The Delights of Old
Next week is already the first fast of the season, the period of aveilus for the Churban, and so it’s only right that we should begin preparing. After all, how can you mourn for something if you don’t understand what went lost? Yes, you’ll go through the motions of aveilus – and that’s good too; it’s something – but it’s not enough.
And so the first step, even before the Days of Mourning begin, we have to train ourselves to feel how great of an opportunity it was when we still had the Beis Hamikdash; when we had the old Yerushalayim, the old Eretz Yisroel. Only then will we understand what it means that we don’t have it; then we’ll be capable of mourning the loss.
Yirmiyah Hanavi in the Megillas Eichah (1:7) tells us that: זכרה ירושלים – Yerushalayim remembered, ימי עניה ומרודיה – in the days of her affliction and her sadness, מחמדיה שהיו בימי קדם כל – all the delights that it possessed in the days of old. It means after the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash the people who had once been in Yerushalayim looked back now and remembered what had gone lost.
Now מחמדיה, her delights, means that there were certain features of Yerushalayim, certain institutions and practices that they had enjoyed. And the nation looked back now at what they had בימי קדם and mourned for all those great joys, those especial delights, that it once possessed. And so ירושלים זכרה means that if we too are going to mourn for the Churban we have to look back along with them; we have to gain an appreciation of those same machmadeha that they cried about.
Holy Teens
The truth is that even if we would just describe the children playing on the streets of Yerushalayim, of Tiverya, of Tzipori, that’s already enough to mourn for a full three weeks. We have no idea of the purity, the innocence, of those children.
Rabbi Yochanan tells us that when he was still young – this was already long after the Churban but some rays of the ancient splendor still lingered after the sun had set – and he said that in his days still there were boys and girls of sixteen, seventeen years old, who used to play sometimes on the streets and nothing wrong entered their minds. Nothing! That's the ancient kedushah. We can’t even understand such a thing! Such holy children that it didn’t even enter their minds. Don’t think it’s not something to mourn for – that delight of holy children growing up in a holy atmosphere.
But that’s only the beginning. I say that off the top of my head just as an example to open the subject. The truth is there are so many delights, too many to enumerate, and by no means am I the one capable of describing fully what all of those machmadeha were. But a little bit, just to help us understand, to help us prepare, we must try.
Mourning for the Mikdash
One of the first things – you’ll be surprised – is yiras Hashem. כל למען תלמד ליראה את השם אלוקיך הימים – You come to the House of Hashem in order to learn to fear Hashem all your life! (Devarim 14:23). When the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed a very great opportunity for perfection went lost because when it still stood a person would come there and he would be a changed person forever; he’d become a yarei Shomayim just from being there. Coming to visit left an effect on that person that lasted all his life.
Today it’s hard work acquiring yiras Hashem. You have to look in seforim, you have to study the briyah, you have to meditate on Awareness of Hashem, you have to daven, other things you have to do. But when we had the Mikdash, merely by coming there and seeing the kohanim ba’avodosam and hearing the shirah of the levi’im, you became so inspired. Much more than you can imagine! Some people even got ruach hakodesh from coming. You know that Yonah Hanavi became a prophet because he was present at the simchas beis hashoeivah. He was so inspired that the ruach hakodesh came upon him. But at the minimum you acquired yiras Hashem when you went there. And that’s a great loss.
Mourning for Yerushalayim
But not only the Beis Mikdash we lost. We mourn for the whole city, for Yerushalayim Ir Hakodesh that was destroyed. Not because we’re patriots; we’re not chauvinists like the Parisians who are patriots for Paris or the Londoners for London, no! It’s because we are patriots of Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Yerushalayim was עיר אלוקינו, the City of Hashem.
Dovid’s plan from the beginning was to build an עיר אלוקינו, ‘A City for Hashem’! That’s the only reason he made it. That’s why when he spoke about Yerushalayim, he said, גדול ה' ומהולל מאד בעיר הר קדשו אלקינו. “You know what’s great in our city?” said Dovid, 'גדול ה – “Hashem is great! In our city Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the only thing that’s important. We don’t care for what the other cities of the world get excited about. Tall buildings, fashion, money, nightlife; fech! מאד ומהולל – In this place we’re very much excited about Hashem and that’s all!”
