Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Well, good morning. How's everybody doing?
So, who's enjoying the roman series?
All right.
Well, that's not what we're doing today.
Today, do something a little bit different. This is called the power of tears. I'm going to read a little story to you at the beginning of this, so if you'll be ready for those slides.
Storm here.
Once there was a gentle, kind, and wise old man who lived in a town where all of the townspeople looked to him for help.
He was a wealthy doctor who had a broad understanding of medicine and even psychology.
Every day, he offered his services to the town folk at no charge.
Every morning at the crack of dawn, people lined up at his door to receive his help. The line extended from his front door to several blocks down the street. People would come to him with all kinds of needs. Some merely needed a word of encouragement. Some needed serious counseling. Others needed financial help. To others, medical attention. The man gave freely to the people of the town every day of his life for years and years.
One cold night in the deepest, darkest hours of the night, a lump of hot coal rolled out of his fireplace and onto the floor, where it smoldered undetected.
Eventually, the rug in front of the hearth caught fire, setting his house ablaze.
Fortunately, the smoke woke him up, coughing, and he was able to get out alive. But his house burned completely to the ground.
He had lost everything.
All of his worldly possessions were gone, and the only thing that he had left were the clothes on his back.
Early the next morning, he sat on what used to be his front porch with a tear stained face in his hands, he noticed that the townspeople were heading his way.
With a glimmer of hope, he stood to greet the crowd of people, assuring himself that his kindness toward them these many years would be returned to him.
But rather than gathering around him and offering him encouragement, the crowd formed the neat and orderly line that they had for the last several years. When the first person approached him, he asked for a loan.
He said he need money to purchase a new milk cow to help his business be more profitable, and promised to pay back the loan quickly.
The elderly man couldn't believe his ears.
He was standing in front of an ash heap that used to be his home in his soot stained clothes, and this man was asking him for a loan.
He didn't act as if he even noticed that the house had burned to the ground. And so it was, every single person in line had come to ask him for help with their needs and completely failing to acknowledge his.
Finally, the man couldn't take it any longer. Can anyone even see that my home has been destroyed?
You have come to me day after day after day for years, asking me to help you with your needs. And I freely given of my time and my resources. Yet can no one acknowledge my great loss at that? He fell to the ground, weeping.
A little while later, he felt an arm stretching out, wrapping around him, and he heard the sound of another person weeping with him.
Let's talk a little bit for a moment about grief, specifically jewish grief and mourning.
Grief is not something we like to dwell on, so just hang with me for a little bit. In fact, in our culture, we want to whisk it away as quickly as possible or even ignore it. Once grief enters your life, especially with a family member, they will never leave you.
Sorry.
Over my wife, she's experienced deep grief, and I know many of you have.
You can either let it overwhelm you, or you can learn how to cope with it and continue living.
And as my wife Sabrina said, it becomes your permanent companion. From that time forward, we have to learn how to live with it, but not let it dominate us.
So if you're familiar with jewish morning rituals, you understand what I'm about to share, but if you're not, you may think this is just bizarre. Okay. And so we've got a heavy topic today, but I'm going to make it very. I'm going to pull it in, make it very applicable. Okay, jewish morning rituals. And I'm gonna hit these real quickly. There's sort of four stages of them.
The first and most intense stage of mourning is right after the event happens. Somebody unexpectedly dies, somebody passes, you lose somebody, and you are in an intense, intense time, time of loss of grief.
The second stage is after the funeral. And within jewish tradition, it's usually 24 hours.
And then you have a seven day period called sitting shiva. Shiva.
And we'll talk about that, what that means here in a minute. And that's a little bit less intense, but it's still very strict. And a lot of things happen during this time. Then you have what's called the shloshim. These are the 30 days after that, the next 30 days of mourning, which lessens a little bit more in the restrictions. And then you have, if you have lost a parent, you have the next eleven months that you are still considered a mourner because of the loss of your parents. And you do certain things. So I'm going to run through these things, specifically the practice of sitting shiva. Okay. First, you have the condolence meal. When mourners arrive from the home of the cemetery. Following the burial, they're given a special meal of condolence, which traditionally includes hard boiled eggs, a symbol of mourning whose round shape is symbolic of the cycle of life. Second, we have the house of mourning for the entire week of the Shiva. The mourners remain in the house of mourning, and their relatives, friends, and their family members of the community come to fulfill the mitzvah of consoling the mourner and participating prayers, Torah study, the giving of charity, and other misvote performed in the merit of the one who has departed. And during the prayer services there, the mourners recite Kaddish. Okay, this becomes an important prayer throughout this process.
