I still remember vividly one of the strangest ads I have ever seen. When I was much younger, a restaurant in my neighborhood was promoting its special menu for the Nine Days, including fish specials, tofu dishes, and veggie burgers. But it was the final line in the ad, bold and in large letters, that caught my attention: “It will be the best Nine Days you ever had.”
Best Nine Days you ever had? That is like saying, “We have an amazing menu planned for you. This will be the best shiva you will ever sit.” We don’t refrain from meat and wine during the Nine Days as a way to expand our palettes or as motivation to get us to experiment with new recipes.
Our prophets tell us that the destruction was caused by the cruelty we showed others. We criticized, marginalized, judged, and neglected those who needed our help and support. We made the vulnerable feel invisible, lonely, and outcast. As a result, yashva badad, Hashem made us feel that way among the nations.
Perhaps the reason we don’t give shalom, we don’t say hello to each other on Tisha B’Av, is so that each of us experiences what it feels like to be an outcast, lonely, estranged, and deserted. By not exchanging greetings, by not saying hello, we learn what it feels like to be badad.
If we want to transform Tisha B’Av from a day of mourning in which we are forbidden to greet to a holiday, we must transform these Nine Days into days in which we are running to say hello, to offer warm greetings to one another. We must rush to make everyone feel and know they belong.
Casually reaching out to people in our social circles can mean more than we realize.
Someone who moved from another community shared with me that where they are from, on Shabbos, people walk right by each other. In fact, if you say “Good Shabbos,” someone will give you a funny look and ask, “Do we know each other? Do I know you? Why are you talking to me?” In that community, smiling and greeting every person you pass is weird and peculiar and makes you stand out.
If we want to bring Moshiach, if we want to repair and redeem this world, we need to create a culture in which it is strange and peculiar not to say hello to everyone we meet. Wishing "Good Shabbos” to all we pass must become the standard, the default.
The Baal Shem Tov was a proponent of Nine Days siyums. He suggested promoting siyums widely and publicly and specifically inviting many others to attend and participate. But here is the catch. While he encouraged a daily siyum, he also advocated that no meat be eaten at the meal marking the siyum. The purpose of the gathering should be simply to say hello to each other, to socialize and greet and communally bask in the light of Torah learning and Torah living. Attending such a siyum each night can truly make it the best Nine Days you’ve ever had.
On Tisha B’Av, we can’t greet, we can’t fix the problem, we sit on the floor and cry about the churban going on around us, and in too many cases, inside us. We cry and we grieve for the pain, but we must be prepared to get up off the floor and do something about it, to reach out and ensure that no one is alone.
At the end of Tisha B’av, we are allowed to break the fast, but the question is which fast will we break first: our fasting from food or from friends? Will we reach first for a coffee or our cell phone? Will we first consume or will we first connect?
RABBI EFREM GOLDBERG
COUNTING DOWN UNTIL UMAN 89 DAYS
