They Had No Idea - Rabbi Shlomo Horwitz

[chanting and singing] [music] >> How can somebody mourn something that happened over 2,000 years ago? I'd like to share with you a story that happened in Israel just a few decades ago. There was a young Hebrew teacher, we'll call him Yacov, who taught near Gedera in Israel. Around that time, thousands of Jews had just arrived from Ethiopia >> [music] >> in the dramatic airlift known as Operation Solomon, Mivtsa Nearly 15,000 Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel. Permanent housing was not yet available, so many families lived in temporary trailers known as Caravanin. >> [music] >> Yacov taught children of those families. Now, these Ethiopian Jews had been separated from the rest of the Jewish people for centuries, but they were unmistakably Jewish. They observed Shabbat. They knew the [music] major biblical holidays. They had faithfully preserved many ancient Jewish traditions. But, there were also enormous gaps. They had never heard of Hanukkah. Never heard of [music] Purim. Those events took place after their community had been wrenched away from us. So, those chapters of Jewish history had never reached them. And Yacov realized that if these children were ever going to integrate into Israel, they needed more than Hebrew. They needed to understand the Jewish life that had developed while their community was separated from the rest of the Jewish world. So, he made it his mission to help fill in those missing pieces. One day, on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, the first [music] of the Hebrew month of Nisan, he began teaching about Pesach, Passover. He tells the class, "Passover is one of the three pilgrimage festivals. [music] In ancient times, the Jewish people would travel to Jerusalem to Jerusalem and celebrate at the holy temple, the Beit Hamikdash. But before he could continue, one of the students jumps [music] up and says, "Teacher, were you ever in the temple, in the Beit Hamikdash?" >> [singing] >> Yaakov smiled and said, "No, no. That was a very, very long time ago." But the boy didn't stop there. "I know it was a long time ago," he said, "but were you ever there?" Now Yaakov's getting a little confused. He tried to explain more carefully. Look. It was many, many years ago. A long, long time ago. And now more students are joining in. "Well, when you did go many, many, many years ago, what was it like? How did it look? Were your parents there?" Finally, Yaakov stops the discussion and says, There is no Beit Hamikdash. There is no temple. It was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago. I was never there. My father was never there. My grandfather was never there." The room fell silent. The children looked nauseous and they began speaking rapidly in Amharic [music] to each other, trying to explain what they had just heard to one another. The bell rang. >> [music] >> They gathered their things and ran home. Yaakov walked away exhausted and puzzled. The next morning he arrives at school, he kind of forgot about what happened, but the security guard at the school stops him and says, "Teacher, do you know what's going on today? Something special?" Yaakov says, "No, what's going on?" The guard points to the school entrance. And Yaakov sees a large crowd of parents and grandparents. They looked shaken. Yacov approaches, the crowd became completely silent. Finally, one older man who was there who spoke Hebrew well stepped forward. "Are you the teacher of our children?" "Yes, I am." "Well, the children came home yesterday and told us >> [music] >> that you said there is no Beit Hamikdash in Jerusalem." Yacov nodded. "Yeah, yeah, we were discussing Passover and I was explaining that yes, the temple was destroyed >> [music] >> nearly 2,000 years ago." And the man stared at him in disbelief. "What are you talking about? Al mata madaber?" Now Yacov is completely confused. "Like amantilahim? Shebeit Hamikdash necherav? I just told them that Beit Hamikdash was destroyed." The older [music] man translated what Yacov said into Amharic for the crowd and they erupted. That other man quieted the crowd and turned back. "Tabatuach? Are you certain?" "Of course I'm certain." "And then they understood." One woman fainted on the spot. Another let out a cry that pierced [music] the air. A man on the side simply collapsed. Others fell to the ground weeping uncontrollably >> [music] >> as though they had just lost their best friend. The children stood nearby watching their parents with confusion. >> [music] >> Yacov the teacher stood frozen. He felt as though he had just delivered the worst news [music] imaginable. And then he understood. For him the destruction of the temple was ancient history. He had grown up with it. It had always been true to him. It was a tragedy, but he knew about it and it belonged to the distant past. For them it was [music] different because for centuries they had been cut off from the rest of the Jewish people. They knew there was a Jerusalem. They knew there was a holy temple. [music] They believed that one day they would return to the land of Israel and attend services >> [music] >> at the temple, but nobody had ever told them what had happened. And when they were finally reached Israel, they believed they were not coming home just to their people, but also to the Beit Hamikdash. And in one classroom lesson they learned that it had been destroyed. And in one classroom lesson they learned that the Beit Hamikdash had been destroyed [music] nearly 2,000 years earlier. So they weren't just crying because the Beit Hamikdash had been destroyed 2,000 years ago. They were crying because for them it had just happened. On Tisha B'Av we try just for one day each year to feel the same way, to feel that loss, to feel that things are not normal without the Beit Hamikdash. May it be rebuilt soon, speedily in our days.