If you're familiar with Kaddish, you know what it's about. I'll describe it here in a minute. The third thing is working, and conducting business is restricted. One of the most fundamental laws of jewish mourning is the prohibition of work and doing business while one is sitting Shiva. Fourth, we console the bereaved by making a shiva call.
We come to the house of the mourner during this week of Shiva, we talk about the life and the deeds of the person that's being mourned, participating in prayers and other activities.
And we are there to be supportive, to visit, to listen and even cry with the mourner, but not to try to bring smiles or levity. Why?
It goes back to, what were the theme of what we're talking about today, because there's a great healing power in our tears if they're directed appropriately. Excuse me, appropriately so. Before leaving, the visitors extend the traditional words of consolation for mourners, saying, may God comfort you together with all those who mourn in Zion and Jerusalem. And we say that when we pray the mourners kaddish in our Shabbat services, there is usually a daily minion, if possible, and sometimes even the Torah scroll is brought, if possible. Then you have memorial candles that are litten in memory of the deceased, attesting to the verse in proverbs 20 and verse 27 that the candle of God is the soul of man. It reminds us how important life is to God.
The candles are kindled upon returning from the cemetery and kept burning for the entire seven day period of Shiva.
And during Shiva, we call it sitting shiva because there's a tradition that we don't sit on normal hike chairs. We sit on either reduced lower stools, sit on the ground, sit on low cushions, things like that. To reduce just the normalcy of life.
We forego the comfort of leather shoes during the shiva, and symbolic of a disregard for vanity and comfort and to better concentrate on the deeper meaning of life.
Another weird thing is that we cover mirrors, but it's a time honored tradition. Again, a disregard of vanity and then grooming. The mourner traditionally doesn't shave, get his hair cut, nor does he bathe or shower for pleasure. During this seven day period, laundering or wearing freshly laundry clothes is also generally not done, and we generally don't acquire new clothing.
And they try to also wear the garment that they tear in when, at the beginning of the mourning process, marital relations are put on hold. Music or entertainment is also put on hold. There's no music, no entertainment. Amusement.
Torah study is even not permitted to a certain degree because the Bible itself is a source of delight. It says, the laws of God are righteous and glad in the heart. However, the mortar is permitted to read the laws of mourning and study books on ethical behavior, etcetera, and a couple more. During Shabbat, all the public displays of mourning are suspended, and the sort of normal routine of things kicks back in. If there's a festival that happens during this period, then the shiva ends, and the mourning period gets changed. Just learned that from my wife. And then once she was over, then we transition to this next phase. Okay.
We go to the morning service. If they have. We have morning services at our synagogue.
And then the people, the congregation, presents or extends condolences, and the mourners rise from the week of morning to resume the normalcy of life. Okay, this is sort of a snapshot. We.
I don't think many people in this community have ever experienced that. I know Steve has and maybe a few others.
But if these traditions sound strict, it's because they are so by design. Okay. The jewish mourning traditions speak to the core of the human psyche. Judaism understands how a person has to grieve. They have to deal with this issue and grieve deeply so that they can transition back into life's routine without crashing.
These traditions are designed to help a person confront the devastation that has just interrupted their life and gradually transition them back into a new life of normalcy through a slow and intentional process, rather than being jolted back into the same reality as before, but with a gaping hole in their heart and no mechanisms for coping. Okay, just out of curiosity, who has lost a parent in this room?
