Dvar Torah for Tisha B'Av

Based on Likutey Moharan II, #67 and Likutey Halakhot, Tefillin 7

"The past is gone. Our Holy Temple has already been burned down. Now, however, when G-d is looking to return to us and to rebuild the Holy Temple, it behooves us to not prevent, G-d forbid, its rebuilding. Rather [we must] try hard to rebuild it. Therefore, one needs to be very careful to arise at midnight to mourn the destruction of the Temple. For perhaps in one's first lifetime he was the cause of the Temple's destruction. And even if not, perhaps now he is the cause for the delay of its rebuilding. If so, it is considered that he is the cause of its destruction."

Rabbi Nachman asks each one of us to consider the possibility that he was and is the cause of the Temple's destruction. This is another instance of the Rebbe gently prodding us to mend our ways. He is subtly reminding each of us to acknowledge that his sins are causing and prolonging our exile.

The Rebbe immediately tells us what to do in order to contribute to the solution, rather than to the problem: "Arise at midnight to mourn the destruction of the Temple." Two questions need to be answered. How can we mourn without first considering what have we lost? How do we mourn?

The Temple was the source of all the essentials of Judaism. It was the seat of the Sanhedrin (High Court), the source of Torah. It was the site of sacrifice and offerings, the source of prayer. It was the meeting place of the Jewish people when they came for the Three Festivals, the source of love and friendship among Jews. The Temple has been destroyed by fire and we are lacking all these things.

This fire is merely a manifestation of our "fire," our misdirected energies. We have to mourn, we have to feel, that we are lacking the opportunities to sense G-d's presence and publicize His greatness because we have abused our drives, squandering them on worthless and counter-productive ends. When the darkness, the "midnight," of this sensation comes, we must "arise." We must not let ourselves collapse under the weight of past failures for "the past is gone." Rather we must mourn and begin to rebuild now.

Rebbe Nachman means quite literally that we should awake at midnight to mourn, but he does not say that we cannot mourn at other times. Any time one cries in regret for having sinned, for having separated himself from G-d, (as we do during the High Holidays) this, too, is reckoned mourning for the Temple.

This is our crying on Tisha B'av (the 9th of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple). On Tisha B'Av we are permitted to learn only those parts of the Torah that deal with the Temple's destruction and mourning, for the source of Torah is no more. The liturgy of the prayers is reduced, for the source of prayer is no more. One is forbidden to greet another for the source of love and friendship is no more.

May we all be worthy of feeling the pain of the destuction, of our distance from G-d. And may we each cry for his sins. And G-d in His mercy will surely send us the Mashiach, b'karov, bimharah, v'yamainu, Amen (soon, speedily, in our days, Amen).