Thought for the Day: Mourning and Destruction Are Temporary, but Connections With Each Other and HaShem Are Forever

I know the title is a bit schmaltzy, but I didn't know how else to describe it. Oh well.

This coming Shabbos will be the 8th of Av. We generally don't like to make a siyum during the Nine Days, but Shabbos during the Nine Days is perfectly permissible. As it turns out, I have three siyumim to attend this Shabbos. I am making one myself for my anniversary/birthday (a person is considered like a newborn child on the day of his geirus, and of course I got married that same day; interesting story, but not for now). One is a close (both emotionally and physically, we sit right next to each other at the vasikin minyan) friend for the yahrtzeit of his mother, a"h. (I was close with his mother also, so I feel connected to that siyum also). One with a new chavrusa -- his very first siyum, and we just happen to be finishing on Friday. 

There is a mitzvah to eat the entire day before Yom Kippur. Rashi gives two explanations. (1) We physically need the strength to survive the fast. (2) We will feel the pain of fasting all the more so on Yom Kippur because we ate more than usual on the day before. I don't think these are contradictory at all. The first reason is practically what we need to survive the day. The second enhances the avodah of the day, which is to afflict ourselves.

I believe we can say the same thing about these siyumin on the day before Tisha b'Av. We are not allowed to learn most Torah on Tisha b'Av, so doubling up the day before will help us survive. On the other hand, having just completed and celebrated the conclusion of learning a whole masechta -- a whole, distinct Torah personality -- we are going to feel the pain of separation from our Holy Torah all the more when we commemorate the loss of the Beis HaMikdash on Tisha b'Av.

Whenever we talk about Tisha b'Av, we always add: unless the Beis HaMikdash is rebuilt, may that be soon and in our days, in which case we will be celebrating. When we each make our siyum, that will certainly be said. We prepare for Tisha b'Av to be a day of fasting and mourning, but we want to keep in the front of our minds that someday that will all end and we will rejoice like never before.

My new chavrusa and I plan to make a siyum on Masechta Ta'anis this Shabbos, בעזרת השם. The last couple of daf discuss the events that led to fasting on the 17th of Tammuz and then the 9th of Av. Just happens that we learned that during the three weeks. Funny coincidence, no? The gemara then ends with a shocker: Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says there have never been such days of rejoicing for Klal Yisrael at Yom Kippur and the 15th of Av. The gemara is just as puzzled as you are right now: I understand Yom Kippur, the day when we are forgiven and pardoned for our sins and received the second set up tablets, but what is the 15th of Av all about?! The gemara lists several things: the tribes were allowed to intermarry, the tribe of Binyamin was allowed back into Klal Yisrael, they stopped chopping wood for the pyre of the altar, so they had more time to learn. Take a look over there, Ta'anis 30b (click on the 8 on the right side).

It occurred to me that when we each make our siyum, we will all say what will likely happen the next day unless something -- something we all desperately want and hope for -- happens. However, I realized now, having just learned that gemara this week -- happy coincidence! -- that we are also looking forward to a day that is not going to change: ט''ו באב/the 15th of Av! ט''ו באב always has represented reunification of the Jewish people with each other and with HaShem. A day for rejoicing now and forever.

Sometimes schmaltzy is good, too.