zekher lahurban: Remembering His house in our homes

As we have explained yesterday, the Rabbis enacted a number of ordinances in order to remind us of the destruction of the Holy Temple. The underlying principle is that when a person has the good fortune of arriving at some occasion that gives him a sense of gratification, he must remember that his joy is incomplete, for the Temple still lies in ruins. Therefore, the sages instituted that when a person builds a house for himself and arrives at its final stage, the whitewashing of the walls, he must remember that the house of the nation, the Holy Temple, still lies in ruins. And in remembrance of the destruction of the Holy Temple he must leave a square cubit of wall unwhitewashed. A cubit is approximately half a meter, or 1.5 ft, and therefore, in practice, a square half meter of wall must be left without whitewash. Similarly, if a person covers his walls with wallpaper, he must leave a square half meter of wall without whitewash and without wallpaper. If possible, the unwhitewashed space should be situated on the wall opposite the entrance so that whoever enters the house can see it.  When one does not build a house but buys a house from someone else, does he need to scrape off some of the wall in order to uncover a square cubit? It depends. If the person who built the house was a Jew, he was obligated to leave a square cubit of wall unwhitewashed. Therefore, If he did not do so, the buyer must now scrape off the whitewash. However, if the original owner was a non-Jew, he was not obligated to leave an unwhitewashed area, and the buyer is exempt from scraping off a square cubit of whitewash (shulhan 'arukh, OH 560:1. For more details read here Rabbi E. Melamed, penine halakha). I think that in this last case and in every other case when technically there is no obligation to scrape off the wall, it would be proper to hang a picture or a decorative painting of Yerushalayim or the Bet haMiqdash to educate ourselves and our children to remember the Hurban.  Shabbat Shalom! Candle lighting in NYC:   8:03 pm Shabbat ends in NYC:     9:03 pm

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zekher lahurban: Finding the delicate balance

In the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple a great change took place in Am Israel. It seemed as if after the destruction and exile it would no longer be able to continue living in a normal manner. The Talmud relates (Baba Batra 60b): "When the Temple was destroyed for the second time (68 CE), many Jews became ascetics, depriving themselves from eating meat or drinking wine. Rabbi Yehoshua said to them, 'My sons, why do you not eat meat nor drink wine?' They replied: 'Shall we eat meat which used to be brought as an offering on the altar, now that the holy altar is in ruins? Shall we drink wine which used to be poured as a libation on the altar? ' He said to them: 'If that is so, we should not eat bread either, because the bread offering  (lehem hapanim) has ceased too.' They said: '[You are right! We won't eat bread either] we can manage with fruit.' 'We should not eat fruit either, [he said,] because there is no longer an offering of the first fruits (bikurim).' 'Then we can manage with other fruits [like vegetables and legumes, they said].' 'But, [he said,] we should not drink water either, because the ceremony of the pouring of water (nisukh hamayim) has been discontinued as well.' To this they could find no answer, so he said to them: 'My sons, come and listen to me. Not to mourn at all is impossible... To mourn too much is also impossible, because we should not impose on the community a restriction which the majority of the people are not able to follow." R' Yehoshua continued and explained to them that the principle is that life must go on. We cannot allow our great mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple to cause a state of eternal national depression. It is therefore impossible to institute that so long as the Temple sits in ruin it is forbidden to consume meat or drink wine. However there are some symbolic things that we will do to recall the destruction of the Holy Temple. For so long as the Temple is in ruins our joy is still not complete. Therefore, the sages taught that when a person builds a house he must leave a square cubit of a wall without whitewash in remembrance of the Temple's destruction. On his wedding day a groom must place Jerusalem above his highest joy and put ash on his head as a sign of mourning. Likewise, when preparing a celebratory meal, one must leave out one cooked food in remembrance of the Temple's destruction.

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10th of Ab: Post Tish'a beAb traditions

The Talmud (ta'anit 29a) explains that the Babylonians captured the Temple on the Seventh of Ab and on the Ninth, after desecrating and ransacking all its material valuables, they set the Sanctuary ablaze on the afternoon of the Ninth of Ab . The Sanctuary (hekhal) continued to burn for a whole day, until the evening of the 10th of Ab.  Because of this  Rabbi Yohanan declared that had he been alive at the time of the destruction of the First Bet haMiqdash (586 BCE) he would have declared the fast on the Tenth of Ab, rather than the Ninth. He felt that the main mourning should be on the day that the Bet haMiqdash was actually destroyed rather than on the day that the tragedy began. Jewish practice, however, did not follow Rabbi Yohanan's view and the Rabbis established that the main observance of mourning is on the Ninth, when the destruction began.  Nevertheless, during the Tenth of Ab (today) we still observe some customs of mourning. The shulhan 'arukh (558:1) mentions that it is customary to avoid eating meat during the night and the day of the Tenth of Ab. According to other opinions this restrictions applies only until midday (hatzot, in NYC 1:01pm today), and this is the prevalent practice among most Sephardim and Ashkenazim.    Even thought our mourning for the Bet haMiqdash ends after the 9th of Ab our Rabbis mentioned a few traditions to be kept year-round as a permanent reminder of the destruction of our Temple (zekher lachurban).    The first custom mentioned by the Shulhan 'arukh (560:1) is that when a Jewish family builds its house they should leave at the entrance of the house, in front of the entrance door,  an unfinished and unpainted square on the wall (roughly, 1.5ft by 1.5ft) to remember Yerushalayim.   (To be continued B'H tomorrow)

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