Opinion & Comment
What We Once Had

It is said that the philosopher Plato found the prophet Yirmiyohu bitterly lamenting the destruction of the First Temple. He saw a man drenched in his own tears, who knew no consolation, who behaved as if all had been lost. He thought this man must be crazy. Plato asked who the lamenter was, and was told that he was a great sage and prophet. A man of supreme wisdom.

Plato approached Yirmiyohu: "Is it appropriate for a wise man such as yourself to cry over the past? The Temple is already burnt. It is no more. The past does not exist. What does it help for you to cry?"

Yirmiyohu answered him: "I cannot answer your question because you will not understand the answer."

Why couldn't Plato understand--wasn't he also a man of wisdom? Why can't we explain to an intelligent non-Jew what we are crying about?

First, let us explain it to ourselves.

Happiness can be a sought-after and even elusive commodity in a world full of trouble and strife. Even rarer is a joy so powerful that it extinguishes all sorrow and pain: "When the Temple stood, no Jew felt pained. Why? A person would go there full of sins, offer a sacrifice, and receive atonement. There is no joy greater than that... as it is written, `Joy of all the earth, Mount Zion...'" (Tehillim 48:3; Midrash Rabbah Tetzaveh 36:1).

The cosmetic happiness promised by the pleasures and entertainments of today's world have fooled many into thinking that this is what joy is all about.

A Jew of Temple times held no such illusions. He knew the transcendent experience of reuniting with his Creator and starting a new and purified life: he felt the power of atonement. And he was aware that from now on, whatever had been troubling him was just part of the past. For Hashem only brings suffering to a person because of his sins, to awaken him to repentance. So a Jew who offered a sacrifice in the Temple and achieved atonement had reached a state of joy in which no pain would come to trouble him!

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HaRav Nosson Meir Wachtfogel zt'l, mashgiach of Yeshivas Lakewood, shares pleasant memories with us. "I remember the feeling of pleasantness that we had on Shabbos kodesh in the yeshiva of Kelm. When the war broke out, all foreign citizens had to go to Warsaw, to the embassy, to procure the necessary documents. On our way home we took a taxi for a hundred dollars in order to be back in the yeshiva of Kelm for Shabbos. [At that time, a person could subsist for a week on ten dollars.]

"R. Doniel zt"l [grandson-in-law of the Alter of Kelm] asked us, `Why did you pay so much money to be in Kelm for Shabbos? Wouldn't it have been better to give the money to tzedokoh?'

"We answered him, `We did not do it for Olom Habo. We did it for Olom Hazeh!'

"That's how pleasant it was to be in Kelm on Shabbos kodesh. Also, it was the leading center of tefilloh for the entire generation. The Chofetz Chaim told HaRav Elchonon Wasserman zt"l that Kelm is the world's center of tefilloh, and indeed HaRav Elchonon used to come to Kelm for the Yomim Noraim after the Chofetz Chaim passed away.

"When we consider the fact that Kelm, however pleasant it was, was nothing compared to Jerusalem, we can understand a little of the pleasantness that a person felt when he was in Jerusalem. Thinking along these lines makes us able to properly mourn for Jerusalem" (Noam Hamussar pp. 211- 212).

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Let us not be satisfied with our present state of affairs. Thus wrote R. Pinchos Eliyohu Horowitz of Vilna: "I devoted myself, with all my heart, to discovering the reason why this exile is so long. Indeed, much Torah is being studied today. The people are learning much Mishnah, Gemora, Halochoh, and also Kabboloh. But the Redeemer has yet to come to Zion.

"Furthermore, many people are praying with all their strength and energy. Yet they cry out and are not answered.

"Not only that, but many people are accumulating large numbers of mitzvos, until they are `full of mitzvos as a pomegranate is full of seeds.' The hour of Redemption, however, has not arrived.

"If we possess these three merits but have not yet returned to our land, what remains for us to do? We do not know what else to do to find favor in the eyes of the Almighty.

"I realized that there must be some negative element counteracting these merits, which is providing the Satan entry and enabling him to weaken the effect of these three merits. As Shlomo Hamelech said, one dead fly can spoil much perfumed oil (Koheles 10:1). I searched for this negative element, and found it.

