I look out my window as Hashem's nature plays its part. The sun is low. The leaves are waving. The sky is pleasant. The clouds are following an Easterly wind. Flowers sway to it. The occasional shout of a child echoes. Everything is so calm. You'd never think there's anything wrong or missing in the world. This is just life and people are living it.
But the greater picture is neglected. A few thousand miles away lies our Homeland. There, things aren't so calm or normal. There's something indescribably more lingering in the air. There's confusion and complexity. There's spirituality trying to absorb the politics and the galut. It's like an unanswered scream. It's loud, but few hear. It's the centre of our heritage and tradition. This is where it all happened and it's where it all will happen. Every stone is steeped in history and every stone will merit the future. You enter the beautiful walls of the Old City to reach our current holiest place. Something, though, isn't quite right. You walk along the Kotel plaza. You look up. You expect to see something holy and vast, but instead its antithesis lies; ironically, a huge, golden mosque. We can't really go beyond the wall, and we can't really explore most of the Old City. We're restricted in our own country. How could galut be any more obvious?
I could carry on a calm life in Chutz Laaretz. Everything could be normal and relatively easy. But I cannot be away from my source. I can't tear myself away from my country and my home - despite its difficulties. I can't be away from my people, who live in such messirut nefesh everyday. I can't be away knowing that this is G-d's chosen Land, and this is where the Beis HaMikdash will be. The worst part of galut is not knowing you're in galut. And that's exactly what we're mourning about in the three weeks. We're mourning our lack of spirituality, our lack of awareness of G-d. We go through the motions in the three weeks; we don't listen to music, have haircuts, take pleasure trips. And we can't wait until it's over; we're mourning that too. We're mourning the fact we don't see, for example, an apple as a dvar Hashem and we don't recognise the neshama and inherent holiness in every person. Yet during this time, we are also yearning. While we mourn our loss, we also recognise that this is a stage for flourishing. Tisha B'Av will sprout into a day of simcha.
