How remote are you from happiness?

A Jewish man was sitting in Starbucks reading an Arab newspaper.

A friend of his, who happened to be in the same store, noticed this strange phenomenon.

Very upset, he approached him and said:
'Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?' Moshe replied, 'I used to read the Jewish newspapers, but what did I find?

1500 missiles sent to Israel. Hamas entering Israel to sow death. Demonstrations all over Europe and many places in the US against Israel, in support of Hamas.

I got so depressed! It destroyed my day.
So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find?

Jews own all the banks; Jews control the media; Jews are all rich and powerful; Jews rule the world.

The news is so much better!' When you read the Arab newspapers, it seems that the Messiah has at last arrived.

The current war with Hamas, after October 7, is focusing on a new and frightening element, one which did not have in any previous war.

Until Oct. 7^th, we did not have to deal with hostages; however, now we are dealing with the lives of the hostages that are held deep in the tunnels in Gaza. All our wars have included combat above the ground, now we have to think twice if we are going to hurt our hostages on each step.

The IDF discovered more than 300 tunnels in Gaza. Some of the tunnels are large enough to accommodate vehicles. Hamas has dug dozens of such tunnels from homes inside Gaza to the southern cities of Israel. They are concrete-lined and large enough to allow swarms of terrorists to pass through.

Hamas also prepared tunnels to allow its operatives to move from one location to another without detection, as well as a system of bunkers housing its command and control centers.

For the first time in the history of Israel, the threat is not above ground; it's hidden below. The deadly network originates from basements and private homes in Gaza—a tool for attacks against our IDF soldiers.

Our most precious of children, our beloved IDF—who are in our thoughts and prayers all day and all night—are sacrificing their lives literally to destroy these tunnels and get rid of Hamas. It is a logistical nightmare. Hamas knows where the troops will come from; they wait in the tunnels for their arrival, with the simple objective to kill our children. They are evil, ruthless, cynical, deceptive, cruel, and sadistic. Their leaders, who make sure to remain in hidin,g have indoctrinated them that “shahids,” to die by fighting Israel, will bring them joy in the next world.

The Jerusalem Talmud and the Midrash quote a verse by Jeremiah, in the biblical book of Lamentations, which Jews read on the 9th of Av, describing the results of the destruction of the Temple:

He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He has made my paths crooked. What does this mean?

They relate a mysterious story during the milieu of the First Temple:

Young women from the city of Lod would knead their dough; they would then go to the Beit Hamikdah—the sacred sanctuary—in Jerusalem to pray. They would return home to Lod even before the dough had a chance to rise.

Young women from the city of Tzepori would wake up at dawn, ascend, and extoll G-d’s praises in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. They would be back at their homes so swiftly that they were the first to harvest the new figs growing that day.

A scribe from the city of Megdal would prepare the candles each Friday. He would then ascend to the Temple, pray, and return home in time to light the candles before the Shabbat had arrived.

Others say it was a teacher who would go every Friday, study the weekly portion of the Torah in the Holy Temple, and return in time to spend Shabbat at home.

The Talmud and the Midrash are astonished. How could all these Jews have made such a long journey so swiftly? It never takes more than a few hours for the dough to rise! And if you are leaving Friday afternoon to Jerusalem, how are you getting back to the North before Shabbat?

The Talmud answers: There were tunnels leading from the Temple to their homes, but they became concealed after the destruction of the Temple.

This is the meaning of the above verse in Lamentations. The tunnels were sealed, and the pathways above ground have become long, winding, and complex. Below the ground, one can travel from the Holy Temple to all parts of Israel swiftly; once the tunnels were concealed, the journey became long and arduous.

Indeed, extraordinary amounts of tunnels have been discovered beneath the mountain upon which the Temple was constructed. Many more await excavation. Perhaps some of them spanned long miles below the soil of the Holy Land. But it still seems mysteriously strange. Even if you have a straight tunnel extending from Jerusalem to the Galil—the North of the country—it would take many days to walk through the tunnel. It can’t be done within hours.

And if the Talmud is trying to tell us it was a miracle, then why the need for postulating that there were any tunnels at all? The same miracle could happen above ground!

Also, why were it those few individuals—the women who kneaded dough, the women who picked figs, the man who lit candles, the man who studied the Torah portion on Fridays—who merited to use these tunnels? If it were a common occurrence shared by all, then why are they specified; if it were unique to them, why only them?

Perhaps, as is the case with many of the stories in the Midrash, we too need to dig an intellectual tunnel—excavating what lies beneath these stories. Each story and narrative in Torah contains untold layers of depth. What you see at the surface is never the full story. There is a world of meaning and sometimes, a world of terror, as in the case of Gaza right beneath the surface, which is easy to ignore and disregard.