Okay, I'm not raising my hand. I have nothing, thank God. But. But I want to know who that is. We have quite a few, um, and on this topic, and I am very strong against lashon Arn, I'm speaking. I'm not speaking against any person or anything. I'm just. I need to point out some bad traditions that we've been exposed to, especially within the church. Christian tradition has some really bad traditions regarding the dealing with death and mourning, and has done a lot of damage to those who have lost loved ones.
Rather than helping a person deal with grief, they are generally cajoled into ignoring the grief and, quote, celebrating the passing of their dearly departed.
They hear such phrases like, she's in a better place. She's dancing with Jesus. She wouldn't want you to be sad. If you're sad, then you don't believe she's in heaven. And the guilt is poured on so thick that all a person can do is put on a fake smile, make a positive confession, and then suppress their pain until they have no choice but to be prescribed antidepressant months down the road. Because there's somehow less shame in that than grieving the loss of somebody they love.
So the truth about all this is that being around a person who's hurting, particularly one deeply grieving, is not fun. And we just have to admit that it's not a fun thing. And shallow and insecure people can't handle these difficult times because it's a downer. And so their job is to get you out of that state of depression or sadness so they can go on with their lives and not be drugged down by negative nancy. But Judaism recognizes the problem and empathizes with those who are grieving and has established this time proven method of grief. Now, you're wondering, what in the world are you talking about? And why are you talking about this? Give me just a moment. So Rabbi Shimon bin Elazar said, do not console your fellow at the time his dead lies before him. So this is something, wisdom from the sages, that says, hey, when a person's dealing with immediate grief, we don't try to make them happy. We don't try to cheer them up. We don't try to deal with that. We just be there. Like the picture we saw earlier with the guy with his arms around him, just cry with him. Okay? The closest thing that Judaism has to a blind acceptance of a false reality is the saying is a traditional saying of kaddish. And that's not necessarily a false reality. It's just reality that hasn't happened yet, okay? Because it talks about the kingdom. It's a prayer that acknowledges that even though we may have experienced tragedy, it doesn't negate God's goodness or his promises, restore his kingdom and to bless his people. So, okay, now that I've talked about grief and loss and all that horrible stuff, let's take a look at the application of this. Let's take a look at the upcoming. And I hate to even use this word, but holiday of Tisha bav.
What is Tisha bav? A lot of you guys may be familiar with it. Some. This may be totally new material here. Okay, so, Tisha bav. The phrase tisha means 9th ab, means of the hebrew month of Av. The name of the month is of. Okay, so it's not the 9th day of the hebrew month of Av. And I. A lot of things happened on this date, and I don't have time to list them all. I will list a few of the main ones. This is the date. The two biggies are. This is the date that the first temple was destroyed. It's the date that the second temple was destroyed.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: It's also the date, in 1492, that king Ferdinand of Spain decreed the expulsion of the Jews, setting Tisha Bav as the final date. Jews would not be allowed to walk on spanish soil. You basically, you get out or you die or convert.
World War one, the precursor to Holocaust, began on Tisha Bav as well.
But all of this, the sages say, traces back to a date many, many, many years before that in biblical times.
Anybody remember what that is?
Yes, that's exactly right. The date the spies, the ten out of the twelve, came back with the evil report.
And so they came back, given this slanderous report about the land, saying that we can't do this. And Hashem said, basically, because you have come with this evil report, this generation will not enter the land. Basically said, you want something to cry about today? There's nothing to cry about. And you cried. But in the future, I'll give you a reason to cry.
So, tears are powerful, but only when they are shed for the right reason.
Today, unfortunately, a lot of people cry over nonsense, okay?
Their favorite team lost the Super bowl, where?
Or maybe because they did win, or maybe because the particular presidential candidate is nominated or elected or not nominated or elected.
We cry because of a bad hair day. Oh, my goodness. I had those all the time, as you can tell. A chipped fingernail. I have that problem. Yeah. Or someone pulling into our parking space.
We cry over things that are insignificant or the bigger picture of life in the bigger picture of life, because we just don't realize that when things don't go our way, we don't have to throw a fit about it. We don't have to lose our cool over that. But our tears should have meaning. Our tears should have meaning because there's power in our tears.
As we talked about nearly 2000 years ago. The Holy Temple, the portal. I want you to think about this in different terms than you may have ever thought about it. The Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the portal between heaven and earth.
