WHAT IS THE MINDSET IN THE THREE WEEKS?

Today July 6, 2023, is the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz. It is the day on which the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, enabling the enemy's conquest of the holy city, leading to the destruction of the Holy Temple three weeks later on the 9th of Av. Ever since, Tammuz 17 and Av 9 have been established by the Prophets and Sages as fast days, and the three week period between them as a time of sadness and mourning.

What is the mindset to enter into this period?

Let me share a story, recorded in the gripping autobiography of Rabbi Yisroel Meir Lau, Out of the Depths.

When Rabbi Lau, former chief rabbi of Israel, shuts his eyes and recalls his childhood, his mind is crowded with images of trains, of boots pounding on the pavement, of barking dogs. He hears children wailing, "Mamme! Tatte!" as they're torn from their parent's arms, the Gestapo screaming, "Schnell, schnell!" as they wield their clubs, and always, the dogs barking.

"Lulek," as Rabbi Lau was then called, was two years old when the Second World War broke out, and eight when he was liberated from Buchenwald.

Yisroel Meir was born on 1 June 1937, in the Polish town of Piotrków. His father, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, was the last Chief Rabbi of the town; he was sent with another son, Shmuel, to the Treblinka extermination camp, where they were gassed. Yisrael Meir is the 38th generation in an unbroken family chain of rabbis.

The father’s last instructions to his sixteen-year-old son Naftali were to protect his little brother, Lulek, to ensure that the Rabbinical chain remains unbroken. Their mother also died in the camps two years after her husband.

"I was separated from my mother in November 1944," says Rav Lau. "I can still hear the Germans yelling 'Schnell, schnell!' as they crowded us onto the train platform. The trains, the boots, and the dogs were all there. My brother Naftali, who was eighteen, had been put with a group of men, and I was with my mother. Women and children were being shoved into one freight car, men into another.

"At the last second before boarding the train, my mother gave me a hard shove – over to the men, whom she hoped would be used for labor and not killed. 'Tulek!' she called to my brother. 'Take Lulek! Goodbye, Tulek! Goodbye, Lulek!'

"I never saw her again.

“Never in my short life had I cried like that, and never in all the long years since then. It took a long time until I understood that by pushing me away like that, my mother had saved my life."

He ended up in Buchenwald. His brother smuggled him into the camp in a sack. And Lulek survived.

Rabbi Lau once shared his memories of when the Americans arrived, and Buchenwald was liberated. "I remember the looks of horror on the faces of the American soldiers when they came in and stared around them. I was afraid when I saw them. I crept behind a pile of dead bodies and hid there, watching them warily.

"Rabbi Herschel Schachter was the Jewish chaplain of the division. I saw him get out of a jeep and stand there, staring at the corpses. He has often told this story, how he thought he saw a pair of living eyes looking out from among the dead. It made his hair stand on end, but slowly and cautiously he made his way around the pile, and then, he clearly remembers coming face-to-face with me, an eight-year-old boy, wide-eyed with terror. In heavily-accented American Yiddish, he asked me, 'How old are you, mein kind?' There were tears in his eyes.

"'What difference does it make?' I answered, warily. 'I'm older than you, anyway.'

"He smiled through his tears and said, 'Why do you think you're older than me?'

"And I answered, 'Because you cry and laugh like a child. I haven't laughed in a long time, and I don't even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?'"

There is a photo that is framed and hung on the wall for all to see as they enter Rabbi Lau’s home. It's the famous photograph of a smiling, eight-year-old Lulek, a coat draped over one arm, the other holding a suitcase.

"An American soldier donated an old suitcase to me from the army surplus storehouse. It went with me to Eretz Yisrael, and it held everything I owned, as I wandered from one educational institution to another. By the time I got married, it was so shabby that my wife wanted to throw it out, but I refused to part with it. 'This was my house,' I told her. 'If our children ever complain, I'll show it to them and say, "This is what your father had when he was a boy." I put it up in the storage loft of our building, and when we moved to another apartment, I came back for it. I climbed seventy-five steps to retrieve it, but I found nothing there but the handle. The suitcase had disintegrated.

"But I have the photo. Elie Wiesel, who was with me in Buchenwald, presented it to me at an event; he'd spotted it in a museum in Vancouver. It came as a complete surprise to me. As soon as the children saw it, they all said, 'There's the suitcase!'

"When I leave my house every day, on one side of the door is the mezuzah; on the other side is this photograph. Each time I see it, it says the same thing to me: 'Yisrael, look at Lulek. Now your task is to justify the fact that you were saved. You must carry out your parents' mission; you must keep the chain unbroken. This is from whence you came.'

"And across from the photo, the mezuzah tells me ‘Before Whom I'm destined to give an accounting.' '"

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau shared with an audience a remarkable story of the Midrash in the book of Eicha (Lamentations). It is an incredibly moving and powerful Midrash, overflowing with profound symbolism and drama.

