Dvar Torah for Tisha b'Av

Based on Likutey MoHaran I, 247

"It is brought in the holy Zohar (3:27b) that the Talmudic expression teiku (unresolved) is an aspect of lacking tikun (rectification). That is, the nun of TIKUN is missing and TeIKU is left. Know, that this final nun which is missing from tikun which causes it to be teiku, is laid low and becomes bent [so that tikun] becomes KINoT (elegies), which shares the same letters with TIKuN, the only difference being the bent nun. May God redeem us so that the KINoT become TIKuN and that the TeIKU be rectified."

The Talmud uses the word teiku in closing discussions wherein a question that was raised that simply cannot be answered. The Sages try their best in marshalling proofs from logic and/or Scripture, but sometimes a question just has no answer. Teiku - it's unresolved; let's get on with life. (In yeshiva circles the acronym of the word teiku is said to stand for, "Tishbi Yetaretz Kushiyot U'abayot", the Tishbite [Elijah] will answer conundrums and questions.)

I recently had occasion to be in Bnei Braq and had the privilege of talking to a young Torah scholar (who wishes to remain nameless) about a question I had about Lesson 282. Rebbe Nachman writes that the learning of young Jewish school children depends on the building of the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple). It seemed to me that that contradicted what Chazal tell us: that the Torah study of young Jewish children (before they become of mitzvah age) is not to be interrupted even for the sake of building the Beit HaMikdash! In the course of his answer, the young scholar pointed out that the word TINoK (child) has the same letters as TIKuN.

One of the functions of the Beit HaMikdash was to foster ahavat Yisrael (love among Jews). From the time of the Twelve Tribes plurality has been an integral part of Klal Yisrael (the Jewish nation). Like everything that's potentially good, it's also potentially bad. Plurality has to produce harmony, not harm. It has to produce a cloak of many colors, not a torn cloak (see 1 Kings 11:29ff). Unfortunately, like everything else, plurality is in galut (exile).

Once upon a time, we stood together, a young nation, at a mountainside in the desert, k'ish echad b'lev echad (as one person, with one heart). We were children and our Father carried us through some rough times, protecting us from bullies and setting us up in our new home. As we grew older, Father let go and let us take care of ourselves, hoping that we had matured enough.

However, we hadn't. Youthful and impatient, we tried things that might have been better off left untried. We argued among themselves about the right way of doing things, about what is the emet (truth). In fact, throughout the galut all our disagreements stem from pitting one version of emet against another (Likutey Halakhot, Hilkhot Ribit 5:20). Now we are grown and old. We often seem like a senile old man trying to recall various parts of his life, trying to recall who he really is. One memory pulls him this way and another pulls him that way. He doesn't remember what he is supposed to be or how he is supposed to act. We may not remember "the glory days" of our people well enough to mourn them, but we can easily mourn "what we could have been."

So, we need to return to a mountain. But this time not to one that is in a desert devoid of the progress of millennia, and not alone. This time our mountain is in a city that lacks nothing of world progress, in a city that is the focus of the world. One point, one crucial point, remains the same. If we really want to make the tikun and to retire the kinot, this time, like the first time, we need to come to the mountain as we did when when we were a tinok, as one person, with one heart.

Have an easy fast.

Agutn Shalom!
Shabbat Shalom!