Motzei Tisha Be’Av and Erev Shabbat Nachamu, 5774
Cycle of Insanity
If, as Einstein is reputed to have said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then the corollary should be true as well: If you keep getting the same results when you are expecting different ones, you must be doing the same thing over and over again, and you are probably insane!
Every year (at least once) we say Le’Shanah Haba’ah Birushalayim (may we be redeemed in Yerushalim this time next year) indicating our desire end the milenia-old cycle of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem on, and leading up to, Tisha Be’Av. Yet, despite our wish, each year Tisha Be’Av comes around again….and again. There is a dissonance between these two experiences. We know the root cause of the destruction of the last Beit Mikdash, so we know what we need to do differently if we sincerely want to be redeemed in Yerushalayim next year. But we don’t actually do anything differently, or at least not in the area that would make the difference. We just keep saying Le’Shanah Haba’ah Birushalayim but acting in the same ways we always since the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash. So why would we expect a different outcome? We just keep getting the same results: an annual day of terrible mourning. We must be insane.
What is it that we should and could do differently, and can individuals make a difference?
From unearned hatred to unearned love
Sin’at chinam (unearned hatred) is the destructive force within responsible for the annual recurrence of Tisha Be’av.
“The First Mikdash was destroyed because of the three cardinal sins that were practiced at the time: Idolatry, imorality amd murder. But why was the Second Mikdash destroyed, considering that during its time they studied Torah, performed Mitzvot and performed acts of kindness? Because there was sin’at chinam (unearned hatred). This teaches us that unearned hatred is as serious a sin as the three cardinal sins together.” (Talmud, Yoma 9b)
To reverse the annual recurrence of Tisha Be’av we need to reverse the pattern of sin’at chinam (unearned hatred). Once we succesfully reverse it, the Temple will be rebuilt. However – and here’s the catch, the way to reverse the pattern of unearned hatred is not by stopping to show or feel unearned hatred. The opposite of something is not the absence of that thing, it is the presence of its opposite: The reverse of unearned hatred is not no hatred. The reverse of unearned hatred is unearned love, ahavat chinam. So, to change the pattern and get a different outcome, we need to act in the opposite way from the way we did at the time of the end of the Second Temple. We need to start showing people acts of love and kindness for no reason at all, we need to show them ahavat chinam.
How does one set about doing this? Is this not a superhuman ask?
Jewish Oneness
Vehavta le’reiacha kamocha (love your neighbor as yourself) is the clue to what unearned love is and how you show it. The love you show yourself, namely, the way you are sensitive to your own needs and respond to them, is instinctual, it is not a conscious value-choice. Similarly, the sensitivity we feel and the responsiveness we show towards the needs of another Jewish person sould also be instinctiual. We respond because we feel their pain or anguish, not as an analytical choice we make as to how to clinically triage the competing calls on our limited time and resources. We respond to a fellow Jew like we respond to the cries of our own babies; our response is an imediate, instinctual reaction, not a thought-out choice. We have no choice. That is the meaning of instinct and the essence of loving another as yourself.
This is the Oneness of the Jewish People. We are one organism and we respond to one another as we respond to ourselves. Ours is a Oneness that distinguishes us from all other nationalities. Our Oneness makes us so unique that Hashem wears a pair of Teffillin containing the verse: “And who is like your people, Israel, a Unique nation in the world,” a verse that reflects the Oneness of God which we declare three times a day in the verse “Shema Ysrael…Listen, Israel, Hashem our God is the God of Oneness.” (Talmud Berachot 6a).
Demonstrating unearned love would be a superhuman ask if we were a People made up of millions of separate individuals. But we are not. We are one organism. And it is not unnatural for an organism to take care of the needs of its parts unconditionally. Oneness is the platform for undeserved love. Why do we love the boys who were kidnapped, the soldiers who fought and those who fell? It is not only because they were serving us, but because they are ours. This is our chance to start doing things differently; we already have, we just need to continue feeling and acting as One. This is something that every individual can do. Every Jew is an Adam, and the idea of Adam is a microcosm of humankind. Each of us can make changes within ourselves that impact all of civilization.
You are called Adam
The Rabbi in the shul I attended in Beverly Hills last Shabbos, made reference to the allegation made during the famous 1913 Kiev trial of Menachem Mendel Beilis, that the Torah only regards Jews as human, not other races. Their allegation was based on the Gemarra that has Hashem say “You (the Jewish people) are called Adam, but the other nations of the world are not.” (Talmud Yevamot 61a – explaining why the dead body of a Jew causes Tum’ah whereas that of a gentile does not.) The allegation was refuted by Beilis’s Rav, Rabbi Mazeh of Moscow based on an interpretation attributed to a number of scholars, among them Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin, founder of the Daf Yomi movment. In his famous speech to the court, Rabbi Mazeh explained that the noun Adam has no plural form and as is not a noun at all but represents an idea. Adam connotes a specific group of humanity: a group of individuals melded into a single unit. Jews are the only nation that forms a single, unified organism. Other nations are circumstancial coalitions of many unconnected individuals. We Jews are not better than anyone else, he explained, we are different. Our difference is in this attribute of coalescence, in this we are unique.
