Cry as we might...

Tonight is the night. The saddest night of the year. Three weeks of progressively deeper levels of mourning culminate tonight. The night if T'sha B'av. We will sit on the floor and listen to Eicha being read. We will sit in darkness without smiling to our friends. Tonight we cry for we are sitting in a house of mourning. We are grieving the loss of something great. We are bemoaning the galus that we are on. The Galut that we perpetuate every year for the lack of ahavat chinam. We mourn the galut that the shechina is in, the loss of spirituality that has engulfed the world. We mourn the loss of the jewish souls, the assimilation rate that grows higher and higher every year.

The loss is great, the sadness palpable, yet for some reason the tears don't come. We're told that this is the saddest day of the year. This is the day we mourn for all the tragedies that ever were bestowed upon Klal Yisrael. This is the day to cry. However, try as we might the tears don't come. For all the sadness that we feel, the last jodi picoult book you read probably evoked more emotion. Intellectually we know that we are supposed to cry, feel the pain and we've been  trying to get "in the mood" for three weeks now. but somehow this isn't enough. there is a Capella music to be listened to , heavenly salmon dished you've been meaning to try..we get around it. Some people actually enjoy the break from meat as they get to experiment with whole arrays of dairy delicacies. But this is not the point, and this will not lead us to a genuinely mournful state come T'sha B'av.

A friend recently shared this R'Aryeh Kaplan with me and its a great mashal i think. One walks into a shiva house. Father has passed away, left a large family and a young widow behind. There are tears all around. He was a respected member of the community, greatly loved by all. All who come speak in hushed tones, most on the verge of tears. The widow-inconsolable. Spotlight shifts to the youngest of the klan. He is sitting in the corner happily playing with the Lego's that his daddy had bought him. He knows that something not so happy has happened but hes not so sure what. All he knows is that he is happy where he is doing what hes doing. He cannot seem to understand why is everyone looking at him like that? Why are they all so sad? but he dismisses the thought faster than it appears and he is back to the world of make believe and he is happy.

we are that child, try as we might we cannot fathom what the loss of the spiritual epicenter of the world means. we have no idea of the majesty the Beit Hamikdash held. We don't have an inkling of what it means to live in kedusha, to daily feel the Shechina, what it means to go to the Navi to ask advice (is he my bashert?) That world is so removed from us that we cannot relate as much as we'd like to and as much as we strive to. Much like the three year old, he knows that its seems like he should be sad..but he has his toys; he is happy. now try and take away the toys from the little one, just try to take away one Lego..oh the tears oh the wails that will emanate from his little body, for that emptiness he feels!

we all have sadness in our lives. people who leave us, tests we fail, jobs we lose. The frustration at failing though you have given it your best. we have all experienced some sort of void or another. we all have times when we miss something so badly it hurts. Nebach a parent who loses a child, a child who loses a parent ( we should never know of it)  the pain is unbearable. The void is too great. with anything, when there is an emptiness the only way to overcome it is to fill the void or you will never move on. it is a coping mechanism. so we do, we fill the void however much we don't want to, and eventually move on. we often stop and wistfully remember the past, yet we have made it exactly that-the past, not the present and definitely not the future.

our mission tonight is too feel the void, endure what it feels like to have emptiness. We need to remember what it feels like to be incomplete. Hashem is mourning the loss of His children. He is crying for the void. We must summon up those feelings of pain and loneliness and then maybe just maybe we may begin to feel the pain  of the day!