The Torah was not given to a yeshiva—it was given to a nation. To Klal Yisrael. At Sinai, we stood “ke’ish echad b’lev echad.” Torah without that unity is not complete. When segments of the Haredi world—my brothers, my sisters—reject the state outright, refuse to participate in its defense, refuse to carry the burden of Am Yisrael—that is not righteousness. That is pirud levavot.
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We sit on the floor, broken. Broken by our history. Broken by our present. And if we’re honest—perhaps a little broken by ourselves.
Tisha B’Av is the day we mourn what we lost. But it is also the day we face what we are. We remember not only the Romans and Babylonians—but the divisions that made us vulnerable to them. Not only the Churban—but the machloket, sinat chinam, and spiritual blindness that allowed it to happen.
And as we read Eicha, as we recall flames consuming the Beit Mikdash, I want to ask a painful question:
Are we repeating the same mistake? Today, thank God, we have a Jewish state. A sovereign government. An army of our own. Millions of Jews in the Land of Israel. Torah being learned in every city. And still, we are not at peace.
Enemies surround us—Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. They seek our destruction with rockets and terror tunnels. But I want to speak of another siege. A quieter one. A siege from within. There is a war being waged inside the Jewish people. It is a war of words, of ideologies, of alienation. It is a war that divides one Jew from another—not along lines of Torah versus secularism, but within the Torah world itself.
It is the battle between those who embrace the miracle of Medinat Yisrael—however flawed—and those who reject it entirely, not just politically, but theologically. Between those who send their children to defend Am Yisrael in uniform, and those who burn draft notices in the streets. Between those who say Tefillah l’Shlom Hamedinah with tears, and those who won’t utter it at all.
Chazal say: “Whoever did not see the Beit HaMikdash rebuilt in his days, it is as if he saw it destroyed.” Why? Because redemption is not a lightning bolt—it’s a process. A messy, slow, unfolding process. And if you only see imperfection, you miss the miracle.
When Rav Kook saw the early pioneers—secular, distant from mitzvot—he did not see rebellion. He saw a spark of redemption. A geulah b’hester panim. How much more so today—when Torah fills the land, when Jews risk their lives to defend one another, when a Jewish flag flies over Yerushalayim.
How can we sit on Tisha B’Av and cry for the Churban, yet refuse to acknowledge the flickers of Binyan?
The Torah was not given to a yeshiva—it was given to a nation. To Klal Yisrael. At Sinai, we stood “ke’ish echad b’lev echad.” Torah without that unity is not complete. When segments of the Haredi world—my brothers, my sisters—reject the state outright, refuse to participate in its defense, refuse to carry the burden of Am Yisrael—that is not righteousness. That is pirud levavot.
Sinat chinam begins when we tell ourselves the other Jew isn’t “real” enough. Not frum enough. Not spiritual enough. Not Torah enough. But what is Torah without achrayut? Without nosei b’ol im chaveiro?
Can we say we are living Torah while others are dying to protect us?
Can we mourn the Churban while sitting out the rebuilding?
Let’s be clear. The Torah world has legitimate fears: spiritual corruption, cultural decline, a desire to protect the sanctity of yeshivot. These fears are real. They must be addressed with wisdom and nuance. But fear is not an excuse for abdication.
Tisha B’Av teaches us that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed not by external threats alone—but by internal disunity. By leaders who couldn’t hear each other. By communities that couldn’t speak to each other. By Jews who couldn’t see the image of God in one another. Are we repeating their error?
When we say: “They’re not part of us,” “Their soldiers aren’t our heroes,” “Their sacrifices don’t matter”—are we not back in the narrow alleyways of Yerushalayim, watching as the Romans breach the gates while we fight each other inside?
Rav Shimon Schwab once said: “The greatest threat to Torah is when Torah refuses to engage with the world.”
On this Tisha B’Av, let us have the courage to say: Torah must be with the people. Torah must share the burden. Torah must walk alongside every Jewish soldier, every bereaved parent, every soul who says: “Am Yisrael Chai.”
Let us cry not only for the past, but for the distance between us. And let us bridge that distance—not by abandoning Torah, but by embodying it. By teaching our children that loving Hashem means loving every Jew. That building a Beit Midrash requires building a nation, too.
The Beit HaMikdash was lost because we could not live together. Perhaps it will only be rebuilt when we finally do.
May this Tisha B’Av be the last on the floor. May we rise—not in anger, but in unity. Not in fear, but in faith. Not in tears of exile, but in tears of return. Es achai anochi mevakesh—I seek my brothers.
Let us seek them together.
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