it's not a national day of sorrow. We remember those who fell and move on. We remember those who fell and move on. Here we have a day which is dedicated an entire 25 hours of fasting and we're mourning the destruction of a building. So we know there's something so important for us to understand here.

11:41
It says in the Torah and you shall make for me a temple and I will reside within you. That doesn't make any sense. You shall build for me a temple and I will reside within it. So why does the Torah say and I will reside within you? Because God doesn't need the building. God doesn't need a beautiful, magnificent edifice. God's not a physical being. It's a place where we as human beings, as physical creatures, can connect with God. It's a way for us to be able to connect beings, as physical creatures can connect with God. It's a way for us to be able to connect. So when we build that edifice, god says I'm not going to be in the building, I'm going to be in you.

12:32
But now that that building is gone, we are lacking that connection. We are lacking that v'shachanti b'tocham. It's more difficult for us to have God residing, so to speak, within us. We all have a piece of God within us. We all have that godliness deep within us, but it's sometimes more difficult to access it. And this destruction of easy access, where we could just go to the temple and we can bring an offering and we can feel that closeness with God, that's what we lack Today.

13:19
Today, this day of Tisha B'Av, that we fast and we mourn, we're mourning that we're lacking that closeness and that connection. Our current temple, our current temple within that's lacking. So how much do we feel the pain of others? And I wonder this particularly because we just commemorated the 650th day since our beloved brothers and sisters were taken hostage in Gaza. Do you know what that means? It means it's almost two years that they're sitting as hostages in the worst possible circumstances, in the worst possible. It's just unfathomable. And when you hear the stories from those who were released already in different hostage deals, it's unfathomable, it's inhumane. That's our temple burning. That's our own. Imagine their father and their mother and their brother and their sister and their children waiting for the day that they can have their parent back or their sibling back or their child back, to feel that pain. That's our modern day. Destruction of our temple. That's what we need to cry about, to make it into practical, our Temple.

15:03
Today it's our fallen soldiers. Close to 900 soldiers have been killed in this war and it's trash. Think of we just had hundreds and hundreds of ballistic missiles flying in from Iran and the great miracles that we witnessed, but how many homes have been destroyed? We thank Hashem, not so many lives have been taken. Even one is too many. But you think ballistic missiles can do a lot of damage. But with the thanks, with the gift of Hashem watching over us, it was a few dozen, but so many people lost their homes. They say I think it was 9,000 homes, 9,000 homes. People are now all displaced. People are without homes. They lost all of their family heirlooms. They lost all of their photo albums. You think, all of the, just the small things, the small things. That's something for us to feel the pain of others, any family that lost a loved one. It doesn't have to be to terror, it doesn't have to be in Israel. Family loses a dear, precious friend, a relative, a child, a parent. That's also something we can feel.

16:39
This is the time, the time of the ninth of Av, is the time for us to pour out our hearts and to say God, you're in pain. We're feeling that pain with you. Our brothers and sisters are in pain. We're feeling that pain with them as well. The objective of the temple was to create a bond with God, to feel the pain with God, to feel a closeness to God.

17:13
A proper relationship is that when one is happy, the other is happy, and when one is sad, the other is sad, because they reflect each other. In our relationship with God it needs to be the same. This is a time of sadness. We need to feel that sadness and to bring it into our daily experience, not the whole year. On the one day of Tisha B'Av, it's such an incredible day that it's called a holiday, it's called a moed, it's called a festival, even though it's a festival of mourning. Usually festivals, we bring out the good food and we make a beautiful brisket and we'll have wine and we'll have all of the delicious delicacies. This is a celebration of sadness. It's an important thing in every relationship. We know there are times where the relationship is hopefully very, very happy and very, very giving and trusting and there are times that sometimes in relationships it's sort of like it dips a little bit, but those dips, if they're properly managed, can lead to even better highs so you celebrate those lows.

18:39
A relationship can't always be on a high. Healthy human beings. We know we talk about this so much that in our spiritual growth we can't always be going up. You're going to have dips, you're going to drop, just like your heart rate. If you look at an EKG, it goes up and it goes down. It goes up, it goes down. Why can't it just be straight? Because if it flatlines, you're dead.

19:11
Living beings have ups and downs. We have ups and downs. That's the reality. Reality of life is that we have ups and downs In relationships. We have ups and downs. We have ups and downs. That's the reality. Reality of life is that we have ups and downs In relationships. We have ups and downs, but we have to not let downs keep us down. We have to use it as a springboard to an even higher high. We have to use it as an opportunity to take us to far greater heights.

