Churban

Tzom Gedalia is one of the four times a year we fast because of the Beis Hamikdash being destroyed.

After the Churban of the first Beis Hamikdash, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Bavel who destroyed the Beis Hamikdash, let a man named Gedaliah be the governor of the Jews in a place called Mitzpah.

Gedaliah was a good leader and helped the Yidden start to farm the land so they would be able to live.

He listened to the Navi Yirmiyahu who was with them and kept all of the mitzvahs.

Approximately seventy years after Yeshayahu's death, to put it in context of where we left off, through the destruction of Yerushalayim and the Mikdash.

And Yirmiyahu is the navi who is most closely associated with the Churban.

So much so that he's often called the Prophet of Doom or Nevi HaDema'ot, the Prophet of Tears.

And Chazal characterize his Sefer as Kulei Churbanah.

It's entirely about the destruction.

So while it is true that the majority of his prophecies do have to do with the Churban, there are three points that are essential to remember.

First is that while the preponderance of the Sefer anticipates the coming destruction, Yirmiyahu also contains some exceptionally beautiful prophecies of comfort and salvation.

It'll take us a while to get there, but we'll see that as well.

Just that I'm going to continue on the Yitzchak of the Yitzchak of the Yitzchak of the Yitzchak of the body.

Now, he brings up something which we said in the past, but the second part, I don't know, he says, Chazal says that after the Churban, Moshiach was born, I'm sorry, the Asa Churban, Moshiach was born on Tisha B'Av, so he says, based on what they say from the Mizrit Shema G'ed, that's why the Kruvim, or Maorim, says that's why Matzah Tisha B'Av, So it's Begilei Mamash, that's why Matzah Tisha B'Av, Moshiach, is born, and the Princess of Khartoum said that's what the Apostle says, Just mentioned that some spiritual people, or people who try to be extra spiritual, and they only, they don't talk on Shabbos, they don't talk only on Lashon Kedosh, he says like this, Some people want to make a ticket for the Haveras.

They only talk Shabbos and Rosh Hashanah.

It's a good thing.

We were attached to the reishit, living in Eretz Yisrael as Klal Yisrael with the Shekhinah, as the Zohar explains.

After the Churban, that consciousness no longer sustains us automatically.

We have to rebuild it again and again and again, morning, afternoon, and night.

That is why Moshe made sure that after the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, that we would replace Bikkurim with this davening three times a day, because that connection to the reishit, which was kind of automatic living in Eretz Yisrael with the Beit HaMikdash there, with the Shekhinah- now needs us to constantly work at it.

He talks about returning to Yerushalayim, describing it as Yeshayahu did, as the city where David camped.

Beyond quoting Tanakh, the original HaTikvah cries over the Churban.

[Hebrew] "That an eye still weeps for the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash." He describes Tikkun Chatzos, the Jew rising at midnight to cry for Tzion.

Granted that the abridged version loses some of this, and it adds a desire [Hebrew] for a free life.

When you score your own goal, you hit the ball into your own goal.

We caused our own Churban Beis Hamikdash.

And when Chazal say the Second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of Sinas Chinam, it doesn't just refer to the ideological debates that sunk the Beis Hamikdash between the Tzdokim and the Prushim and between the Hellenists and the non-Hellenists.

Remember, Hellenists were not the same as Tzdokim.

In other words, that Tisha B'av is before Eschanon, so the Shabbos before Tisha B'av is always going to be Parshas Devarim, that has the Haftorah of Chazoyn.

B'alach explains the reason is that he should lend Pasha's Dvorim to the Tisha B'Av because Pasha's Dvorim has in it the tachacha that Moshe gave to Klal Yisrael So Melech, you want to learn that before Tisha B'Av, and it has the Avtairev Chazayim, which is the Chacha that Yishai gave about the Churban.

So Melech belongs before Tisha B'Av.

It's a little bit interesting to me.

Um, many think of Poland as either, you know, just Holocaust, unfortunately.

They associate the Churban, the destruction, um, and the camps.

It's a trip to the camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek or Chelmno, Belzec, uh, Sobibor, Treblinka, places like that, um, and others.

Or the ghettos, the Warsaw ghetto, the Krakow ghetto, the Lodz ghetto.

It was hidden.

And then from there, we're gonna go to the Churban Bayit Sheni.

Churban Bayit Sheni, we're gonna go to the Rishonim.

And the Rishonim explaining what happened at the time of the Crusades and up to, as I just mentioned, up to the Kinnis that are gonna be dealing with World War II.

So this morning, we're gonna begin with Kinna, Kinna Vav.

The emperor said to him, "Well, what's going on? I told you to destroy it." He said, "I left it up so people should see how big the Beis Hamikdash was that you destroyed." So he told him, "You defended me well, but nevertheless, you didn't listen to what I said.

Jump off, and if you live, if you live, that's a sign that you meant it for my honor." He threw himself off the top of the tower and was killed.

Reb Yehuda HaNasi, the leader of the Klal Yisroel at the time of the Churban, uttered a curse against him, saying that you own-- you know in your own heart that you are not doing it for any other reason.