Av 5784.  The month of our mourning for churban Batei Mikdash (the destruction of both Temples, Bayis I by the Babylonians, and Bayis II by the Romans), the exile of Tzion and Yerushalayim, and all our travails that have befallen us in exile since that bitter day when the 2nd Temple was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago.

בָּכוֹ תִבְכֶּה בַּלַּיְלָה, וְדִמְעָתָהּ עַל לֶחֱיָהּ--אֵין-לָהּ מְנַחֵם, מִכָּל-אֹהֲבֶיהָ:  כָּל-רֵעֶיהָ בָּגְדוּ בָהּ, הָיוּ לָהּ לְאֹיְבִים - She surely weeps in the night, and her tears are on her cheek; she has no one to comfort her among all her lovers; all her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies (Eichah 1:2); דַּרְכֵ֨י צִיּ֜וֹן אֲבֵל֗וֹת מִבְּלִי֙ בָּאֵ֣י מוֹעֵ֔ד כָּל־שְׁעָרֶ֨יהָ֙ שֽׁוֹמֵמִ֔ין כֹּֽהֲנֶ֖יהָ נֶֽאֱנָחִ֑ים בְּתֽוּלֹתֶ֥יהָ נוּג֖וֹת וְהִ֥יא מַר־לָֽהּ - The roads of Tzion are in mourning because no one comes at the appointed (festival) times; all her gates are desolate, her kohanim groan; her virgin daughters grieve while she herself suffers bitterly (1:4); עֽוֹלָלֶ֛יהָ הָֽלְכ֥וּ שְׁבִ֖י לִפְנֵי־צָֽר, her young children went into captivity before the enemy (1:5).

The day I pen these words, Yom Sheni, Rosh Chodesh Av 5784 (Monday, August 5, 2024), is the fifth birthday of Ariel Bibas, who was brutally kidnapped on Oct. 7, along with his mother, Shir, father, Yarden, and baby brother, Kfir.  In honor of his 5th birthday, his paternal grandmother (his maternal grandparents were murdered on Oct.7, HY”D) wrote her grandson a birthday letter.

My dear Luli,  Happy birthday to my first grandchild. You're five years old! Five years... Do you even know that this big day is approaching?

Can you feel our longing, the immense love that fills our hearts?  Over nine months have passed since you were taken from us by bad people. Nine months of tears, prayers, and unwavering hope. The world around us continues to turn, but time seems to have frozen without you. You've grown a year older, but there's no celebration.

The kumquat tree you love so much has blossomed again, its branches filled with tiny orange fruits. I see them and remember your small hands, eager to pick and taste them. The loquat tree near your home has also borne fruit, orange ones, and I can imagine you running to your mum, so proud of what you've picked.

When I read a story to your cousin Toto, my eyes search for you. As if looking hard enough would find you sitting beside her, listening intently and smiling your shy, sweet smile. My heart skips a beat every time I remember how much you're missed.  I try to imagine the moment you'll return to us. Will you still call me 'Grandma Nini'? Will you still want to play 'piggyback'? I can almost hear your laughter as you splash water on me while we water the plants in the garden.  Luli, so much has changed in the last year. Instead of celebrating all the new things you've learned, we're dealing with an absence - of you, of your mum and dad, and of little Fir Fir. We're also in the shadow of a terrible loss. Grandpa Yossi and Grandma Margit are no longer with us, and how will you react when you learn this news?

But we never stop hoping. Every day I dream of the moment we'll be together again. I imagine the excitement, the tears, the hugs. I see you shouting 'Grandma Nini!' and little Kfir, who might not remember me anymore, smiling at me with a big grin.

My dear Luli, you're so close yet so far away. I pray that soon we'll receive the greatest gift - to hug you and the whole family again. I'm waiting for this dream to become reality.  Until then, Luli, know that you are loved, that we think of you every moment. And one day, we'll celebrate all the birthdays we've missed, together.  Love, Pnini (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13708125/Grandmother-Ariel-Bibas-held-captive-Gaza-Hamas-pens-poignant-letter-grandson-fifth-birthday.html)

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav zt’l, teaches that “There is aveilus chadasha (‘new mourning’) and aveilus yeshana (‘old mourning’, for churban Tzion).  We all know the aphorism, ha’avar ayin, v’ha’asid adayin, v’ha’hoveh ke’heref ayin…However, in my opinion, this is wrong.  The past is not gone; it is still here.  The future is not only anticipated, it is already here, and the present connects the future and the past.  This is what is meant by a unitive time consciousness.  