One of the greatest thinkers in Jewish history was the 16th-century Rabbi Yehuda Loew (1512-1607), known as the Maharal of Prague, who served as chief Rabbi of Prague, and one of the most influential Jewish personalities of his time, author of many major works on Jewish thought.

In one of his works, titled Netzach Yisroel, the Eternity of Israel, dedicated to the theme of exile and redemption, he explains the symbolic meaning of tunnels. We may apply his commentary to our story in the Talmud and the Midrash.

How far is the distance between you and the epicenter of holiness in the world? How remote are you from happiness, wholesomeness, and faith? How far are you from facing G-d? How distant are we from redemption, inner redemption, and collective redemption?

Some argued that the distance is infinite. You can’t reach Mars; you think you can reach happiness and wholesomeness? You can’t even run the marathon; you think you can cover the distance to G-d? You can’t even control yourself when you see ice cream. Do you think you can transform yourself? You must resign to living a small and narrow life.

While other guru masters have promised that after a three-day retreat and $7,000 wasted, we can discover the light. Enlightenment is merely one step away. All we need is to want, to acquire their tools, and we will fly. Every week we encounter a new book which promises us that by the time we finish reading it, we will master the skill of how to be a billionaire, or at least the happiest, most successful person walking in NY. Who’s right? 1800 years ago, the Talmud presented the Jewish perspective. It is neither, nor both.

Judaism teaches that the distance between a life of fragmentation vs. a life of intimacy with Divine oneness can indeed be very far as long as I am above the ground. But if I dig below the surface of my psyche, my body, and my mind I will discover that the journey to the Holy Temple and back home is merely a question of minutes.

Viewing myself more superficially, I can barely make up four flights of stairs, and certainly I can’t touch heaven. But if I will only have the courage, confidence, and willingness to dig beneath my surface, to excavate that which lies deep inside of me, I will discover that I never left the Holy Temple. There is a place within me that has always been, and will always remain, in intimacy with G-d.

This is our spark of Divinity, our core power, our essential wholesomeness, and happiness, which can never be damaged or broken. Our core may be covered up by layers of grit and gravel, by many mountains of skepticism, ignorance, scars from the past, fear, depression, guilt, insecurity, resentment, envy, anger, hatred, and inner confusion. But if I can go into my tunnel, into my true essence, I will realize that I can be in the Holy of Holies in a few moments. Because in that place, I have never really left the Holy of Holies.

I may be kneading dough or picking figs; these are two labors that we are forbidden on Shabbat and are hence associated completely with the mundane week. I may be preparing my candles for Shabbat, or I may be learning the Torah portion of the week. In all these endeavors, physical and spiritual, mundane or intellectual, secular or religious, if I am detached from my core, I may be doing all these things on a physical level, but will remain detached from my core of holiness. Or I may enter my “tunnel,” into my unscathed, unshattered soulful essence, and down in that space, the road to Jerusalem is clear and has always been clear.

Even an agnostic Jew who has been dislocated from his spiritual heritage for generations, at the deepest level of his being, he is Jewish. Nothing can take that away. Eventually, if he allows it, that innate Jewishness will surface. When the tunnel is exposed, he feels how Jewish he is and how deeply connected they are.

There is a story about a Jew from the famous city of Chelem who gave up on life. He found no joy in his work, his family, or his community. And he prayed to G-d to let him leave this world.

Show me the way to paradise! I had had enough of this world.
G-d asked him, "Are you sure that's what you want?"
And the man replied, "I am sure with all my heart."
"Very well," replied G-d, and He showed him the way to paradise.

It turns out, it wasn't very far. A few days' journey from his village. So late one afternoon, he set out on his way. He walked until nightfall, and then decided to rest beneath a green, leafy tree.

But just before he fell asleep, it occurred to him that in the morning, he might become confused and forget which was the way to paradise, and which the way back to his village. So, he left his shoes by the roadside, pointing the way to his journey toward paradise. This way, in the morning, all he had to do was jump into the shoes and continue.

Well, things happen in life. Shoes do get turned around. Was it an angel? Was it just a squirrel? Who knows, but the shoes got turned around. They were now facing his village, where he had lived in agony and misery all these years.

In the morning, the man rose, ate from the tree, and set about to continue his journey, unaware that he was returning home. In his mind, he was traveling to PARADISE.

By noon, he spotted a village on the next hillside, and his heart leapt, "I've arrived; it's paradise!" He ran down the valley and up the hill until he arrived at the gates of the town.

