Tisha B'Av

What should I say?  I wrote a whole rant in a fit of temper, but its not appropriate to rant like that, especially now.  This past thursday night, I had the merit to learn at yeshivat merkaz harav, and I attended a shiur there about tisha b'av.  I don't remember where all the mekoros were to look them up, but I will try to say over what I took away from the shiur (this isnt exactly what was said).

The medrash somewhere in medrash eichah writes, "eilu zechisem," if klal yisrael had merited, then the krias hatorah of tisha b'av would be that of yom kippur, ki bayom hazeh yechaper aleichem.  now that lo zachinu, we read "tumasah bishuleha" a pasuk in eichah about out defilement.

What exactly is the contrast the midrash is making between what could be and what is - how could tisha b'av ever be like yom kippur?

The midrashim note the stark disparity in the lengths of the first and second exiles - one lasting 70 years, one which is almost 2000 yrs long and still ongoing.  The medrash gives two parallels in halacha which reflect this disparity.  Bnei Yisrael in galus bavel were like a niddah, as opposed to in the second exile, when they are like a zavah.  a niddah, min hatorah, doesnt need shiva nekiim.  at the end of 7 days, as long as now there is no more blood, she is tahor.  A zavah, on the other hand, needs shivah nekiim - 7 days with no blood before she can immerse in the mikvah and become tahor.

The second mashal reflects the same idea, comparing a metzora musgar to a metzora muchlat.  in galus bavel, we were like a metzora musgar, whose nega wasnt definitevly proved to be tzaraas yet.  as such, if after 7 days of isolation, the nega doesnt get any worse - even if it doesnt get any better, the metzora is tahor.  the second exile, on the other hand, is compared to a metzora muchlat - one who is definitely tamei.  such a metzora cannot become tahor again until the nega is completely healed.

While one could take these distinctions between niddah / zavah and metzora musgar / muchlat as simple gezeiros hakasuv, there is a lomdus here.  a metzora musgar / niddah doesnt have a chezkas tumah - in one case its normal to see blood, in the other the nega is not definitively tzaraas.  since the person's original chezkas tahara remains, its easy to go back to being tahor.  just stop seeing blood, and the niddah is tahor, or for the metzora, as long as the nega doesn get any worse, we dont assume its tzaraas.

but a zavah sees blood outside of a woman's normal cycle.  this breaks all chazakos - the woman now has a chezkas tumaah.  similarly, the metzora muchlat is definitely tamei with a nega tzaraas - he no longer has his chezkas tahara.  in this case, we need more than before - its not enough for the blood to stop, but there must be 7 days of no blood to restore a chezkas tahara.  its not enough for the nega to remain stable - it must heal completely to re-establish a chezkas tahara.

bnei yisrael were exiled the first time because of the gimmel chamuros.  these sins are compared to niddah / metzora musgar.  they dont break the chezkas tahara of bnei yisrael.  when we stopped the sin, the galus ended, and our chezkas tahara was immediately back in place.  this makes sense in the context of the famous rambam in hilchos gerushin - deep down, a jew never wants to sin.  thus, the chezkas tahara of klal yisrael could not be removed because of our sins - at the core, the tahara remains.

but bayis sheni was destroyed because of sinas chinam.  while technically less chammur then the big three, this sin is much more pernicious.  it attacks to the very core of what it means to be the jewish nation - what type of nation hates itself? how can we claim to be one people, with one land, one culture, one beis hamikdash to worship g-d if we hate our neighbors and our friends?  we cant.

its not enough to just fix the sin in this case.  we need shivah nekiim.  we need to restore our chezkas tahara - rebuild a nation.  this is the tremendous difficulty of the exile of bayis sheni.

if we had merited, we wouldnt have sinned in a way that attacked to the core and destroyed our chazakah. in that case, teshuva alone would suffice to end our exile - and we would talk about kapparas avonos as a method to end the exile.  but kapparas avonos isnt enough.  we have a chezkas tumah -- tumasah bishuleha - that we need to remove and replace with a chezkas tahara.

please g-d, we should see the building of the beis hamikdash speedily in our days and not have to mourn once again tomorrow night.  tzom harevii vitzom hachamishi vitzom hashevii vitzom ha-asiri- yihyu lisason ulisimcha ulimoadim tovim.