That’s some city! That was something to see! People came together by the thousands and stood in the streets listening to Torah speakers. In those days you didn't sit down when you learned Torah – it was considered disrespectful; learning was like Shemoneh Esrei. They stood for hours in the streets in the tens of thousands and they listened to Torah.
A Holy City
There were also bnei hanevi’im, hundreds of talmidim who followed the nevi’im around and studied from them how to come close to Hashem. There were nezirim too. You know there used to be hundreds of nezirim on the street. Hundreds of nezirim walking the streets. Here’s a man, who, for thirty days, he wanted to think only of Hashem, so he became a nazir. For thirty days he belonged only to Hashem – he’s kodesh la’Hashem. And a little boy growing up, saw hundreds of them on the street. Now in such an environment, it’s easy to become a tzaddik, absolutely.
Of course there were talmidei chachomim, tzaddikim, chassidim, kohanim, everywhere. And so you were breathing the air of kedushah. Just by walking the streets you could gain the purpose of your existence – the development of your character, the understanding of our place in the world, the inspiration and understanding that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Melech of the world.
Soul City
In ancient Yerushalayim you found the greatest fulfillment of the yearning of the soul. There’s only one thing a person really wants and that is ישמח לב 'מבקשי ה – only those who seek Hashem can be happy. That’s what our neshamah wants.
So in Exile we try substitutes. You have a yearning, so what do you do? You go to the park and play with a bat and a baseball. Some people go to the movies. All kinds of things you do because you're yearning for something. But you'll never fulfill that yearning; it’s like chewing on rubber bands when you’re hungry. You're deceiving yourself with substitutes because what we really want in this world is to get as close to Hakodosh Boruch Hu as possible. And בעיר אלוקינו, in the City of our G-d, that was the place where you could fulfill that as much as possible.
It could be that after some time people became accustomed to it and didn’t appreciate it. But you can be sure that when they lost it, זכרה ירושלים, they looked back and they remembered the happiness of the true Jewish life that they once had and they mourned over the lost delights of Yerushalayim.
The Nation Adopts a Kollel
Not just the Mikdash and Yerushalayim. The practices of the nation, of Eretz Yisroel, also went lost. You know what a tragedy, what a misfortune it was when the practices of Shemittah and Yovel were discontinued? You realize that every seventh year the entire nation became a yeshivah? There were no factories. They were primarily agriculturists. Everybody had farms. And so, every seventh year the entire Jewish nation stopped working and they went to the kollel.
What a beautiful arrangement it was when there was Shemittah and Yovel! Isn't it a pity that the Jewish children don't know what we once were? Isn’t it a pity that we don’t know? A whole nation forsakes their fields and orchards and gardens and goes to the kollel! Not for a week or a month. For a full year! Everyone! Absolutely that was one of the מחמדיה שהיו בימי קדם, the delights that we possessed in the days of old.
Mourning for Ethnocentrism
We lost also our achdus. During the Bayis Rishon every one of the Am Yisroel lived within the boundaries of Eretz Yisroel. You know what that means? We were an am echad and it was considered a disgrace and a disloyalty to move into another country. Even though you wanted to buy a farm someplace, you wanted a vacation, no such thing. Nobody left Eretz Yisroel. We lived together, one nation on the land, separate from the gentiles.
It's a very big impediment to be among gentiles; no matter how much you'll try, the environment has an effect on you. And don't think it's only imagination. It's an actual fact that when you are among goyim you are part of them. If you associate with them, you're also distanced from Hashem.
And so the fact that we all lived together in Eretz Yisroel, stewing in our own juices, that was one of the delights in the days of old. And when they went to Exile and they sat al naharos Bavel, by the rivers of Babylon, now they looked back and saw what they once had. Ah, the good old days, the delights we had in the days of old when we sat in a land when there were no foreigners at all. Now they’re on admas neichar! Ach!
How good it was to be only among Bnei Yisroel! Every face you looked at was a kosher Jewish face. Every pair of eyes that looked at you were kosher Jewish eyes. You have to know that it had an effect on your neshamah. They were coming closer and closer to Hashem when they lived in Eretz Yisroel in the days of old. They were living successfully! And so, among many others, that was one of the מחמדיה כל that they mourned for and that we still mourn for today.
