A message from Rav Steinherz for Chodesh Av

Dearest Tzaddikim,

            Just after Pesach this year I had the zechus to go to Hungary with my father, as he took his grandchildren back to the place where he grew up, both during and after the Holocaust, to show them their roots.  As we walked the streets of Budapest, I saw a city vibrant with Jewish life. Budapest is a prime vacation destination for religious Israelis and Hebrew is openly heard in the streets.  There are kosher stores and restaurants all over and I felt almost as comfortable walking in Budapest as I do in Yerushalayim.  However, when I looked at my father, I noticed that his experience was not the same.  He was not walking down the same streets that I was. They might have been the same physical streets but as I walked down the streets of Budapest in 2025, he was walking down those streets in 1942.  Those streets haunted him. The buildings stared and spied on him, danger lurked around every corner, and as much as I tried to connect to what his experience was, it was impossible. He was walking in the Churban of the past and I was walking in the present.

            Many of us have that same feeling when we come to this time period of the Jewish calendar year.  We are meant to mourn over the loss of Yerushalayim and the Beis Hamikdash, over the Churban which is supposed to be ever present in our minds, and yet it is difficult because we see around us a vibrant and alive Jewish word. We see the streets of Yerushalayim bustling, Torah institutions thriving, and it is very hard to leave the present and mourn for a past that we have never known.  Perhaps, that is our mistake.

            We have spoken in shiur many times about the Jewish calendar not being something which commemorates the past but something which marks moments that happen in the present.  Just like there is a physical seasonal cycle to the world, there is also a spiritual seasonal cycle.  Our Yomim Tovim mark points within that cycle where we have an opportunity to tap into a spiritual influx that is happening at that time of the year.  The same concept applies to these days of tragedy.  We are not trying to mourn for the past, we are actually trying to mourn for our present state of being.

            The pasuk in Megilas Eicha, 5:3, laments, “Yesomim Hayinu, Ve’ain Av”, we were orphans without a father.  All the meforshim ask, why is this pasuk redundant?  An orphan by definition is one who does not have a father. Why would the pasuk have to say both.  One of the most moving explanations that I have heard is that one cannot compare an orphan, who knew his father to someone who never had any connection to his father.  An orphan who grew up with his father, even though his father is physically not present, lives with his father.  He knows what his father represented, stood for, how he would act in situations, etc.  That person is with his father always.  One who never knew his father has nothing. He has no memory, no idea, nothing to hold onto.  He truly has no father.  This is what the pasuk means. We are “Yesomim”, orphans, but also, “Ain Av”, we have never felt what it means to have a father.  This is the state of our Churban. But our Churban is actually worse.

            Almost every year in Yeshiva we have at least one talmid that has lost a parent. That talmid is in shiur amongst other talmidim, that have the zechus of having two living parents.  To the talmid that has lost the parent, his peers act as a constant reminder that his situation is not normal, that he is missing something that should be there. What if that orphaned talmid was in classes all his life with classmates that were also orphans.  What if the entire world was only orphans around him.  Then that talmid would never even comprehend his state of being as being out of the norm.  He would never yearn or desire for anything different.  This is our state of Churban.  We have been in a world of orphans, so disconnected from what it means to have a connection to our Father, that we perceive our existence to be normal, that there is nothing missing.  Our challenge to mourn for the Churban is not to mourn for what was lost, but to mourn for where we are. We need to yearn to have something different, to desire to have a connection to our father. We need to see our reality as one that is missing that essential thing that everyone needs more than anything, a full connection to our Father.

            This month is the month of Av. It is the month where we need to see ourselves as orphans who so desperately need that connection. May we yearn to be connected once more and see the ultimate revelation of our Father.