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The girls' Seminary is a Beis Medrash for Jewish daughters where they absorb the Torah view and where they imbibe the education of yiras Shomayim of Torah and mitzvos.
HaRav Dessler sent a letter to a Seminary, calling it 'a Beis Medrash for the love of Torah.' This fundamental of love for Torah becomes entrenched in yeshiva students who become magnetized to the profundity of their subjects, which becomes an integral part of their very roots. But how can a Jewish daughter connect to the love of Torah? Only through the realization that the true good life is only a life of Torah.
We, boruch Hashem, do not need to subsist on bread and salt alone,..
One of the things over which we mourn on Tisha B'Av, says HaRav Chaim Kluft, is the decree that our ancestors of the desert could not enter Eretz Yisroel. Had the nation, upon leaving Egypt, entered the Land immediately after their deliverance, the Beis Hamikdash would have been built by Moshe Rabbenu and would never have been destroyed. The Ultimate Redemption would have been ushered in like the reality of Adam before the Sin. All of Creation would have reached its true purpose.
But Jewry wept in vain, a weeping of ingratitude, rejecting the desirable Land. The Nesivos, in his commentary on Eichah, explains that they precluded the desirability of the Land; they wanted a land of natural law, not a holy land. They felt unworthy of a reality at a level beyond that of nature and therefore despised this favorable land.
Therefore, "He raised His Hand upon them, to disperse them among the nations and scatter them among the countries [of the world]."
How are we expected to repair this in our exile?
One of the photos which impacted tremendously on the media throughout the world against Israel was one depicting a Gaza one-and-a-half-year-old child held in his mother's arms, looking altogether in a state of advanced starvation.
The Arab photographer says that he found the mother and son homeless, having been dispossessed of their home in the Gaza Strip, presently living in an insecure tent in Gaza City itself which contains no more than a small stove. This photographer says that the boy's weight dropped from nine kilo to a mere six — half the average weight of a healthy boy of his age. Leading media in the world pounced upon this photo, while the British Daily Express, considered pro-Israel, published it on the full length front page.
Undoubtedly a sordid picture, but something about it should have aroused certain questions. The mother, holding the child in her arms, appears to be in the prime of health.
Part II
This was originally published in the English edition of Yated Ne'eman in 1993, that is, 32 years ago.
The first part discussed the erev rav and their efforts to dull our sense of mourning over the churban of the Beis Hamikdash. It explained that the erev rav have been successful since a few short generations ago many people cried on Tisha B'Av but today we do not.
The Sin Will Go Into Their Bones
So, it is stated here, in the gemara that those who do not mourn will not be present. The gemara continues that they found a Beraissa, which says almost the same thing, but it is quite puzzling. It says "Tanya nami hachi—we have learnt somewhere else as well—kol ha'ochel bosor veshoseh yayin beTisha B'Av—all those who eat meat and drink wine on Tisha B'Av [the posuk says about them]—vatehi avonosom al atzmosom."
What does that mean? That this sin will go into their bones. But it doesn't say that the person won't be in Yerushalayim at the rebuilding, at the rejoicing.
The Ritva says the following astounding fact:
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Opinion & Commen
Following are excerpts from several shmuessen delivered last year during Sivan and Tammuz to talmidim in Yeshivas Kol Torah in Yerushalayim. They were prepared for publication by an independent listener (and not by HaRav Deutsch).
In the first part, HaRav Deutsch discussed the fact that the cause for the churban was that the lomdei Torah were insufficiently appreciated. In order to appreciate lomdei Torah, we have to appreciate Torah itself. One aspect of this is to realize what happens without Torah.
Only Torah protects us from the attractions of this world which are strong but totally not rational. For example, people smoke even though it is irrational, because of the powerful attraction of the pleasure of this world. Once, Jewish writers thought that the Jewish people were good by nature, but the truth is that their high moral level was the result of the fact that so much of the Jewish people kept the Torah.
Part II
Even among the yeshivos this point should be stressed: each society has people whom it reveres. Those people naturally influence their whole society, since everyone wants to be like them. A society is measured according to those whom it exalts. Secular Jews worship a football player because they would also like to be football players, or a singer because they would also like to be singers. This ruins the whole generation: if a society reveres physical strength or other such things, then it influences all of its members, since everyone wants to have this revered trait.
Opinion & Comment
"She was like a widow." There is no nation on earth whose countenance bears the imprint of isolation as does the Jews. Even those who never knew any other existence, go about their lonely way, split, demi-people, not certain themselves why they feel so lonely, desolate and isolated.
Tisha B'Av and the seder night of Pesach always fall on the same day of the week. The latter commemorates the nuptials, as it were, between the Creator and the Jewish people, while Tisha B'Av commemorates the severance of that bond, for which no substitute was found, reducing Israel to the state of a rejected widow.
All attempts to reunite the rend of widowhood through alternate means have cost us blood, fire and incinerating smokestacks. Our history's chronicles, written upon parchments of flesh and blood, are the painful witnesses of the Torah's description, "She sat alone, she was like a widow."
The Sfas Emes writes that Megillas Eicho is like part of [Chumash] Torah. It is a testimony against the Jews that they are now like a half person. We have no true existence or reality in exile without Eretz Yisroel and the Beis Hamikdosh. This is the meaning of "Eichoh yoshvo - - How did she sit . . . " This is how it must be: no Jew can ever find his place in exile, not as an individual and certainly not as a nation.
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Many suggestions were put forth over the years to dispel our loneliness and isolation. Some thought that if we responded to the extended arm of the gentiles outstretched in amity, we would succeed in effacing their mocking expression. But we did not foresee that if the sardonic smile left, it would be replaced by anger. "For when [the Jew] forgets that he is a stranger in a foreign land," writes the Meshech Chochmah, "and imagines that he belongs there and does not anticipate the assistance of Hashem, the storm will brew even more fiercely to remind him in shrieking volume: You are a Jew!"
Opinion & Comment
"`How can I alone bear your burden, your care and your strife?' (Devorim 1,12) This can be compared to a lady who had three chaperones. One attended her during her time of serenity, one attended her during her decline and the third, during her downfall. Thus did Moshe minister to the Jewish people in their prime and said, `Eicho -- How shall I alone bear . . . ' Yeshaya saw the nation during its period of decline and said, `Eicho -- How like a wanton woman has a faithful city become?' Yirmiyohu saw her in her disgrace and said, `Eicho -- How has she come to sit in isolation . . . ' " (Yalkut Shimoni).
The Jewish nation does not enjoy a standard status. In its heyday, its success was above and beyond any imaginable measure. "Hashem your G-d increased you and you are today like the stars of the heaven in great numbers." Even Moshe Rabbenu, their loyal shepherd, asks in amazement, "How can I alone bear . . . " This is not a mere question but a rhetorical query, an expression of amazement and wonder. How, indeed, is it possible? The Maharal explains it as follows (Tiferes Yisroel Chapter 9): "For the word eicho denotes something new and unusual. This is why Moshe used it to say that the people are as numerous as the stars, which is extraordinary."
When their decline began, again, their sins were not of the ordinary kind. Rather, they underwent a drastic change for the bad. "How like a wanton woman has become the faithful city?" Yeshaya, notes the Maharal, used this term eicho, again, to denote that their downfall was also extraordinarily drastic, a sharp plummeting. This is the nature of Yisroel: when they fall, they fall all the way to the nether depths. The city of honorable, scrupulous people, where justice reigned, was transformed to a den of murderers. This nation has no middle way. When they rise, they ascend to the very heavens, and when they fall, alas . . .
And then came the dreadful national holocaust, which followed the identical pattern -- no middle way, but straight down to the very abyss. Yirmiyohu saw them in their disgrace, when strange and terrible happenings overtook them, far more weird than befell any other nation! It was their drastic sinning that brought upon such extraordinary punishment that has no parallel in history, concludes the Maharal.
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The very secret of our nation is embodied in the words of this midrash. We are a people of polar extremes...
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