על אלה אני בוכיה

When I was younger I spent four summers at Camp Moshava. When people ask me why I made aliyah, I tell them it is all Bnei Akiva's fault. There is much to say about my experiences at Moshava. It's hard to say I had a blast. I learned what it meant to be a Jewish kid from Boston in a sea of New Yorkers. For whatever reason I kept going back, and the brainwashing continued. The staff at Moshava took a two-pronged attack. The word "aliyah" was said on average every ten minutes. There was lots of flag waving, and we were constantly told that moving to Israel was the best thing ever. We dressed up like pioneers arriving in Israel for the first time and nearly every shiur was about the holiness of the land. On the flip side, Tisha B'Av was an incredibly intense day. At camp they were really into setting things on fire. Thinking back, watching an outline of the walls of Jerusalem seems almost tacky, but it was a powerful image for an eleven year old to see. At camp we did everything from the egg dipped in ashes the evening before to sitting on the floor for most of Tisha B'Av day. There were depressing movies to watch, stories about the Holocaust told, and everything was done to make us feel the sadness of the day. I was at Moshava for Tisha B'Av for ages 10-13. When I was 14 I was on an NCSY program in Israel and we read Eicha on Mount Scopus overlooking the Temple Mount. The next year I was in Newton, and it was almost a culture shock. My family does not have the tradition of an egg dipped in ashes and while there was Tisha B'Av programming out there, it hardly compared to what I had experienced the five previous summers.

Tisha B'Av 2007 was very strange for me. It was just a few weeks before I made aliyah. While I attempted to feel sad about the lack of a Beit HaMikdash and what we no longer have as Jewish people, I couldn't help feeling the excitement of moving to Israel and of the miracle that Israel exists once again as a Jewish homeland. Once the nine days and Tisha B'Av were over, I could finally make the final arrangements and purchases for my aliyah. I still think about that summer and the brainwashing (debated putting that in quotes, but lets be honest) that took place those four summers at Moshava. After nearly three years living in Israel, I am no doubt still thrilled to be here. I am living the dream and being part of the miracle that is modern day Israel. At the same time, I miss the blissful Zionism instilled in me as a young teenager. When in takes me several tries to convince Bituach Leumi that I do not owe them hundreds of shekels, it's hard to get excited about being here. Tisha B'Av poses another challenge. While there is plenty to mourn in Jewish History and the current state of things for the Jewish people and Israel, at the same time I find much to celebrate every day when I look around and see how far we have come.

כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה
"Everyone who mourns for Jerusalem merits and sees her in her happiness"

This morning I read about this idea in Yitchak Mirsky's book הגיוני הלכה (a present from my brother upon graduating high school a heading off for a year at HaRova, where the brainwashing continued and aliyah became a true part of my life plan). The question is raised, why is it in the present tense? Shouldn't it be that one who mourns Jerusalem will in the future merit and see her in her happiness? A comparison is made to Yosef's brothers attempting to comfort Yaakov when Yaakov thought Yosef was dead. Yaakov could not be comforted, and over time he realized that the reason he could not be comforted was that he knew Yosef was still alive and that they would one day be reunited. There is a similar idea with the pasuk about Rachel Imeinu crying for her children until they come home to their land. She is crying in the present because she knows her children are still alive and that they can one day come back.

When we mourn for the Beit HaMikdash and what once was, it is not like mourning for a person. There is no set timeline for mourning after which we move on and enjoy the memories but no longer feel sad. By actively mourning for Jerusalem, we remain aware that it can be rebuilt, and we see the opportunities for bringing things back to how they once were. That is why one who mourns "merits and sees" in the present and not future tense. We are like Yaakov mourning for Yosef. We know we can be reunited with the שכינה in Jerusalem and in our lives in general.

On Sunday night before Tisha B'Av I went to two shiurim by Rav Alex Israel and Rav Binny Lau in preparation for Tisha B'Av and in memory of Marc Weinberg z"l, a close friend and former neighbor of my friends in Modiin. Rav Alex talked about the different portrayals of God in Eicha and how the authors relates to Him. It is different in each chapter. In one Yirmiyahu is yelling at God for the misery He has caused, and another is more about bemoaning the actions of the Jewish people that brought upon the destruction the punishment described. Rav Lau made an interesting point about the Tisha B'Av experience. On Tisha B'Av we force ourselves to miss. We do it because it's what we're supposed to do, and while the feelings may truly be within us, they are not felt naturally. He explained further that when it really comes down to it, we're not just missing what we once had. What we're missing and feeling bad about is our actions- how we behaved and the opportunities that were lost.

While I am not sure if this was Rav Lau's intention, it gave me a new perspective on Tisha B'Av. I think fasting, sitting on the floor, and the other restrictions we place upon ourselves on Tisha B'Av are important, but I think there is a more active role we can play in experiencing the essence of the day. We can mourn for what we lost and pray for it all to come back, but we need to take more active roles in realizing our own potentials in this process. As much as I celebrate the accomplishments of Israel, I am very much aware of the problems here. I know that last night in a few places there were panel discussions intended to create a dialogue between secular and religious Jews. This is definitely a good step. I have been thinking about what I wrote on the essay I submitted to Nefesh B'Nefesh when I applied for aliyah. I wrote that one reason I wanted to make aliyah was I felt I had much contribute and that it would be more meaningful for me to make this contributions to society in Israel.

On Yom Haatzmaut as my roommate and I partied in town into the wee hours of the night, I told her that I was grateful for Yom Haatzmaut because it brought me back to the excited-brainwashed-Zionistic teenager I was as a camper at Moshava. On our way to town we were stuck behind this huge group of teenagers that kept spontaneously bursting song, often getting random passersby to join in. It was exactly what a needed -- a reminder of how I turned the brainwashing into a personal dream and now a reality. This new take on Tisha B'Av is helping me put the other half of things into perspective. One one hand I am never about to downplay the tragedy that was the destruction of Jerusalem, pogroms, the Holocaust, and the countless random acts of cruelty done to Jews around the world on an almost daily basis. On the other hand I know that if I'm going to miss what once was, I have to force myself to do so. I can stare out my window towards the Old City walls (which I can barely see from my room) and wonder about what it was like, but missing it takes something extra.

The type of mourning we demand of ourselves on Tisha B'Av is very unique, but I definitely understand why the phrase above is in the present tense. If we can appropriately mourn for Jerusalem, it means we can become aware of what it will take to, at this moment, appreciate the merit of seeing it in her happiness-- the happiness of 1948, 1967, the continued flourishing of our homeland.