Are You All Crying Together Over the Destruction? You Will Be Redeemed! Parshat

"These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Arabah, opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di Zahab"

Rashi says that "Di Zahab" refers to the sin of the Golden Calf. When Moses our Teacher rebukes Israel for the most terrible and greatest sins, he only speaks in hints. And it is difficult—after all, Moses could have spoken explicitly; why did he have to speak in hints? The Komarner explains that Moses our Teacher was afraid that judgments would be awakened against Israel, because one must never give rebuke [directly], for when we give rebuke, a person becomes a deliberate sinner (*mezid*). Until now, he sinned, he didn't pay attention, he didn't know what was happening to him, he forgot his sin; he was an "inadvertent sinner" (*shogeg*). But if one rebukes a person, reminds him of the sin, and he does not awaken, then he becomes a "deliberate sinner." So Moses was afraid that perhaps Israel would not feel remorse and would not perform teshuvah (repentance) as they should; therefore, he was afraid to speak rebukes explicitly and only rebuked them in hints. Moses gained two things: that if someone did not awaken from the hints, did not remember that he sinned, did not awaken, and did not understand the hint, then there is no judgment upon him (he remains in the category of "inadvertent"). The second gain was for those who study Torah with depth and contemplation, and it is a rule that through studying Torah with depth and contemplation, judgments are sweetened. To them, Moses spoke in hints, so that here too they would merit the sweetening of judgments through deepening and contemplating every single word he spoke. For a person who delves into and contemplates the hints of the tzaddik, every single word, what the tzaddik intends—this alone sweetens the judgment for him and is itself his teshuvah, and consequently, he will merit to awaken and rectify his sins.

To bring Mashiach—Rebbe Nathan says—is to sit on the ground, crying and mourning over the destruction. And what are we mourning? My own transgressions, to believe that I am the one destroying the Holy Temple, only me and no one else but me. When I do not guard my eyes, I destroy Jerusalem and cause a spirit of impurity in Jerusalem. And through a person performing hitbodedut (secluded prayer), nullifying himself, searching his deeds, and attributing the destruction to himself, only in this way will the Geulah (Redemption) come!

What is hitbodedut? Hitbodedut is only one thing: to reach nullification, to know that I am zero and nothing, and that there will be no pride and no substance in me. Because a person thinks all day, "I am the wisest, I am the smartest, the most successful, the most learned," 24 hours a day thinking thoughts of pride about himself, and he has evidence for it—that he is the most successful, the luckiest, and the smartest. His head works all day, because the mind is infinite. If we could open the brain, we would see a million thoughts per second, "I am the smartest, the wisest, the most successful..."

Hitbodedut is very simple: let us start a whole hour to stop the sequence of thoughts. You need to relax a little; you are not the "most, most, most"... There are other wise people in the world, there are other successful people in the world, there are other people who understand in the world. Your soul is miserable; it cannot return to its root. It wants to be "nothing" (*ayin*); the soul is Divine, it does not want to hear these fantasies. Give it a rest for one hour a day!

And the essence of hitbodedut, the Rebbe says, is at night. ("For then is the essence of the perfection of hitbodedut, for then precisely one can come to the level of nullification mentioned above"—Likutey Moharan 52). And for this, one specifically needs the night, quiet, when no one is really thinking now about how to get dollars and how to run to the bank, etc. At the hour when everyone is sleeping, dormant, then sit and perform hitbodedut and work on humility. And only such hitbodedut nullifies all decrees and all judgments. And if, Heaven forbid, one sees a decree during the time of hitbodedut, it is a sign that I did not perform hitbodedut correctly. I performed hitbodedut to be Moses our Teacher, I performed hitbodedut to see Elijah the Prophet, to bring the Mashiach—which are all wonderful wishes, but that is not the purpose of hitbodedut. And truly, when a person performs hitbodedut and sits on the ground and knows—every moment I am mistaken, every thought of mine, every criticism of mine, and every judgment of mine, and every look of mine, everything is mistakes—then the complete Geulah will immediately come, speedily in our days.

"The Sorrow of the Shechinah"

One person came to comfort a widow, and she had many sons, and every single son of hers had very many troubles, and suffering, and terrible difficulties. And he began to comfort each child, each one with his troubles, until he arrived to comfort the widow. And then the widow said to him, "Every child has his own sorrow, but I, in addition to my own sorrow, suffer the sorrow of everyone..." How is it possible to describe the sorrow of this widow?!

The widow is the Shechinah (Divine Presence). What happens is that people forget entirely that there is a Shechinah, they forget that there is the sorrow of the collective; everyone is with their own sorrow, everyone with their own suffering, everyone with their own difficulties.

Truly terrible difficulties! But the greatest sorrow is that we are sunken in our private sorrow; we do not succeed in awakening and rising and reaching the root of all things, where we sinned, at the Cause of all causes and the Prime Mover of all movers, and there we failed and separated, through our sins, Hashem from the Shechinah.

Usually, everyone is sunken in their own troubles; even if they hear the troubles of another, they say "oy, oy," sigh for him a little, help him a little, comfort him, visit him, and afterward return into themselves. But Tisha B'Av is a special day when one succeeds in rising and shedding a tear for the collective. Tisha B'Av is a day such that our Sages succeeded, through all the Kinot (Lamentations) and the mourning, with all the tradition of all the great leaders of Israel in all generations, to instill in the people of Israel the "sorrow of the collective," the sorrow of the Shechinah, the true destruction, which is the destruction of the entire nation, and it is to exit the sorrow of the individual and reach the sorrow of the collective.

And it is told about Napoleon that he arrived on Tisha B'Av to the synagogue and saw an entire congregation sitting and crying and mourning. He asked them, "Why are you crying? What are you crying about?" They said to him, "About the destruction of our Holy Temple." He asked, "When was the destruction?" They answered him, "Two thousand years ago." He said to them, "If so, I believe that you will be redeemed, I believe that you have a future, I believe that you have a holy mission in the world, because if you are capable, an entire nation, everywhere, in all synagogues, in all corners of the globe, not to forget what happened two thousand years ago, and to continue to cry and mourn, and to think about it, that means that you are connected to your roots, and you have hope to reach the ultimate goal, to reach the building of your Holy Temple." And through everyone sitting and crying and mourning, and connecting to his roots, to the Prime Mover of all movers, to the Cause of all causes, and participating in the sorrow of the collective, in the sorrow of the Shechinah, through this he will merit to see the Geulah. As it is written, "Whoever mourns for Jerusalem merits and sees her joy" (Taanit 30b).