The Root of Our Suffering

Tisha B’Av night. The fast of the 9th day of the Jewish month of Menachem Av, the day that both the First and Second Temples were destroyed. A day of fasting and mourning, a day to sit on the floor and consider the awful state of life that we’re generally commanded to be happy with. All of life stops – no bathing, no eating and drinking, no wearing regular leather shoes. You’re not even allowed to greet others with a friendly “hello, how are you?” 

Rabbi Arush is always reminding us that in order to truly solve issues, we must solve them at their root. Band-aids are fine, and a quick fix has a place, but only a fool wastes his time and money day after day putting out fires and treating the results, instead of healing the root cause.  

A simple example is when life feels out of control, and you feel that you need to pray 30 minutes on ten different emergencies and have no idea which one to choose to focus on first because they are all so urgent – and what, you’re going to pray 30 minutes, 10 times through the day? Not realistic. Rabbi Arush says no – instead, pray for emuna. With emuna, you’ll have more income, and the money you have will have blessing and go farther. You’ll be more calm and less angry, you’ll have success raising your kids, you’ll have marital peace, and more. Pray for emuna for 30 minutes, and all 10 problems will make progress! How? Because you’re working on the root problem. 

So, what is the root problem of Tisha B’Av? The root problem started centuries before the First Temple was even built, with the Sin of the Spies in the desert. The leaders of the tribes come to Moshe Rabbeinu and want to spy out the land of Canaan that Hashem promised them. Moshe reluctantly agrees, and the 10 of the 12 spies come back and speak negatively about the Land, saying that “the land eats its inhabitants” and other terrifying things. The women refuse to accept the negative report, but the men sit down and spend the night terrified and crying. Hashem says, “You want to cry over nothing? This will be a night of crying for generations!” 

But what caused the leaders to decide to send the spies in the first place? The Gemara discusses several answers, and many have commented about this all-important question in order to understand the very root problem which caused the root of all our suffering on that fateful night in the desert. But I would like to posit a new answer, which was not possible at all to understand until Rabbi Arush started teaching recently that emuna is knowing that Hashem loves you, and everything He does is good, and it’s only getting better and better. 

And this answer is important for every day of the year, not just Tisha B’Av! 

So, let’s backtrack to the leaders of the tribes coming to Moshe Rabbeinu and asking to send spies into the land. On the surface it seems like a pretty reasonable request, it’s a normal thing to send spies into territory that a country wants to conquer. The Sages explain that after months living in a wasteland desert with open miracles, the people were afraid to go into the Land of Israel and start living normal lives again. Maybe they would sin and no longer deserve Hashem’s promises of bounty and protection? They seriously questioned if going into the land was really the best thing for them, and ultimately decided that it was better to stay in the desert. These fears tainted their view of the land, and led them to speak lashon hara, evil speech, about the land in the end – with its disastrous results. The people cried that Hashem was doing evil to them to bring them into the land, and that surely Hashem was going to kill them there, in this scary land with giants and more. 

Rabbi Arush insists that Hashem’s response that now we will cry for generations is not a curse. Rather, it’s a call to action to fix the real root problem! Hashem says to us, “You must fix the root problem! And until you do, I will keep making you cry to push you and force you to fix it! I won’t let you get comfortable and live life without this rectification!” 

So, what IS that root problem? The people and its leaders didn’t have emuna – EMUNA THAT IT’S ONLY GETTING BETTER AND BETTER!!! 

The Jewish people had witnessed all ten plagues, and even more miracles and plagues at the Splitting of the Sea. The impossible had come to pass with the open and revealed Hand of God Almighty Himself, who came and took them out of Egypt, who killed their enemies in front of their eyes, and made them pass through the Red Sea on dry land while their enemies drowned in it. Now for months already they had lived on Mann, miraculous, heavenly food that rained down from the sky literally, and quail that could never exist in such numbers in a desert and that covered the sky every evening. The Clouds of Glory protected them on all sides and smoothed the way in front of them, and washed their clothes while they slept every night. Miriam’s Well gave them water and created an oasis in the wasteland. The reality of God’s existence was in front of them every second in a way that could not be refuted because they lived and breathed open miracles!  

It’s understandable that they would be a bit hesitant to walk away from all of that to go back to the daily grind of working the land and living in a natural, instead of miraculous, fashion. It’s also understandable that as born slaves, they would lack the self-esteem that they could live independently as free people.  

But their emuna was supposed to give them the strength to follow Hashem into the promised land – just as their emuna had given them strength to follow Hashem into the desert.  

Who said you’re supposed to go at it alone? Who said you shouldn’t need help? Where did Hashem ever say that He would drop you? Emuna is that it’s only getting better and better! If it wasn’t good for you – Hashem wouldn’t tell you to do it!!! 

THIS is the emuna that was lacking back then in the desert. And this is the emuna that we all need today! 

And once we have it, then we won’t cry anymore. We won’t cry anymore because we feel alone, or because we think that Hashem hates us, or that He has left us, or will leave us. All that crying over nothing will stop because Hashem will never leave us, and Hashem is always just holding out His hand waiting for us to Take God’s Hand. And then Hashem will no longer send us reasons to cry, He won’t need to push us to remember that it’s only getting better and better, because it will already be all better, with the Full Redemption of our people, soon and in our days, amen!  

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Rachel Avrahami grew up in Los Angeles, CA, USA in a far-off valley where she was one of only a handful of Jews in a public high school of thousands. She found Hashem in the urban jungle of the university. Rachel was privileged to read one of the first copies of The Garden of Emuna in English, and the rest, as they say, is history. She made Aliyah and immediately began working at Breslev Israel.   
  
Rachel is now the Editor of Breslev Israel’s English website. She welcomes questions, comments, articles, and personal stories to her email: rachel.avrahami@breslev.co.il.