In the past weeks the world has taught us about the Oneness of our People. We have been verbally and physically attacked and abused in most of the capitals of the Western world. These attacks have not targeted Israel specifically. Shuls, schools and private Jewish individuals have also been the targets of these attacks. The non-Jewish world regards every Jew as responsible for what was happening in Israel and Gaza. They are right to see us in this way. The battle in Gaza is every one of our battle. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh means that we are all guarantors for one another, we are partners in each other’s actions, for better and for worse. This is the nature of an organism. This is why it IS appropriate for one Jew to be concerned when another Jew acts incorrectly or inappropriately. This is why it IS the concern of every Jew when one Jew disregrards the Way of the Torah. This is why one Jew who causes a Chilul Hashem damages the stature of every Jew.
These past weeks it wasn’t only the non-Jewish world that understood our Oneness. We ourselves also experienced it in ways we haven’t since the Six Day War of 1967. Our Oneness as a nation was reignited by the terrible kidnapping and murder of our three young boys (notice how we all call them “ours” – we see them as our sons), and it persisted throughout the Gaza operation. Tisha Be’Av this year was more meaningful to most, than in any year of recent times.
Showing unearned love to another does more than enhance the life of that other person. Ahavat chinam also enhances the life of the person who shows it. It gives him chein.
Chein – and the Law of Attraction
Showing unearned love and kindness is a powerful force in the now popular idea of “the law of attraction,” or what we call chein. Chein is the charm and attractiveness that individuals radiate when they show unearned love to others. The word chein, comes from the word chinam (unearned, as in sin’at chinam – unearned hatred, matnat chinam – an unearned gift,) The charm of showing unearned love attracts not only the reciprocal love of others but also all manner of G-d’s abundant goodness. The chein that emanates from showing unearned love and kindness sets up an energy field around an individual that powerfully attracts the affection, generosity, empathy and blessing of other people and of Hashem.
The idea of chein is embedded in the title of the parsha this week and it’s opening phrase. Va’etchannan means “and I (Moshe) pleaded (to Hashem, to be allowed entrance into Eretz Yisrael).” The root of the word Va’etchannan is chein and chinam. One doesn’t plead for something one has earned or is entitled to. One pleads when one has exhausted all of ones entitlements and is asking for unearned kindness or sympathy. Moshe, having displayed the art of showing unearned love for his people so many times in his life, hopes that this will attract Hashem’s sympathy and His mercy. This, tragically for Moshe, was not to be.
This Shabbat is also Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort. The word nachamu, although not of the same root as chein or chinam, contains the same letters in a different order. We comfort one another whether or not we believe the other is deserving of comfort. When a Jew is in pain we react instinctually to comfort them. Comfort is an act of unearned love and when we comfort, we too are comforted. When we confort we also radiate a force of attraction, the force of chein.
So, what now?
And so what to do now? After Tisha Be’Av, and after the cesation of the fighting in Israel (at the time of writing), what are we to do? How do we maintain the Oneness and unity that enveloped our nation with a field of Kedusha for several weeks? Do we need ongoing vile anti-semitic attacks to remind us that we are a goy echad ba’aretz (nation of Oneness in the world), a single, integrated organism of a nation?
We have an opportunity to use the energy we genrated these past weeks as we discarded sinat chinam in favor of ahavat chinam (unearned love). Instead of resenting those whose views, affiliations or dress are different from ours, we have embraced one another as different parts of a single organism. If we have observed disfunctionality here and there, we have shown sympathy not hate, care and help not distance and accusation. These weeks the world has seen us at our greatest, but parts of it have detested us for the weakness that this very greatness has exposed in contemporary civilization. We cannot be destracted by their hatred. We dare not mimick them with hatred of our own.
Ahavat chinam, unearned love, is something every person can do right away, all the time, to disrupt the insane pattern of wishing for redemption but living by the values of exile. It is the easiest and most rewarding thing to do, it costs nothing and it is fun. Try it now in small ways: smile lovingly at a stranger and watch their reaction. Greet a stranger with warm (always genuine) enthusiasm. Look for opportunities around you to offer help to another person even in small ways: helping them with a package or luggage, holding a door open for them, keeping an elevator waiting while they rush towards it. Do it in the street, at work, while traveling. Do it on line and and by correspondence. Encourage people. Appreciate people. Uplift people. We all need encouragement and uplifting, we all appreciate being recognized and honored. The chein you radiate will attract beracha to you and to the other parts of the organism of which you are a part, to Klal Yisrael.