The house that God, he cares about so much, he spends about a whole third of the Torah talking about it, giving instructions about how to build it, how to take care of it, how to function within it.
Nearly 2000 years ago, this house was destroyed at the hands of the Romans, has been in ruins ever since.
Bav is the ominous date that darkens our calendar every year and reminds us of this event.
But the observance of Tisha Bav as a fast day is not merely a tradition, but one actually recognized as early as the second generation, after the temple's first temple's destruction. As we read from the prophet Zechariah. And you can pull this passage up here, thus says the lord of hosts, the fast of the fourth month. And I've put these, I've inserted these what these fasts are. So you'll understand, because a lot of times we read biblical texts, we're like, what is that? You know? And without a context, we don't know. So the fast of the fourth month, which is some Tammuz, which we just observed, how long ago? Two and a half weeks ago, something like that. The fast of the fifth month, which is coming up this starting Monday night and Tuesday, which is Tisha b. The fast of the 7th month. This is Zam. Gadalia. This is, by the way, some Tammuz is. Commemorates the breach of the walls of Jerusalem. So Gadalia commemorates the assassination of the governor of Jerusalem, Gadda. His name was Gadalia. The fast of the 10th, which is the fast of Tevet, which is the totally gone blank. What's the Tevet commemorate?
Surrounding the sea, the city was surrounded by the. Huh. By the Babylonians. Right.
And so it says, shall be to the house of Judah. Seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. This is talking about a future time when all this will be changed. Therefore, love, truth and peace. This is from Zechariah, chapter eight, verse 19.
Okay, so here's the big question with both of these. This is an uncomfortable topic, stuff that we don't like to deal with. How do we.
How do we living in the 21st century on the other side of the world? As primarily Gentiles, connect with this, relate to this at all, and how do we grieve for something that we've never known in our lifetime? Okay, I like the analogy given by Rabbi Bretowitz. He says, how can you explain a color to a person who was born blind?
You ever thought about that?
Michael, here. Michael is our good friend now, Michael Clegg, he's been coming for months now. And many of you know, he's deaf. He's teaching the ASL class. And so a question for people like Michael. How can you explain music to a person who was born deafenhouse?
How can you explain that? You know?
And so for us, the question begins, how do we weep for a temple that we've never had in our lifetime, we've never seen, we've never experienced, never had any connection physically with whatsoever to begin with, or our parents, our grandparents, nor our great grandparents or generations back? Right. How do we connect with that?
Here's another analogy. A person who's experienced the devastation of losing a loved one is shattered like a mirror being dropped to the floor. If you've experienced the loss of a loved one, you know that feeling? You feel like you're a mirror that has just been thrown to the floor and your life has just shattered.
In their intense grief, they're unable to connect with the world around them.
But on the opposite extreme, when we're dealing with Tisha Bav, people who are enjoying life, hey, we're. We're having a good time. Shalom Akin's growing. We're building relationships, having classes, having all kinds of stuff, you know, who wants to talk about this? This downer stuff, right? People who are enjoying life often don't know how to slow down enough to mourn with those experiencing grief.
And this is why Judaism has created these traditions, to help us ease into this period of leading into the fast of.
And I really didn't talk about, and I meant to put this in my notes, but I didn't. But we are currently, and this is sort of a funny thing in the midst of all this seriousness, but we are today experienced, the black sabbath of dire straits. Rabbi would appreciate that, right? Musically inclined people. But we are. We are in this last Sabbath before Tisha Bav. In these three weeks that have started starting with the fastest Tammuz. In these three weeks, there's a transition that happens. We begin to do less things that are normal. We downgrade the things that we do in life to make life different and less comfortable. We don't listen to music. We don't get haircuts, shave, so forth. We. We try to wear clothes that are not freshly laundered. We don't wear new or purchase new articles of clothing, etcetera. And then you have these nine days, starting with the beginning of AV, that are more intense. And then you have. We generally, there's no eating meat and things like that. And then you have Tisha Bav as the day of the fast. That is 100% no eating, no drinking, and so forth. Okay?
