Why We Still Cry

Rabbi Yonah Burr

There is a story of a great Rebbe who would cry uncontrollably throughout the Nine Days and on Tisha B’Av.

His talmidim, puzzled, finally asked what exactly brought him to such tears. The Rebbe answered simply: “Exactly that. I am crying because I don’t know what I am crying over.”

This is an experience many of us can relate to. We fast, we sit on the floor, we recite Kinnos—but deep down we wonder: What exactly am I mourning? How can I feel true grief over something I’ve never experienced?

Rav Elya Lopian zt”l, in Lev Eliyahu (v.1, p. 163), addresses this through a powerful Medrash. After the Churban, Yirmiyahu HaNavi was seen wailing through the streets of Yerushalayim. A Greek philosopher confronted him: “It is not befitting for a man of your intellect to cry over mere stones and wood. This is like crying over spilled milk!”

Yirmiyahu challenged him: “You are a great philosopher—surely you have profound questions about the cosmos. Ask me anything.” One by one, the philosopher posed his most complex questions, and Yirmiyahu answered them with ease, as though explaining to a child. Stunned, the philosopher asked, “Where does such wisdom come from?”

Yirmiyahu replied, “Now you understand one reason for my crying. All the knowledge and greatness I possess came from the Beis HaMikdash. Now that it is gone, that wellspring of wisdom is cut off.”

Then Yirmiyahu added, “As for the second reason I cry—this is something you could never understand.”

Rav Elya explains: that “second reason” is the uniquely Jewish cry of the neshama. It is not rational. It is not about bricks and mortar. It is the soul’s yearning for closeness to Hashem, the longing for His Shechinah to dwell among us again.

This kind of crying is itself transformative. It reconnects us to Hashem. It is the very process of repair.

May our tears of mourning soon turn to tears of joy with the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, speedily in our days.

Have a wonderful Shabbos!