CHOCHMAS NASHIM: I PONDER THE KOTEL/BE’ERI
By: Suri Davis
These three weeks, are the beginning of a trajectory of reflection which extends from the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz, through Tisha B’av, going into the shofar blowing starting in Elul, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, and the other day on the horizon, which has become to us Jews as a day in infamy.
And I ponder out loud with you. We talk about making Aliyah as our going home. We go to the Kotel to daven and we see a scrubbed wall. I ask you to visualize with me. We have all seen the pictures of the burnt our homes in Be’eri and other communities decimated by the terrorists, and ask you to visit this with me. I ask you where you live, and you say 100 Main Street. We go together to Main Street and when we get there, the house is gone, it is a plot of land. Are you home?
We can place a chair on the plot of land and sit there together and reminisce about what we did when the house was standing. We can envision the living room where we played Rummicub. We can recall the kitchen where we made Rosh Hashanah honey cookies together, and the dining room where the family gathered for simchas/happy occasions and Shabbos and holiday dinners. We can recall the grand days.
But I ask you, if you have visited Be’eri and saw the destruction and burnt homes, would you say that the surviving residents are home? They stand in the place where their homes were. They see remnants, blood-stained dolls, burned couches, they don’t feel at home, they are overwhelmed by the destruction of their home, of their safety, of the place where family came to, to be a family, byachad, together.
I hate to say this to you, but you can go to Israel, our land, but our home is gone. It is still burned out, it is still in the state of destruction with one wall remaining, SHUALIM HILCHU BO/FOXES HAVE OVERRUN IT, by placing the Al Aqsa Mosque as a la’g v’keles/as a shameful tease to remind us that our temple is very much destroyed and still in the hands of the enemy. If we could not envision and feel what it was like thousands of years ago when the enemy came for us, men, women and children, burned our homes, destroyed our farms and took us into captivity, we have a new visual, a very real visual a 306 day understanding of the vulnerability of being at the enemy’s mercy.
We rested on our laurels, as we have done time immemorial stating KOCHI V’ETZEM YADI/IT IS BY OUR MIGHT THAT WE SURVIVE, one of the stronges armies in the world, the Israeli army, but as Lamentations which we read this Monday night reveals, when G-d has drawn a circle to destroy, there can be no one who can change that decree. Almost a year later, and the Israel and United States army cannot release 100 hostages held by the enemy, because G-d has decreed it so, and that is our lesson.
We can go to our plot of land called Israel, but our home, the Temple, is still in a state of destruction, with the enemy sitting atop it, that is the fact. The residents of the South, and the North pine to go home to rebuild, we need to tap into that real desire to daven deeply that G-d permits us to rebuild, that we are deserving of a new home.
The prior generations were able to visualize what is written in Lamentations when comfortable Jews were taken from their homes and placed in cattle cars and placed in concentration camps. We have a stronger visual as we say Eichah this year for the destruction occurred in Israel, and those who were taken into captivity were taken from the holy land of Israel.
We see memes and pictures of those making Aliyah, telling us they are home, I have to say that they are baderech, they are on the way home. As I mentioned several weeks ago, Rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi, quoting the Maharal from Prague’s book, Netzach Yisrael, tells us that Rachel Imeinu was buried “baderech,” on the way. She wasn’t buried with the other patriarchs and matriarchs who are buried together in their home. Rachel continues to yearn for home, she continues to pine for the rebuilding of the Temple, she continues to urge G-d to return those in captivity and in exile, BRING THEM HOME, she cries continuously to G-d. BUT IT IS IN G-D’S HANDS ONLY, tempered by our prayers, our good deeds, our yearning not merely for an empty plot of land with our house burnt out and destroyed for thousands of years, but we want to go home, to that plot of land that has a functioning home, where we can be together as a national family and meet with G-d to serve Him as Father to son and daughter.
Yes, the residents of Be’eri want to return to their community, there is a pull. Their old homes are a source of memories, they want to rebuild new homes, which are a source of hope, renewal and unity, new dinners, new happy occasions, healing from the past of destruction. They are the paradigm for the Jewish family at large united in Israel and the diaspora as set forth by Israel President Herzog yesterday. We are a nation inextricably connected with a common past and future destiny. AM YISRAEL CHAI, the nation of Israel lives eternally.
As we fast and read Eichah this year, let us make a note to give tzedakah first and while we feel deeply the words at the end of Eichah: KI IM MAOS MAASTANU, KATZAFTA ALEINU AD MEOD/FOR IF YOU HAVE UTTERLY REJECTED US, YOU HAVE ALREADY POURED OUT YOUR ANGER EXCEEDINGLY. At the very end let us meditate and state deeply HASHIVENU HASHEM EILECHAH V’NASHUVA, CHADESH YAMEINU KIKEDEM/RETURN US TO YOU G-D AND WE WILL RETURN, RENEW OUR DAYS AS THE SPIRITUAL DAYS OF OLD [AS IN THE AGE OF THE HOLY TEMPLES]
Have a meaningful fast.
Good Shabbos.
-Suri