So in order to connect. To connect to this, we first need to learn of the temple's importance, not only to the jewish people, but to the world, and how its presence affects all of us.
So, with this in mind, I want you guys to make a mental note, and I'll try to remember at the end of this. And we announced it, but I want you to make a mental note. We, as a congregation, are going to meet Monday night at 08:00 p.m. here. Not to have a party, not to have fun, not to, you know, roll the dice, whatever. We will be meeting to pray, read the book of everybody's favorite book, book of lamentations.
And we. We're going to start at eight. We're going to have a.
I wouldn't call it necessarily a meal, even though it's called a meal. We're going to have. We send out some information at that. We're going to have a boiled egg and add some ashes. And then we are going to pray and read Echad, the book of lamentations. Okay. I remember as we would do this with our kids growing up, we would always get to this part and get ready to read. And they're like, I don't like this book.
And it wasn't one of those, I don't like this. It was one of those. It hurts me to read it. It hurts me, you know, but that's what it should do.
We don't need to avoid that. You know, it hurts to hear the horrible things that have happened in real life, and we need to remember those things. One of the things that I didn't mention about grief and about loss and about losing a loved one is that we have events in life, a life cycle tradition, to remember these people, though. We have yard sites, we have yeast core service, you know, and we remember their life. We don't just pack it all up, push it away and forget about it. We keep their memory alive. We remember them and we celebrate them, and we. We are thankful for them. And this is another way of coping with that and dealing with that grief. So when we. When we fast on Tisha bav, it's intense. It's like Yom Kippur, except actually a little bit more restrictive in a certain way because we're not allowed to study Torah. That can make us happy. Okay? Whereas Yom Kippur is, hey, we're getting our sins forgiven. You know, this is a good, good thing where Tisha Baba is just. It's. We're remembering the bad, but when we grieve, when we fasten, that's not the end. This is the beautiful thing. We grieve, and then we are comforted, just like we don't stay in a constant state of grief if our loved one passed away. We experience grief, and then we have ways of coping with it. So, following on the heels of Tisha Bav, we begin the what does anybody know? Seven weeks of consolation, where we read various passages from the book of Isaiah, which is actually where we get our namesake from. From the original name of this congregation that we. We changed from those several years ago. The original name of this congregation was nechamu nehemu ami. Comfort. Comfort my people. Okay. This is the first words that we read from Isaiah in this. And it goes through seven weeks of comforting my people. How do we now turn from this intense period of mourning and loss and remembering to now comfort and hope and expectation?
So.
And our job is to work to bring this temple back. So how do we bring this temple back? The temple has been mourned since its destruction, and the hope of its rebuilding continues to this day. But for this hope to become a reality, we have to answer the question, why was it destroyed in the first place? Is it just a freak accident? Something, you know, political or whatever? No. The sages tell us it was for two reasons. It was for one reason particularly is for Sinat Chinam. Baseless hatred. But let's talk about that just second. I'm going to wrap this up.
So why isn't it being rebuilt? One, we don't long for the temple enough.
Number two, we haven't changed.
Number one, when was the last time any one of us cried because of the destruction of the temple?
Just as a spouse or close friend shares in the grief of the one they love, so should we share and God's grief over the loss of his holy house?
Now, we do have a very small remnant of the temple today in Jerusalem. It's not really the temple, though. It's called the Kotel, the western wall, and it's just really the retaining wall of the top of the mountain there that housed the temple complex.
And some of us get excited just to be able to visit that boaz. As you know, our son Boaz, the youngest son, is in Israel.
He has been so the last nearly three months. And he called us last Saturday, gave it. We took a video call from him, and it was evening there after Habdalah, and he was at the hotel. He was at the western wall. He finally made it after all this time. And he and Jeremy Shoenwald were together. Jeremy happened to be in Israel at the time. They got together, and it was a beautiful thing, and it was just amazing. And I'm sure experience the Boaz, remember, for the rest of his life.
