The Power of a Tear: The Secret of Crying Over the Destruction of the Temple

Lesson No. 35 | * Motzaei Shabbos Parashas Devarim, the night of the 10th of Menachem Av (delayed Tisha B'Av) 5755 - the night of the delayed Tisha B'Av in the Yeshiva

Tisha B'Av is not a day of mourning that falls upon us by surprise, but rather a time when we are required to awaken the heart to true crying over the destruction of the Temple and the suffering of the Jewish people. Through the conduct of tzaddikim, we learn how a single tear of truth is capable of melting the most sealed hearts and nullifying harsh decrees.

For seventy years, one must cry day and night. Tisha B'Av is not supposed to fall upon us suddenly in the middle of our plans and business affairs, as if to say, "I have nothing to do right now." We must cry over the destruction of the Temple all year round, every day without pause. A person needs to pray the Shemoneh Esrei, he needs to learn Gemara, he needs his mind to cry. If there is no Gemara—then there is no mind that can cry.

Rebbe Nasan of Breslov zt"l would cry at Chatzos (midnight). Every Tisha B'Av, Rebbe Nasan only cried. Immediately after the Minchah prayer on the eve of the fast concluded, he would lock himself in a room and cry until midday of the following day without stopping. He prayed Shacharis and recited Kinos (lamentations), but the crying did not cease for a moment. His student, Rebbe Nachman of Tulchin zt"l, acted similarly. He would sit in a corner and cry like Rebbe Nasan all night, until the light of morning.

The Mocker Who Melted from the Crying

Once, Rebbe Nachman of Tulchin arrived in a certain town on Tisha B'Av, perhaps Medvedevka. There was a certain mocker there; whenever anyone would cry over the Destruction, he would stand over their head, make fun of them, and pretend to cry along with them. When the mocker saw Rebbe Nachman of Tulchin sitting in the corner after the Minchah prayer and beginning to cry, he approached him.

Rebbe Nachman cried terrible cries, the way one cries over the dead. He cried over the fact that there is no Jerusalem, and if there is no Land of Israel, then there is nothing. He cried over the fact that Jews are killed every day, and he felt that all of this was our fault. Those who are killed are the true tzaddikim, and we are the wicked ones. If we had cried properly, no Jew would have been killed.

The mocker, who was looking to make a joke, saw a man crying genuinely and thought to make an even greater mockery out of him. He stood over Rebbe Nachman's head, but suddenly a wondrous thing happened: he started to cry along with him. He cried with him until the morning! He simply could not hold himself back. Rebbe Nachman's cries were so genuine and from the depths of the heart, that the biggest mocker melted. If we would cry truthfully, all the mockers in the generation would cry along with us.

Even the Walls and the Horses Cried

It is told of a certain maskil (an "enlightened" secularist) in Uman who entered the tziyun (gravesite) of Rebbe Nachman on Rosh Hashanah, and afterwards said to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Bender zt"l: "What can I say? Even the walls cried!" So too was the case with Rebbe Nasan's wagon driver. When they traveled on the rugged roads, full of potholes, Rebbe Nasan would scream terrible screams and cry on the jolting wagon. The wagon driver would later recount: "What can I tell you? Not only did Rebbe Nasan cry, even the horses cried!" When a tzaddik cries truthfully, the horses cry, the walls cry.

At the very least, a person should remember these things, and perhaps he too will merit to shed a tear over the terrible Destruction. As long as Mashiach has not come, we are in a state of terrible destruction.

"Every single day, its curse is greater than that of the previous one" (Sotah 49a)

There is what to cry about. We must cry over the past, and cry that there should be no tragedies in the future, both generally and individually. No person knows what will happen to him or his children in the next moment.

Crying Without Pause

The main thing is to remember that Tisha B'Av is not an "interruption" in the middle of life. A person wants to learn, to go to a wedding, to dance, and suddenly Tisha B'Av "falls" upon him. This is not the case. Just as one must dance and rejoice all of life without pause, so too must we cry over the Destruction without pause. On Simchas Torah we dance for twenty-four hours, and on Tisha B'Av we cry for twenty-four hours, but the inner intention must be that we would want to cry over this our entire lives, day and night.

We need to feel the Holocaust, to feel the victims who fall every day. All the Kinos that we recite were written about all the holocausts and calamities that the Jewish people have endured—from the destruction of the First and Second Temples, through the massacres of 1096 (Gezeiros Tatnav) and the Spanish Expulsion, up to the terrible Holocaust in our generation. The main thing is that a person should cry over the destruction of today, that he should know that we are still in a terrible destruction and in immense danger, as every day they rise up against us to destroy us.

One Tear in Jerusalem

The Sages tell us that Jeremiah the Prophet walked the roads all the way to Babylon and gathered the bones of the Jewish people.

"They have given the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the sky, the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth" (Tehillim 79:2)

Even if before the Destruction there were thugs among them, the moment a Jew is killed Al Kiddush Hashem (in sanctification of God's Name), he is called holy and all his sins are atoned for. Jeremiah gathered the bones and kissed every limb and every bone.

When Jeremiah arrived in Babylon, he saw everyone crying. Jeremiah said to them: "If you had shed a single tear in Jerusalem, all this destruction would not have happened!" When he warned about the destruction in Jerusalem, they laughed at him and threw him into a pit full of mud in the courtyard of the guard, where he almost drowned.

A person does not know what he can accomplish on Tisha B'Av. What salvations, miracles, and wonders he can draw down through a few tears that he manages to shed. Whoever merits to cry truthfully will certainly nullify all the decrees. May Hashem help that all the decrees truly be nullified from upon us, and may we merit the complete Geulah (Redemption) speedily in our days, Amen.

Part 1 of 2 — Lesson No. 35

Next Part ←

All Parts: Part 1 (Current) | Part 2