"All three groups (study, prayer, and mitzvah-doing) are acting only for the sake of themselves and their own benefit; not to redeem the Holy One Blessed be He and the Shechinah from exile. Each Jew thinks along personal lines and seeks private benefit. Through his Torah, prayers, or mitzvos, he intends to acquire for himself a choice place in Gan Eden and the World to Come. And he wishes to see success in his endeavors in this world, as well as live a long life with his spouse and children.

"This Jew's only desire and aspiration is to have a respectable income and to be fortunate enough to build a spacious house with a nicely-paved courtyard. He wishes to become well-established so that his children and the grandchildren who will be born to him in this foreign land should inherit his estate. He looks forward to seeing satisfaction from his offspring and living a long life in this exile. After passing away at a ripe old age, he wants to be eulogized at the shul by the rabbi and Torah scholars of the city, and then be escorted to burial by a great crowd of wailing mourners. This is the sum total of what a Jew hopes to achieve in this exile.

"Yes, he constantly speaks about `the coming of the Moshiach.' But it is mere words unaccompanied by an earnest desire. Every holiday we say, `Next year in Jerusalem.' Not today, not tomorrow; we push it off an entire year.

"Even then he doesn't truly want it. He first wants to finish building his house, which needs a few years' more work. And he has to conclude his long-term business deals.

"Therefore, my brothers, my people, you should know that as long as we do not intend that our Torah, prayers, and mitzvos should be solely for the redemption of the Holy One Blessed be He and the Shechinah, our Moshiach surely will not come. For G-d treats us measure for measure. He says: `You are only concerned with yourselves, not with Me. Therefore I will not be concerned with you either.'

"We must not rely on the merit and prayers of an outstanding tzaddik, or of those greater than ourselves, to bring the Redeemer. For only He Who sees into the heart knows who is truly great; someone who sees only with human eyes cannot know. Every single Jew--even if he is not a scholar and lacks Torah education--is obligated to fight for our Father in Heaven, to bring Him to reign over the earth. Through the mitzvos he does, he must fight and battle on behalf of our Land, the inheritance of our forefathers, the Land of Israel.

"Don't say to yourself, `Who am I, and what level am I on, that my mitzvos should be powerful enough to bring about such a great thing?' Although a certain individual might not be on a high level, the mitzvah itself is very lofty. It possesses enough power to bring this about--if the person would only intend when doing it that the Holy One Blessed be He and the Shechinah should be released from exile.

"If we will do this, the time of our deliverance will quickly arrive. Zion will be rebuilt . . . soon in our days" (Sefer HaBris p. 164, cited in Sefer Rachmono Libo Bo'i pp. 72-75).

The affluence of modern society tends to drug us. It wants us to forget what true happiness and good fortune is. When our gedolim shake us awake and point out to us what we lost, the only sane reaction is to cry.

Why can this not be explained to an intelligent non-Jew?

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Surely, the Beis Hamikdosh speaks to a spiritual dimension to which only a Jewish neshomoh has access. But the very act of crying, when done by a Jew, is incomprehensible to the nations of the world. Jewish tears are qualitatively different.

The Nesivos Sholom explains Yirmiyohu's reply to Plato: "A crying of hope and not a crying of despair . . . that is Jewish crying. Whereas a non-Jew, his crying is of despair . . . This explains the well-known fact that Jews during the Holocaust were not even able to cry--for their situation was one of despair.

"And when a Jew cries over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdosh, it is a crying of hope. Out of his great longing and desire for the Beis Hamikdosh, he cries. And this is why Yirmiyohu said to Plato that he could not explain to him his crying. He was saying to him: `You are a non-Jew, and a non-Jew cannot understand a crying of hope. For you, crying is only an expression of despair. That is why you asked that it is inappropriate for a sage to cry over the past. But for me, crying is of hope, it is a crying of longing and desire for the future that is to come, not over the past'" (Nesivos Sholom, Bamidbar p. 191).

If we want the Beis Hamikdosh back, we can have it.

HaRav Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik, the Beis HaLevi, was living in Warsaw when he received an invitation to serve as the rov of Brisk. He refused. Another delegation came to invite him, and he refused again. Every delegation that came to him he turned away empty-handed--until he was told, "There are 25,000 people in Brisk waiting for you to guide them."

The Beis HaLevi responded, "Is that so? Then I am coming right away!"

When the Chofetz Chaim heard this story about the Beis HaLevi, he began to cry. He said "Oy, if only we Yidden, thousands and millions of sincere Yidden, would show Hashem that we are truly waiting for Him, surely Moshiach would come right away."

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