But this. This little. This amazing wall that you see people praying at, you see him flock together. You see them pushing the little notes in the. And the. You know, the stones and everything. This is just like if. If this is the coattail. This is the temple Mount, right? I mean, it's just a little tiny. It's like one Lego out of the whole Lego house. Lego Castle, if you want to say it that way.
And that. That temple Mount is now desolate. The place that used to hold God's holy house is desolate and desecrated, okay? It's got mosques and shrines on it that don't need to be there.
On Tisha. Bah. We should weep for it as if it had just been destroyed in our lifetime.
Why do we need to do this? Why do we need to do this? Because Yeshua gives us an example of how we need to be empathetic. We need to have empathy. Luke, chapter seven, verses 31 through 35. You can put that up here. To what, then shall I compare the people of this generation? And what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace, calling to one another. We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not weep.
For John, the immersion has come, eating no bread and drinking no wine. You say, he is a demon, but the son of man came eating and drinking. You say, look at him. A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by all our children. That's one of my favorite phrases Yeshua ever taught. Wisdom is justified by all our children. Basically, the proof is in the pudding, right? Heard that southern expression, the proof is in the pudding? It means, our actions show what's important to us, show what's meaningful to us, show what we are serious about. We are. Are a generation that does not weep Paul says, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. In romans twelve, James says, draw near to God. He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Secondly, both the sages and Yeshua tell us that the temple was destroyed due to Sinat Chinam. Baseless hatred.
And the temple is not rebuilt today because this continues to exist within the people of God. I'll just put it that way, okay.
Our sages tell us that in every generation in which the temple is not rebuilt, that generation is as guilty as those who destroyed it, because Sinat continues, and we are content with it being desolate.
You're saying Sinat Chinam? Seriously?
Are you really serious about there's still baseless haters going on? I don't have baseless hatred.
But here's an example we may not think of between a husband and wife. We can overlook and forgive other people's flaws. But when it comes to our spouse, we tuck them away, hoarding them, filling our chest with every little offense like they were our precious coins.
Sina, hatred isn't simply rage. It's often expressed with apathy or indifference. We're disciples of Yeshua. Love should be what characterizes our lives, especially with those who are difficult to get along with and especially those of our household. We have a marriage come up that I encourage all of you guys, if. I mean, if you signed up, show up because it's a game changer. This is what our community is about. Healthy marriages, families, and empathy. As Paul said, love is patient. Love is kind. It bears all things. It believes all things, it hopes all things. It endures all things, because love never fails.
First Corinthians 13.
So I know this message has been a little heavy.
So very few people enjoy feeling.
Enjoy, I should say, feeling Sadhesthe. But even fewer people get to choose when they grieve a loved one. It just happens. At least now we get to choose how to grieve. Grief is mostly, most of the time, thrust upon us. But experiencing Tisha bav is different.
We have to experience the power of tears.
Tears are powerful, but only when they're used appropriately. Think about the spies in the evil report. They wept, but for the wrong reasons. Their tears didn't have the power that they should have.
The purpose of Tisha Bav is not to reduce your grief, but to increase it, it seems really backwards, really backwards in our western mindset. But on Tisha B, we should feel loss.
We've all seen a good movie that uses moves us to tears, right? Okay.
The myricks introduced us to a movie a few weeks back. They said, hey, you got to see this movie. So we watched it and we laughed and we cried. It was good. And so we've all seen movies that move us to tears, and we appreciate it.
These tear jerkers, as we call them, know how to play on our emotions, and we don't mind it generally, right? Often we'll actually choose that movie because we know it will invoke that particular emotion and we want that stirred up within us.
So I want to encourage you guys, encourage us all to let Tisha Bav be that type of stirring within us that we be moved by the loss of something God considers so important.
I'll conclude with this psalm from Psalm 137. If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither and my tongue clean to the roof of my mouth. If I cease to remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy, may your tears be powerful this tish above, and may they, along with your extravagant, baseless love for your fellow man, merit the rebuilding of God's holy house.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Shabbat Shalom please visit our website, shalommaken.org, to learn more about us. Join our live services, access other teachings, sign up for our newsletter, join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world, or contribute to the work of Shalom. Macon, thank you for watching, and we look forward to connecting with you.