“Tisha b’Av, the 9th of Av, would be a ludicrous institution if we did not have the unitive time consciousness.  We say in the Kinnos, ‘On this night, b’layl ha’zeh, my Temple was destroyed.’  This night means a night nineteen hundred years ago; b’layl zeh means tonight.  Apparently, that night nineteen hundred years ago is neither remote nor distant from us; it is living - as vibrant a reality as this fleeting moment in the present.  The unitive time consciousness contains an element of eternity.  There is neither past nor future nor present.  All three dimensions of time merge into one experience, into one awareness.  Man, heading in a panicky rush toward the future, finds himself in the embrace of the past.  Bygones turn into facts, pale memories into living experiences and archaeological history into a vibrant reality.  

“Of course, historical mourning is based upon this unitive time consciousness.  Without that experiential memory it would be ridiculous to speak of mourning due to an event which lies in antiquity” (Out of the Whirlwind, p.17).  

For Klal Yisrael, our destiny is one where past, present and future all merge together into one continuous stream of time, and experience.  Tisha b’Av is a day of mourning for destruction; but not only of ancient destruction, of days long gone and time epochs long past.  The mourning of Tisha b’Av is an aveilut into which is enmeshed all of our mourning, our staggering losses, and the entirety of the bitterness of exile, from ‘yamim ha’hem’’, those days, to ‘b’zman ha’zeh’, our times.

Says the Rav, “Kalir also notes in the kinnot that the desire to kill children is more pronounced than the desire to kill adults.  They first killed the children and then the intellectuals.  Intellectuals they killed not only among the Jews, but among all the nations.  But killing the children was a special privilege bestowed upon the Jewish people alone.  There was a psychopathic desire to kill the children.  From the view of the psychopath, this kind of killing is more satisfying to his psychopathic urge because in the children they see the future of the people, and they want to destroy the future.  Once you kill the children, there is no future.

“This was also the case during the Holocaust.  The children were taken away immediately, even before the ghettos were liquidated.  By the time the adults were sent off to Treblinka, Auschwitz and Buchenwald, there were not many children left.  The children were already exterminated by the time they started to liquidate the middle-aged and the elderly people” (The Lord is Righteous in All His Ways, p.294-295).  

Tisha b’Av is a day of mourning for events of past and present, for aveilus yeshanah and aveilus chadasha, for the burning of the BHM”K and the burning of Kfar Aza and Nir Oz, for the blood-thirsty enemy of old, and the one of new, for the German Jewish communities of Speyer, Mainz and Worms, annihilated during the first Crusade one thousand years ago, and for the innocent blood spilled in Be’eri and Sderot on Simchas Torah 5784.  

“Our historical mourning is based upon this unitive time consciousness.”

From the Egyptian enslavement - כָּל-הַבֵּן הַיִּלּוֹד, הַיְאֹרָה תַּשְׁלִיכֻהוּ - every baby boy that is born, he shall be cast into the river (Shemos 1:22); 

To Yirmiyahu’s lament - עַל־אֵ֣לֶּה  אֲנִ֣י בֽוֹכִיָּ֗ה עֵינִ֤י עֵינִי֙ יֹ֣רְדָה מַּ֔יִם כִּֽי־רָחַ֥ק מִמֶּ֛נִּי מְנַחֵ֖ם מֵשִׁ֣יב נַפְשִׁ֑י הָי֤וּ בָנַי֙ שֽׁוֹמֵמִ֔ים כִּ֥י גָבַ֖ר אוֹיֵֽב - Over these I cry; my eye, my eye, runs with tears, for the comforter to restore my soul is far from me; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed (Eichah 1:16).

From evil Haman and wicked Achashvairosh - לְהַשְׁמִיד לַהֲרֹג וּלְאַבֵּד אֶת-כָּל-הַיְּהוּדִים מִנַּעַר וְעַד-זָקֵן טַף וְנָשִׁים בְּיוֹם אֶחָד - to destroy, kill and obliterate all the Jews, from youth to elderly, from small children to women, on one day (Esther 3:13); 

To the suffering exiles upon the River Babylon - By the rivers of Bavel, there we sat and there we wept, as we remembered Tzion; On the willows in her midst, we hung our harps; For there our captors asked us for words of song and our tormentors [asked of us] mirth, "Sing for us of the song of Zion”; אֵ֗יךְ נָ֖שִׁיר אֶת־שִׁ֣יר ה’ עַ֜֗ל אַדְמַ֥ת נֵכָֽר, how can we sing the song of Hashem on foreign soil? אִם־אֶשְׁכָּחֵ֥ךְ יְ֜רֽוּשָׁלִָ֗ם תִּשְׁכַּ֥ח יְמִינִֽי - if i forget thee O J’lem, let my right hand be forgotten, may my tongue cleave to its palate if I do not remember thee, if I do not raise J'lem at the head of my rejoicing (Tehilim 137:1-5).

May we merit the immediate redemption, peace in our Land, and the building of the third BHM”K in our day and in our time, when G-d will have mercy on His nation and His Land.

בברכת מנחם ציון ובונה ירושלים