"Doesn't Paradise look like my own town?" he thought.

But, no, he immediately noticed the difference. His town was full of dirt, full of chaos. Here, he felt serenity... After all, it was PARADISE.

He sat and witnessed the town awakening. He heard the singing of children on their way to school, and the sound of adults on their way to work and to market. And for the first time in his life, he felt the vitality, the energy, the love that filled the village. He sat there, in the square, all day taking in the fresh breeze of "paradise."

As the day waned, he began to feel hungry.

I wonder, he thought, since Paradise looks so much like my town, if there is a street in Paradise, like my street. And he went to look. Sure enough, he found it just where he thought it might be.

"I wonder if there is a house in Paradise like my house?" And there it was. Just as he was admiring this house, a woman came to the door, a woman who bore a striking resemblance to his wife. She called his name and told him to come in for dinner.

Wow! They know my name in Paradise! There is a place set for me here in Paradise. G-d, how can I thank you!

The house here in Paradise was not like his house back in the village. That house was always congested, filled with commotion, and there was always something to do.

This place is cozy; it is a home filled with life, love, a beautiful woman, delightful children, each one a gem, of the nature you could only find in paradise.

He sat and ate the best meal he'd ever eaten. "This woman in paradise sure knows how to make a meal," he thought. "If only my wife could have had this recipe..." And afterwards, he went up to his room to the deepest, most restful sleep he'd ever known.

In the morning, the woman who looked like his wife handed him his tools and sent him to work.

Work? He said. This is paradise?

"Even in Paradise, there are tasks to do," she said.

So, he went to work in Paradise. But this work was different than his old work. It was filled with a sense of purpose and service. He met interesting people and marveled at the challenge of creating something new. In the evening, he returned to that warm and loving home.

Till the end of his life, my dear friends, the sweet old man from Chelem never learned that he hadn't made it to Paradise... The only thing that changed was his perception of his own home and family, and work.

One of the most fascinating teachings of the Zohar, the foundational book of Kabbalah, is found in Genesis in the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, which occurred on Rosh Hashanah as well. It seems clear from the text – “And He expelled Adam” -- that it was G-d who expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden. Yet the Zohar, astoundingly, asks this question: “We do not know who expelled whom? Was it G-d who expelled man, or not?”

As it turns out that, the Zohar, in a very artistic and radical way, re-reads the biblical verse to put forth a new meaning: It was Adam who expelled G-d from the Garden!

What the Zohar is trying to tell us is that, in truth, we are still in the Garden; if only we can dance to the music... if we only have the courage not to expel G-d from our lives; if we only have the serenity to look at everything around us and see the symphony.

This will allow us to understand a deeply enigmatic story in the Talmud.

One of the most corrupt and depraved kings of Jewish history was a man named Menasseh. His father, Hezekiah, was a tzaddik, but the apple fell very far from the tree...

There is a story told about King Manasseh’s foreboding childhood. Young Manasseh was sitting on his father’s shoulders. As King Hezekiah bounced his sons around, Manasseh turned to his brother and said, “Look what a strong forehead Daddy has. It would make a great pair of shoes!” This was how the child thought of his father’s forehead.

There are no words to describe Manasseh's wickedness. He promoted idolatry and erected an idol in the House of God. He murdered the prophet Isaiah, his grandfather.

Then one day, something happened that changed everything. The Tanach describes it in short, and the Talmud elaborates:

Rav Levi said, “They made a kettle of copper and placed Menasseh inside it and lit a fire underneath him”. When his pain became intense, there was not one type of idolatry that he did not pray to. When this all proved futile, he said, “I remember that my father would read me these verses in Synagogue: 'When you are distressed, and all these things happen upon you in the end of days, then you will return to the Lord your God and obey Him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not let you lose, or destroy you; neither will He forget the covenant of your fathers, which He swore to them.” Menasseh continued, “I will read this, if I am answered, then good, and if not then all G-ds are identical”.

The angels of Heaven were ‘closing the windows’ to prevent the prayer of Menasseh from rising before G-d Almighty, and the angels were saying, “Master of the World! A man who worshipped idolatry and set up an idol in the Holy Temple, you will accept in repentance?!” G-d replied to them, If I do not accept his repentance, then I am sealing the gate before all future returnees!

What did G-d do? He dug a tunnel under His Throne of Honor and listened to Menasseh’s beseeching.

This is strange. Who is in charge in heaven? G-d or the angels? G-d wanted to listen to his prayers; the angels sealed the path of his prayers. Instead of G-d telling the angels who is boss, he is forced to “dig a tunnel” to smuggle in Manasseh’s soul without the angels noticing? Does G-d also have to deal with “red tape?”

