Timeless Torah

Jewish holidays are not mere memorials of ancient events. To follow the secular vogue and shift the date of a festival to create a conveniently long weekend would not only be distasteful and sacrilegious; it would miss the point entirely. Emanations of holiness reach the world on the Shabbat; streams of forgiveness on Yom Kippur, and heavenly drops of freedom revive us on Passover. These distinct forms of holiness however can only wend their way into our souls and our lives on those specific days. Just as there are times of joy, there are moments of sadness. Jewish mysticism explains that the forty days from the beginning of Tammuz until the ninth of Av are times of Jewish travail and foreboding. It was during those days that the twelve spies sent by Moses, traversed the Promised Land with the mission of seeing its goodness, thereby conquering the potential for tragedy.
Instead, the spies only noticed the danger they would face in a military expedition against the giants that inhabited the land. As the Arizal (leader of the kabbalists in Zefat, 1500’s) points out, had the spies not lost their faith and their courage, then the evil potential of those forty days would have been forever destroyed. Unfortunately, the scouts returned with their demoralizing report and the people wept through the night. In response, G-d said. “Tonight you cried in vain. I will establish this day as a time of weeping for all generations.”
Nine centuries later on that very day the first Temple was destroyed. This prompted the prophet of that time, Jeremiah, to lament, “She (Israel) weeps bitterly in the night and her tear is on her cheek.” The Zohar notes that although the gates of prayer have been closed since the destruction of the Temple, the gates of weeping were not shut. Nevertheless, only weeping motivated by repentance is accepted, not tears of pain and suffering. Thus, Jeremiah, wished to convey that even after the dissolution of their Temple and their country, the Jewish cry was not associated with teshuvah (repentance). Consequently, their tears did not ascend. They simply, “remained on her cheek.”
Today, our land is being handed on a silver platter to the Arabs. Of course, there are those who wail and bemoan our current political reality. But are their tears just an excuse to vent their frustration or are they willing to better themselves and ultimately their fellow Jews? The difference will tell in the destination of their tears.