Mi YIten Roshi Mayim…Would that my head were water and my eyes a fountain of flowing tears. That I would spend all my days and nights weeping for the slaughtered children and infants and elder of our congregation…for the young girls, a sweet children wrapped in their scrolls and dragged to the slaughter…trampled and discarded like trash in the street- I cry over the house of Israel and over the nation of G-d that has fallen by the sword.” Thus opens one of the most famous Kinnos, elegies in the Tisha B’Av Canon. This Kinna was written in the end of the11th century for the destruction of the Jewish community of Worms, Spyre and Maintz who were butchered by the Crusaders as they made their way to Israel on their Holy War in the spring of 1096. One story that the Kinna laments is what occurred in Worms on Sunday May 18th, 1096. A large force of Crusaders led by a certain Count Emicho mercilessly attacked the Jews of Worms who had remained confidently in their homes. There they felt safe relying on the promises of protection offered by their Christian neighbors. Many were slain by the Crusaders and their small children were seized for forced baptism. Jewish homes were pillaged and destroyed The greedy mob even stole their clothing and tossed their bodies to the streets. Some Jews found refuge in the Bishops palace. But eventually the crusaders broke down the palace walls and slaughtered the Jews as they recited Hallel on their lips.
In addition to this Kinna being famous for lamenting the Crusades, it is famous for another reason. It is the first Kinna we recite Tisha Bav morning not connected to the destruction of the Temples. And the KInna itself addresses itself to this issue. It says: “That it is incumbent upon each generation to lament and eulogize the calamity, because one cannot add a holiday of mourning outside of Tisha Ba”v. “Ein Lhosif Moed Shever V”Taveirah”. This is indeed a very important Jewish doctrine. that all suffering is anchored in Tisha BAv/ And that we must subsume all tragedy in the tragedy of the destruction of the Temples.
It is in this light that the OU shared a Kinna for tragedy of October 7th that we plan to recite this year. It is fact modeled very much after the words in the Kinna for the Crusades. There is another one written for Beeri that I will share a few verses with you this morning. It goes:
What is the significance of the fact that we do this? What is the meaning of subsuming all tragedy in Tisha B’Av? There are two main ideas I would like to talk about this morning. The first is that it reminds us that the root of all tragedy is in the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash. Meaning to say, when the Beis HaMikdash stood, G-d dwelled amongst us. That is the whole idea of the Beis HaMikdash V’Asu Li Mikdash V’Shachanti B’Socham. Make a Temple that I should live amongst the people. It is our sins, our rejection of HaShem and his Torah that cause hsi presence to recede. Once G-ds presence recedes, we now love in a world of Hester Panim. Where we cant perceive G-d. And we are subject to the elements. Those who seek our destruction are now free to do so. It is this lost connection to G-d that fuels the punishment.
But there is a very uplifting and positive reason as well that we anchor these days in Tisha B’Av. And I think Avital Sharansky, daughter of the famous refuse nick Natan Sharansky really captured it in article she wrote in the Time of Israel titled: As dangers loom, our ancestors give me strength. You see Avital lives in Israel and she addressing the profound tension we all feel this week as we wait for Iran and Hezbollah to attack the cities of Israel with thousands of rockets. Addressing the fear and tension that may exist she said: On the first of Av, 586 BCE, some Jewish mother inside Jerusalem must have been feeding her baby, even as Babylonian soldiers were fighting against the last Judean defenders three streets… two streets… one street away. A different Jewish mom was changing diapers (or their ancient equivalent) as the Romans stormed through Jerusalem centuries later. And yet a different Jewish mom sang her kids to sleep in the ghetto. Someone might look at this truth and deem it tragic. How fragile life is, this theoretical someone might exclaim. How sad, that so many little acts of love were doomed to be swept aside and into death by the catastrophes that loomed above them. I choose to look at this same truth and marvel at the tenacity of our ancestors, at their courage. And on this first of Av, 2024 CE, as I pack my son’s lunch for camp, I feel that ancient courage flowing through my veins. I am not afraid today. Nor shall I allow the possible future to stop me from living, loving, now. And, what’s more, I can’t help but feel that my great-great-great-grandmothers, all those brave women who went on living, are looking at me – at us – with awe and pride and satisfaction. Because we continue their legacy of living on even in the shade of possible catastrophe, but we have so much more power than they did to shape our national reality. I think of the ancient Jewish woman who saw the Roman coin that depicted Judea Capta, captured Judea, in the shape of a captive woman. I think of how she saw her own fate imprinted in that coin, in the product of her captors. I think of the courage she embraced when she chose to keep on living, even thus. Her courage, and the courage of countless Jewish women and men like her in the millennia behind us, brought us to this day. A day when our enemies no longer have the power to coin our future for us. A day in which we will go on purchasing the future we want to give our children with our little daily choices to keep on going, keep on living.
This is the other reason we subsume all tragedies in Tisha B’Av. Because it reminds us that while so many generations have faced wanton destruction and tragedy- Netzach Yisrael Lo Yishaker- the eternity of Israel shall not falter. G-d will not abandon his people!
My friends, we have lived through the worst massacre of Jews in our lifetimes. We have seen images that harken back to the Crusades and the programs. We have seen the images portrayed by that Kinna of naked Jewish bodies littered in the street. If anyone had trouble connecting to Tisha B’Av in previous years, wondering why we cry for a 2000-year-old Temple- just think back to last Simchas Torah and you have your answer. But simultaneously, let us not only see the tragedy in Tisha B’Av let us see the hope in Tisha B’Av. The Emunah that pulsates through each word uttered on Tisha B’Av. And be reminded that Netzach Yisrael Lo Yishaker- the eternity of Israel shall not falter. It did not falter in after the first Temple, it did not falter after the second temple, it did not falter after the Crusades, It did not falter after the Holocaust- and it will not falter today!! Am Yisrael Chai.