But, based on the above, we can understand. The tunnel that G-d digs to allow Manasseh to return is the tunnel within the king’s soul. G-d is explaining to the angels that all of the king’s sins, dirt, corruption, perversions are on his conscious level—the way he experiences himself “above the ground.” But there is another layer to his identity, which may be hidden miles underground. There is a subterranean Manasseh—in which his identity is as pure as heaven; the space where G-d’s love to him is unconditional, his core, “Pintele Yid,” which is always one with G-d, even if he was never conscious of it. Had he known that part of himself, he would have never sinned. But he never came in contact with his tunnel.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon tells the story of an old man in a shtetl in Eastern Europe who is very ill. His doctors tell him that he needs goat’s milk, so he buys a goat. A short time after he buys the goat, she disappears for a few days. Wherever they searched for her, they could not find her. But after a few days, she returns on her own with an udder full of milk so rich and delicious that it tastes like it came from the Garden of Eden.

And so, it went. Whenever the milk ran out, she would disappear for a few days and could not be found until she returned on her own with udders full of the most delicious, fabulous milk. One day, the man’s son, whose curiosity reached a peak, formulated a plan. He tied a rope to the goat’s tail and the other end of the rope to his hand. When she left in the middle of the night, he felt the tug of the rope and followed her. He followed her into a tunnel, one of those mysterious tunnels, and they walked through the tunnel for several hours, possibly several days.

When they came out on the other side, they found themselves on beautiful, verdant hills with trees and plants blossoming everywhere. The scene was majestic, the ambiance intoxicating, and the energy uplifting. He saw Jews, but they did not understand Yiddish, the primary language of the shtetl. He asked them in Hebrew where he was, and they explained that they were in the land of Israel, the epicenter of holiness, near Tzfat. The boy wanted to remain there for the day and then return to bring his parents to Eretz Yisrael, but he saw people preparing for Shabbat and realized he would not be able to make the journey in time for Shabbat.

The boy thus wrote a note to his parents telling them that he was okay and in the land of Israel. They should follow the goat through the tunnels, and she would bring them to Eretz Yisrael to live with him, happily ever after. He placed the note in the goat’s ear and allowed it to return to his parents’ home. The boy went to live in Tzfat.

When the goat returned home to the Shtetl without his son, the boy’s father was broken-hearted. He did not find the note in the goat’s ear and assumed that his son had been devoured by some wild animal. Ripped by grief, tormented by guilt, the father brought the ritual slaughterer to kill the goat that caused him so much pain. The shochet slaughtered the goat. As they were skinning the goat after slaughter, the note fell out of its ear. Seeing his son’s handwriting, the father read the note written by his son, instructing him to follow the goat that would take him through a tunnel to the Holy Land.

The man then realized that in his grief and haste, he had destroyed his only “key” to returning to 1) his health, 2) to Eretz Yisrael, and 3) to his beloved son.

Is this not the story of many a life? We destroy that which we love most. We often ignore or eliminate that which is right near us, which can show us the way to our Promised Land. We are afraid, or angry, or too anxious, to enter into our tunnels into our deepest, purest, holiest, happiest, most complete places, where you and G-d are one.

This, then, is the meaning of Jeremiah’s words read on the 9th of Av: “He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He has made my paths crooked.” Or as the Talmud puts it, “the tunnels were concealed.” The destruction of the 9th of Av occurred when we could not find our way into our tunnels; worse, when we ceased to realize that there is even a tunnel... The pathways to the tunnels have been hidden.

Hidden but not gone. They are always right there, beneath the surface, waiting to be unearthed.

And unearthed they were during these last two years...

We have also unearthed the deep tunnels buried in Jewish hearts, where their journey to the Holy of Holies is only moments away. Jews in Israel, and the world over, are feeling how important their Jewishness is to them.

Thousands had gathered in every town in the world to demonstrate against the Israeli bombardment and starvation of Gaza. But the protest soon turned violent – and against Jews in general.

When Haman offered so many shekels to eliminate the Jewish people, G-d said: Sorry, Haman, but their shekels have preceded yours....

Today, we too declare to Hamas and to all of Israel’s foes: Your tunnels will never succeed. For our tunnels have preceded your tunnels. Thousands of years before you created your tunnels of hate, we created our tunnels of love.

This time around, we will not give up on those tunnels of love crisscrossing our nation, connecting us to our brothers and sisters in Israel. And we will not abandon those tunnels leading us to our Holy Temple in Jerusalem, with the coming of Moshiach and the complete redemption, may it be now.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky