Another year, another Tisha B’av, another day spent sitting on the floor, bent over the words of Eicha, mourning yet again. And the question that echoes louder each year is: How? How did we come to this place?
How is it possible that we, Am Yisrael, are once again facing one of the darkest waves of antisemitism since the Holocaust? How is it that after October 7th, we are surrounded by so much pain, so many orphans, so many widows, so many aching souls?
I just returned from a mission to Eretz Yisrael with a group of women I teach. We met mothers whose sons will never return. Widows raising children on their own. Brave, courageous women with hearts full of love, yet shattered by grief. The pain is overwhelming.
How? How did we get here?
Everywhere around us, Jews are waiting. Waiting for yeshuos, waiting for a shidduch, for a refuah, for parnassah, for shalom bayis. Eicha—how have we come to a world filled with so many shattered hearts?
And yet, if we’re honest, we know the answer.
Any parent who’s ever taken their children out on vacation, to a restaurant, or on a family outing, knows the feeling. If the children begin to fight in the car, or kick each other under the table, what does the parent say? “What’s the point of going out if we can’t even enjoy each other? If we can’t be kind to one another, let’s just go home.” Hakadosh Baruch Hu says the same to us. “I gave you a Beis HaMikdash. I gave you closeness. I gave you everything. But if Kamtza and Bar Kamtza can’t sit at the same table... If Jews can’t speak to one another with respect, if they can’t forgive, if they can’t love, then what’s the point?”
Machloket kills. It’s a sliver of death. Because something beautiful dies every time a friendship is severed, a family torn, a community divided, and Hashem says, “If one of My children can’t talk to the other with love, why would I rest My Presence among you?”
The Beis HaMikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam, baseless hatred. And it will be rebuilt through ahavas chinam, baseless love. The word Eicha, how, also echoes another word: Ayeka—where are you?
But the beauty is, He’s still waiting with open arms. All of Tanach, all of Chazal, are filled with one cry from Hashem: “Shuvu eilai—Return to Me.” That’s all He wants. Not perfection. Not brilliance. Just honesty. Just a step forward.
Yes, on Tisha B’av we must sit on the floor and we must cry. Because if we don’t cry, it means we don’t care. But don’t say, “I can’t relate.” You can. Close your eyes. Imagine a world with perfect clarity, connection, and purpose. Imagine feeling Hashem’s presence in your life like you feel the warmth of the sun. That’s what we’re missing.
And so we cry, but we don’t despair. Because the very destruction is proof of His love. And if every Jew, this Tisha B’av, just takes one small step—one kabbalah, one cheshbon hanefesh, one sincere tefillah—then thousands and thousands of neshamos will be returning home.
And once that happens? Everything can change in a moment. Moshiach can come today. Because Hashem is waiting. He destroyed the Beis Hamikdash so we would stop faking it and start feeling it. He wants us back. And if we all return, even a little, He will bring us home.
