Hashem Weeps in Secret
When our Sages tell us that we have to weep on Tisha B’Av, we have to know that it’s not merely the weeping of a nation, of people; actually we are weeping along with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hashem is הּמְבַכּוֹה וּב – He cries because He wants us to cry along with Him (Eicha Rabbah 1:23). And so it pays to study the weeping of Hashem, to understand what He’s weeping for.
And so we listen to the declaration of Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself about the exile of His people: ה נַפְשִׁי בְכָרִים תַמִּסְתּב – In secret places My soul weeps, ֵוָה מִפְּנֵי ג – because of the pride (Yirmiyahu 13:17). It means that ָרִים שְׁמוֹ מִסְתּמָקוֹם יֵשׁ לְהקב"ה ו – Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a secret place called mystarim, a mysterious place, and He goes there to weep for His nation in Exile (Chagigah 5b).
Now, that requires some understanding. What does that mean, ‘He weeps’? Hashem goes to His bedroom and closes the door to cry in secret? No, of course not. And so to understand this concept we have to first put all the cards on the table and say that we are not capable of actually describing any properties of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. ִּי גָבְהוּ כ מַחְשְׁבֹתַי מִמַּחְשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם דְרָכַי מִדַרְכֵיכֶם כָבְהוּ שָׁמַיִם מֵאָרֶץ – His thoughts are way higher than anything we could ever understand (Yeshayah 55:9).
And yet, even though it’s impossible for us to speak about Him in any precise way, He has given to men certain forms of speech which they can use to describe Him; descriptions that teach us what to think, how to think along with Divine attitudes.
The Happy One
Now, among these descriptions is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in constant simchah. עֹז וְחֶדְוָה בִמְקוֹמוֹ – Strength and joy is in His place. That’s what the Gemara (Chagigah 5b) says, that בֵית בְרָא יִשְׂרָאֵל, in His outside chambers, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is strong in His ways and happy always. He is kulo seichel – perfect wisdom, after all, and wisdom and happiness are synonymous. Like the seforim say אֵין שִׂמְחָה כְהַתָּרַת הַסְּפֵקוֹת – when things become understandable that’s the biggest simchah. And because everything is perfectly clear to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, He is described as living in constant joy.
Two Attitudes
Now if that's the case that Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself is always עֹז וְחֶדְוָה, that He’s always happy—and that's the truth—so what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to weep? What does it mean that when Hashem sends us out into Golus He retires away to a hidden place where He weeps?
The answer is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want to demonstrate any weakness, any sadness in public. After all הַצּוּר תָמִים פָּעֳלוֹ – He is perfect in all of His ways. Even when sending us out into Exile everything is being done with perfect wisdom; it’s all under control and so there’s nothing to cry over.
So what does it mean ‘Hashem cries in secret’? It’s intended as a figure of speech to teach us that there’s a separate attitude that He wants us to understand of Him. Although fundamentally we have to picture Him always as perfect seichel, as strong and full of joy but we have to know also that הִבְכָרִים תַמִּסְתּב – in a secret place He is weeping for us. In His בֵית גָוִיָא, in His inner chambers, He cries for us. In addition to our fundamental understanding of Hashem’s intrinsic perfection of seichel and happiness, we have to take our own minds into a separate compartment of thought and picture Him as weeping in secret for us.
Why Are You Crying?
Now what's the sadness for? Why does Hashem retire to a secret chamber and weep? He’s וֹכֶה בֶּה מְבַכּוֹה – He wants us to cry along with Him, and so we have to understand, what are we weeping about?
So Hashem says ה נַפְשִׁי מִפְּנֵי גִבְכָרִים תַמִּסְתּב – “I’m crying because of the pride, the pride of the Am Yisroel that was lost. אַהֲוָתָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁנִּטְלָה מֵהֶם וְנִתְנָה לְעוֹבְדֵי כוֹכָבִים – Because of the pride that was taken away from them and given to idolaters” (Chagigah ibid.).
Once upon a time, when the Jew lived in Eretz Yisroel, he knew he was an aristocrat; it was to him sine qua non. After all it was stated in his charter, in the Tanach, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu recognized him of all the nations and called him ‘My son’. בְּנֵי בְכוֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל – “You’re My chosen people,” Hashem said, “My beloved son.”
