Parsha Topic
We have no idea how great was the love and longing that the Jewish people had for the Shechinah as they sat by the rivers of Bavel. They forgot everything — the suffering, death and troubles — because they were hurting from a lack of closeness to Hashem. They experienced this pain more intensely than all the physical torment.
Shir HaShirim offers a wondrous description of the Jewish people’s relationship to Hashem at the time of the Churban.
The voice of my Beloved is knocking [and saying ]: “Open for me, My sister, My dear one, My dove, My perfect one, for My head is full of dew, and my locks, the heavy raindrops of night.
Hashem came and “knocked” on our doors, saying, “Open for me, My sister, My dear one, My dove, My perfect one.” He wished to bestow upon us an abundance of blessing. “My head is full of dew, and my locks, the heavy raindrops of night” — this means that when Hashem came to the Jewish people, He was bearing rain, dew, and the other worldly blessings.
Since we did not open for Him at that time, there was an immediate result: “They beat me and injured me.” The Jewish people was wounded all over: the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash, the destruction of the second Beis HaMikdash, and after that, innumerable destructions and tribulations throughout all the generations.
The reaction of Klal Yisrael to all oppressors and persecutors was always:
“I adjure you, daughters of Yerushalayim: If you find my Beloved, what will you tell Him? That I am lovesick!”
This was always our impassioned outcry. We don’t ask them to tell Hashem about all our troubles and trials. To us, all this pales in comparison, because “I am lovesick.” The worst of it all is that the Shechinah is no longer with us. This is what pains us.
“I sought the One my soul loves.”
The Shechinah is in Galus
The callous reaction of the nations of the world to our plight in Galus was:
Where did your Beloved go, you most beautiful of women? To where did your Beloved turn? We will seek Him out with you.
Rashi explains that they are not really expressing sympathy; on the contrary, they are rubbing it in and trying to make us feel worse. They are saying: Why did Hashem go away and leave you as an abandoned widow?
The nations of the world make it seem as if they are coming to “help” us. “Oh, are you in need of something? We will help you search for your beloved G-d. In fact, we will help you out in various ways. After all, your G-d is no longer with you. He left you. So we will grant you a state, a government, great wealth, and everything good.”
The Jewish people replies:
I am to my Beloved, and His desire is for me.
We say back to them: We are staying right here in our place, waiting for “my Beloved,” for Hashem, because “His desire is for me.” We know clearly that however much we may be lovesick for Him, He longs for us even more — because He is here in our Galus along with us!
“Galus” means that a person is expelled from his place. However, what about an infant a few months old, carried about in his mother’s arms? When the mother is exiled from her home with the infant and wanders from place to place, she is in a state of galus. But it is not galus for the infant. It doesn’t matter to him where he is. He always has a good feeling, as long as he is together with his mother, although the external conditions might be harsh.
And we feel the same way toward Hashem. However terrible and torturous Galus is on a physical level, it doesn’t truly matter to us, because our true place is only, “I am to my Beloved, and His desire is for me.” We can live through Galus knowing that Hashem, too, is in Galus together with us. We don’t need the nations to tell us, “Where did your Beloved go?” We have patience. We will wait here until He returns, with us, when the Mashiach comes. And until then, we are not looking for replacements.
Sharing the Shechinah’s Pain
Suffering that comes straight from the hand of Hashem is something only the Jewish people experience.
The way of the world is that a person will give a corrective “slap” only to his own child or talmid. Similarly, Hashem never gave the nations of the world the privilege of receiving a “slap” from Him. Only we, His children, have merited such a thing.
Throughout all the generations, we have gotten hefty “slaps” from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This was a punishment of dimensions that only Hashem can mete out. We can’t even picture how terrible was the suffering that our people underwent over the course of the generations.
Yet, this is still the lesser pain that we went through, compared to the greater pain: our longing for Hakadosh Baruch Hu!
We are ill, we are broken and crushed, because we long so much for the Shechinah HaKedoshah, for the heartfelt joy we experienced in Beis HaMikdash, for the wondrous feeling that a Jew has when he offers a korban to Hashem, a korban that ascends pleasingly before Him, as if Hashem smelled its pleasing scent. Thus we sit and wait for Hashem, filled with a fierce longing for Him.
But it goes deeper than this. We have a pain even greater than our pangs of longing for Hashem: we share in the pain of the Shechinah, the pain that Hashem feels due to His fierce longing for us, for His children suffering in Galus.
Yosef Hatzaddik shows how powerful such a feeling can be. When his brother Binyamin came down to Egypt and appeared before him, what happened to the mighty Yosef who conquered his yetzer at all times? He broke down and cried. He was no longer able to bear the longing he felt for his younger brother.
Yet, what happened when Yosef went to meet Yaakov, his beloved father and revered teacher, after twenty-two years of forced separation, after being tossed in a pit and sold into tumas Mitzrayim? Certainly he wished to rush into his arms!
It says: Yosef showed himself to him.
Yosef knew that however strongly he longed for his father, his father’s longing for him, to see him, was many times greater. So he put his own feelings aside, and when they met, he gave his father Yaakov the opportunity to see him first.
It is the same with us. Indeed, the pain of our longing for Hakadosh Baruch Hu is so great that it overshadows all the suffering of Galus. But we have a pain even greater than this: we share in the pain that Hashem feels due to His longing for the Jewish people. This is the terrible pain of Galus Hashechinah.
Even if our hearts are closed and we don’t sense the pain that our neshamah feels over this matter, we should know that deep inside, we share fully in the pain of the Shechinah.
We have been immersed in this great pain for so many years. Yet, Hashem has promised us that our joy at the time of the future Ge’ulah will be accordingly greater:
Gladden us according to the days You afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil.
The wondrous joy of ruach hakodesh that the Jewish people experienced back in the time of Beis HaMikdash has been missing for all these two thousand years of Galus. However, we should know that this joy is not lost. Hashem takes every moment of joy and puts it in His treasure house, and when Mashiach comes, He will bestow this joy upon us intensely. We will be granted all those moments of simchah, of deveikus with the Shechinah, that the Jewish people saved up during the two thousand years of our Galus.
In one moment, all these wondrous treasure houses will open up before us, and we will once again merit closeness with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, in joy and happiness that will never cease.