When the Master of the World allowed His Holy Temple to be destroyed by the Babylonian tyrant, Nevuchadnetzar, in 586 BCE Abraham, the first Jew, came to G-d, weeping and wailing and rending his clothes, over the fate of his children. Even the ministering angels joined him in mourning. How, Abraham asked G-d, how could You allow this to happen to my children?

Israel has transgressed my laws, G-d replied.

Says who? Abraham asked.

The Torah will testify against them, G-d said.

The Torah came forth to testify against the Jewish people.

Abraham turned to the Torah and said: My Daughter! You will testify against the Jewish people? Have you no shame? Have you no decency? Have you no dignity? Have you no gratitude? When G-d was searching for a nation to accept you, His Torah, He went around to all nations, and they all refused you. It was only the Jewish people who came to Mt. Sinai and accepted you with grace and respect. Now you have the audacity to testify against them. Shame on you!

And the Torah became silent. She refused to say another word against the People of the Book.

So, G-d said to Abraham, that the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet will come to testify against Israel. The 22 letters of the holy tongue—considered the building blocks not only of the Torah but of creation itself—showed up to testify that the Jews have transgressed the laws of G-d.

The Aleph rose to testify, and Abraham said to the letter Aleph: “Shame on you! How can you testify against the children of Israel? The Ten Commandments begin with your letter—the letter Aleph (“Anochi Hashem Elokecha”). Remember the day G-d came down on Mt. Sinai and declared the Ten Commandments opening with your letter, and no nations accepted them, save for the Jewish people?! How dare you demonstrate such a lack of gratitude and appreciation? How dare you speak up against these same Jews? You should be ashamed of yourself!

And, indeed, the Aleph became silent and walked away. It would not say another word against the Jewish people.

The letter Beit was then summoned to testify. Again, Abraham challenged it: “Are you not ashamed to testify against the Jewish people? Does the entire Torah not begin with the letter Beit (Bereshit barah Elokim)? Who was the nation who, with excitement and alacrity, accepted the Torah which opens with your letter? It was only the Jews! Whence the chutzpah to speak out against them?

The Beit was silenced. It could not testify against the Jews.

G-d summoned the letter Gimmel.

“Are you not ashamed of yourself,” thundered Abraham. “You're the first letter of the commandment to wear tzitzit (“Gedilim Taseh Lach”). Who keeps the mitzvah of tzitzit besides the Jews? They are the only people who accepted your mitzvah, the mitzvah which opens with the letter Gimmel. How dare you?!

The Gimmel was silenced silently.

And so, continues the Midrash, when the remainder of the letters observed this, they all felt ashamed to testify against the Jewish people and none of the letters would say anting negative.

Immediately, Abraham spoke up and said: I waited 100 years to have a son. And then I was willing to sacrifice my beloved son for You. Won't You remember that?

Isaac added: I was willing to be sacrificed. Won't You remember that?

Jacob added I spent my life tending to my children, the house of Israel, in service of Your plan. Won't You remember that?

Moses added I was a faithful shepherd to the house of Israel for forty years. In the desert, I ran before them like a horse, and You didn't even let me enter the land with them, and now You're allowing them to be exiled and killed? Won't You remember?

Moses and the prophet Jeremiah (author of the book of Eicha, Lamentations, which we read on Tisha b'Av) went to see the destruction with their own eyes. It was hard for them to walk because the roads were filled with corpses. And they saw people being killed left and right, death and suffering everywhere. Moses cursed the sun, saying: Sun, why didn't you go dark when this happened?

And then Rachel spoke.

G-d, she said: You remember that Jacob loved me exceedingly, but my father chose to give him Leah in my place. Jacob and I had worked out a system of signals, so he would know whether it was really me in his bedroom. But then I had pity on my sister, and I taught her the signals so he wouldn't realize it was her. I even lay beneath their bed, and when he spoke to her, she was silent, and I responded in her stead.

If I -- a creature of flesh and blood, made of dust and ashes -- could overcome my jealousy in order to be kind to my sister...why are You, the sovereign of all existence, jealous of the false gods with whom the Israelites dally, false gods who aren't even real?! How can You let Your jealousy cause your children to be slain and exiled?

And the mercy of G-d was stirred by Rachel's argument. And G-d said: For your sake, Rachel, I will restore the house of Israel to their place. Have hope for the future. The exile will come to an end. “And there is hope for your future, says the Lord, and the children shall return to their own border.”

As we enter the three weeks today, we can turn to the Torah and to the Alef Beit and say: Come and testify what type of loyal nation we are. It is time for redemption to come and for the world to be healed.

Easy fast if you are fasting today.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky