Two beggars sat on a bench, lamenting their fate. Neither had any money, and both had to beg for their food. You couldn’t tell by looking at them, but there was one major difference between the two: one had always been a pauper, and the other had once been a very wealthy man. As you could imagine, the bitterness and anguish of the previously prosperous man was exponentially greater than that of the man who was perpetually poor, and who has no idea what he is missing….
My friends, there was once a time when we were all kings – when we were a nation of holy princes and priests. Yes; we have all tasted the sweetness of royalty and redemption, of purity and prosperity, but… we have fallen. We have been exiled. All the wealth that we once had has since been replaced by cheap substitutes and temporary pleasures… Today we ask ourselves, what can we do to restore what we’ve lost?
Each Yom Tov has a cheftzah shel mitzvah – an object that enables us to carry out the obligations of the day. On Rosh Hashanah it is the shofar; on Sukkos it is the lulav and esrog; on Pesach it is the matzah… and so on. But what about the 3 Weeks? What is the cheftzah shel mitzvah of the 9 Days and Tishah B’Av?
The Maharal of Prague explains that Hashem connected the souls of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisroel. When the Meraglim came back with an evil report, the Yidden sat down and cried bitter tears. וַיִּבְכּוּ הָעָם בַּלַּיְלָה הַהוּא (Bamidbar 14:1); it was those tears on that night of Tishah B’Av that severed the connection between the Jewish people and their land. Thus, Hakadosh Baruch Hu warned us: אַתֶּם בְּכִיתֶם בְּכִיָּה שֶׁל חִנָּם וַאֲנִי קוֹבֵעַ לָכֶם בְּכִיָּה לְדוֹרוֹת – You cried for nothing on that night; I have established for you a day of crying for generations to come! (Ta’anis 29a).
And so, the Maharal continues, the only way to restore this severed connection is through tears of longing and desire to return. Only through crying can we reunite with our home: Eretz Yisroel, and the source of true kedushah: the Beis Hamikdash. The only way to restore the grandeur and glory of our prestigious past is to shed an honest tear or two, because they are the cement and glue that heal and seal that broken bond. The cheftzah shel mitzvah of the 3 Weeks, the 9 Days and of Tishah B’Av itself… is our tears.
This year, Tishah B’Av falls out on Shabbos, so allow me to take this one step further.
The Chasam Sofer (Drush 7th Av, 5599) famously writes that Hashem gathers our tears and quite literally uses them to connect the stones of the Third Beis Hamikdash! With this in mind, we can better appreciate the words of the Shelah HaKadosh (Misechta Taanis, Ner Mitzvah, #33), who writes that this is the reason it is forbidden to cry over the Churban on Shabbos – building the Beis Hamikdash is forbidden on Shabbos, and one who cries on Shabbos transgresses the melachah of Boneh!
With this powerful insight, we can better appreciate the significance of each and every tear that we shed over the Churban Beis Hamikdash. No sincere tear is for naught, no heartfelt tear is shed in vain – we can now truly understand that every tear counts!
Al Eileh was composed by the remarkably gifted Yossi Green, and was sung by the world-renowned chazzan Tzudik Greenwald on Tzudik’s debut album Achim in 2012. It wasn’t until 2018 that this song was given the proper a cappella treatment and was formally re-released prior to Tishah B’Av 5778. {Not to be confused with another Yossi Green Al Eileh classic, originally sung by Amudai Shaish in 1979, which has a few vocal renditions of its own.} This song is a beautiful expression of heartfelt emotion, and accurately captures the feelings of bereavement that we are meant to feel during these days of national mourning.
Yossi Green Says:
About 25 years ago, Bar Ilan University invited me and Avremel [Fried] to take part in one of their first organized trips to Poland. We were joined by many choshuve individuals – Chief Rabbi Lau among them – along with another 125 or so alumni of the university.
{Keep in mind, this was before people were making such organized trips to Poland, going to the Rebbe Reb Meilech’s tzion and singing Aderaba (which, by the way, continues to give me feelings of such unbelievable hakoras hatov that I was chosen as the shliach for that song). Today, bli ayin hara, it’s already a very normal pilgrimage that Yidden make from all over the world, but back then, this was not an ordinary trip to make.}
As we made our way through the streets of Warsaw, Rav Lau described to us the hundreds of shteiblach that once existed in a country that was now essentially bereft of all Yiddishkeit… Where there once was a world of flourishing Chassidic courts… Ger, Aleksander, Sochatchov, Amshinov, and so many more… all cleared out, wiped out – Judenrein – Oy! Rachmana L’tzlan, what those reshaim did there….
There I was, walking along with the oilam, when suddenly, something came over me and I did something that I never did: I just started singing. I started singing this song. We all continued walking, one street after another, and as we went, more and more people learned the niggun until before you knew it, everyone was singing this song together as one.
At this point, even the goyim came out from their homes to see what was taking place. They lined the streets and watched as about 150 somber Jews passed by, brokenhearted, all singing together: 🎵Al Eileh! Al Eileh! Ani Boichiya…….🎵
Years later, we recorded it with the incredible Tzudik, and the amazing arrangement by Shua Fried, but the memory of where it began is something that I won’t soon forget.
עַל אֵלֶּה אֲנִי בוֹכִיָּה עֵינִי עֵינִי יֹרְדָה מַּיִם כִּי רָחַק מִמֶּנִּי מְנַחֵם מֵשִׁיב נַפְשִׁי
May Hashem put an end to our bitter tears, and may we be zocheh to the immediate arrival of Moshiach.
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