To Live With Pride
Again and again it’s stated in our ancient charter. And because we lived only according to its charge – no other books meant anything to us – so we were a very proud nation. Every Jew was happy to demonstrate who he was. We lived as גֵאִים, proud of our chosenness. Actually proud!
Only what happened? When, because of our sins, we were driven into Exile among the nations of the world, so to a great extent that pride went lost. Instead of that confidence, that gaavah in being the choicest of mankind, a nation with a Divine function, we began to forget who we are.
Here is an American Jew; his last name used to be Cohen – it means ‘a priest of Hashem’. But the name has been metamorphosed by means of his cringing before the gentiles and now it’s C-O-N-E, like an ice cream cone. To the American Jew an ice cream cone sounds better than C-O-H-E-N which means a Priest of the Most High. And for that Hashem weeps; for His nation’s pride that went lost.
Or the poor woman whose hair is covered up and she’s wearing a long dress. It’s hot outside and she has sleeves down to her knuckles. She should be proud. She’s carrying aloft the banner of a chosen woman. And yet as she walks down the block she keeps her head down; her face is flaming because the modern women – dressed in nothing but their pocketbooks – are pointing at her and snickering, “Look at that old-fashioned one.” She’s a tzaddeikes; she’s a suffering righteous woman but for that Hashem cries too – ֵוָה מִפְּנֵי ג, for a pride that has gone lost.
Rediscovering Our Pride
That’s why we pray וְתוֹלִיכֵנוּ קוֹמְמִיּוּת לְאַרְצֵנוּ: We ask that once more Hashem should lead us upright back to our land. Upright, with heads held high; not cringing like we have learned to cringe in Golus.
And Hashem weeps for that because it’s not enough that we should be merely a frum, pious nation. That’s not enough. It's of the utmost importance that we should know that we and no one else are the purpose of the world, that what we're doing is important and what the umos haolam are doing is nothing; it’s just background noise.
All the gatherings of the gentiles, even when tens of thousands come, for rock carnivals, to view baseball games, to listen to opera, it’s all hevel varik! It’s much ado about nothing. What happens in Congress when a mob of politicians come together is entirely meaningless. Hashem is entirely uninterested.
When we come together in our beis hakenesses or in the yeshivah, that's the big news of the day. When a father sits down with his son and they’re learning together שְׁנַיִם אוֹחֲזִים בְּטַלִית, then Hakadosh Baruch Hu is all attention. When a rebbi in a yeshivah ketanah is saying kametz alef ah, or when the rosh yeshivah is saying a shiur in the yeshivah then it's big news in the world. The chiddushim in the yeshivah, that's what's uppermost in the world.
The Eyes are Fooled
Now that’s easy to say but in Exile we lost that true attitude. We say it but we don’t feel it. After all, it's very difficult to contradict what your eyes see. Here you sneak in to a little shtiebel on the side to daven Mincha and outside is a big stormy world; people are going places, traffic, cars, sounds, airliners.
The newspapers have big headlines about everything else; all the puny things, the little ideals, the picayunes, the trivialities, are made big. And so gradually, day by day in Golus, it weakens our pride; it weakens our understanding that what we were created for is infinitely more important.
Here’s a man on motzaei Shabbos he goes to a little melaveh malkah someplace. Outside, everybody is traveling; Saturday night! There are cars racing down Ocean Parkway in both directions. Traveling where? Who cares? Not Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He’s interested in that melaveh malkah, where they’re singing to Hashem and saying sippurei tzaddikim. He’s interested in the lady in her house who’s cleaning up after Shabbos, who’s putting her children to bed, saying Shema with them.
It’s true – even more true than you imagine – but as much as we say it, as much as we know it’s true, the feeling is gone. ֵוָה שֶׁנִּטְלָה מֵהֶם מִפְּנֵי ג – Our ancient pride is no longer. We can’t even imagine what it once was. In Eretz Yisroel, when the Beis Hamikdash stood, we were גֵאִים, we were proud. We felt it in our bones! We knew that we were the Am Ram, the exalted nation, and that it’s only us fulfilling our function that matters.
And now, in Exile, it’s no more; and it’s for this that Hashem weeps. “I weep מִפְּנֵי גַאֲוָתָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁנִּטְלָה מֵהֶם - because of the pride of the Jewish people, שֶׁנִּטְלָה מֵהֶם – it was taken away from them.” Hashem weeps because of what once was; when the entire nation – men and women, boys and girls - knew that they were it. They were a nation of גֵאִים, of proud ones.