19:44
Now imagine how many of Hashem's children are hostages to foreign cultures, not hostages in Gaza only, but how many of us are hostages when our mind is not free to serve God, where our bodies are not free to serve God, where our desires aren't free to serve God. Perhaps that's a message For us to realize that we need to break free from our own bondage. We need to break free from our own slavery, where we have a culture that has designed for us a way that we have to be going in a certain path, pursuing certain things. Maybe that's not our value system. Maybe that's not what God wants us to do. Maybe he wants us to invest a little bit more spiritually, to come closer. How many people don't even know that they're Jewish? How many people don't know what a Shabbos table looks like? I can guarantee you it brings tremendous pain to the Almighty. Perhaps today, the day of Tisha B'Av, is a time for us to connect and to pray that others are able to connect.

21:19
I want to bring one of the lamentations. It is so painful that I see all of these cities being built to their finest, but God's city is all the way rotten down at the bottom, broken to pieces. And notwithstanding that God's city is broken and shattered, we are committed to God and our eyes are always fixated on God. What does this mean? You look at all the cities, all the cities in the world. They're really magnificent. It's beautiful, beautiful buildings, beautiful architecture.

22:25
And what do we have in the land of Israel? What do we have in Jerusalem? We have nonstop conflict, nonstop conflict, nonstop fighting-stop, and we try to do whatever we can Under the Jewish rule of the now since 1948,. You have the Armenians, you have the Christians, you have the Muslims, you have the Jews, you have them all serving their religion in the old city of Jerusalem, and yet it's not enough. Everybody still claims that it's theirs, even though, biblically, the Torah tells us God gives us the land. It's our land, the Jewish people's land, the children of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, but still it's not built the way it should be built, because we still don't have our temple rebuilt in Jerusalem. When our temple will be rebuilt, then the city will be in its perfection. Other cities you look at New York City, magnificent towers. You look at France, you look at Paris, and you look at London and you look at Rome and you look at all of these beautiful, beautiful structures.

23:47
Jerusalem is not about structures. It's the Spirit of God that has been taken away. That has been taken away, and that's what we lament on this day of Tisha B'Av. The day of Tisha B'Av is a time of feeling the pain that sort of God is homeless. God wants to be in our midst, but we need to make it available for God. We need to open up our hearts. We need to open up our hearts. We need to open up our lives to the Almighty so that he can reside within us. Hashem should bless us all. That we should merit, because the Talmud says that in any generation that the Temple is not rebuilt in it, it's as if it was destroyed in it. So if we on this Tisha B'Av, don't have our temple rebuilt, we were as if it would have been destroyed in this generation, meaning we don't merit for it to stay built. Had it been around in our days, it would have been destroyed. That's a very damning conclusion. You're telling me that it's as if we didn't warrant having a temple in our generation. It's a devastating thing. It's devastating.

25:21
So what do we need to do? We need to, number one, feel a closeness to God. Once we feel that closeness to God, we can say you know what I feel, your pain. I'm going to do starting at home. Kindness begins at home, within my own self. I'm going to do starting at home. Kindness begins at home, within my own self. I'm going to open myself up more to you. God, I'll bring you into my life. I'm going to try to bring my friends in. I'm going to try to go and attend more at synagogue. I'm going to try to perform a mitzvah or two or three or four, slowly, in small steps, at synagogue. I'm going to try to perform a mitzvah or two or three or four, slowly, in small steps. I'm going to try to introduce godliness into my life, perhaps even reading the Torah portion every week Read it with the little measure says it's magnificent to get an understanding of our heritage, of our heritage.

26:17
It belongs to us, it of our heritage, of our heritage. It belongs to us, it's our inheritance To do something to ensure that we're building one more stone on the temple that will be rebuilt speedily in our days. Hashem should bless us all that this Tisha B'Av should be the last Tisha B'Av we ever need to observe. That this Tisha B'Av should be the last Tisha B'Av. We ever need to observe that this Tisha B'Av be the last one that we ever have a life without a temple, that God's home be rebuilt and that all of those who are seeking and searching and wanting a way to connect should find their way to connect, because we're all seeking, we're all searching for something, and there are so many who are thirsty to learn more about their own heritage, to learn more about the relationship with God that is within them already. Hashem should bless us all that. It should be a very, very meaningful, uplifting fast and hopefully the last one we ever need to experience. Amen.

27:26 - Intro (Announcement)
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