[Avodah] Tisha B'Av and aveilus

[Jonathan Baker]

RMi:
> RJRich:
> :      I'm not sure we need a mitzvah to feel the loss of a loved one,
> : it is inherent in the briah and the mitzvot seem designed around it
> : (again for aveilut yachid/ chadasha versus rabim/yeshana) One could
> : argue (R' YBS) that the whole point of the 3 weeks is to build those
> : feelings.
 
> Or perhaps it's even more parallel...
 
> Aveilus is a mitzvah that channels and harnesses the feelings of loss.
> As RJR writes, it takes it as a given that those feelings are there.
 
> The notion he attributes RYBS, that the qiyum of aveilus is the
> sadness, doesn't seem muchrakh. Aveilus starts with sadness and
> teaches how to express it.

In the normal course of things, yes - you start from the death, when
the feelings are strongest, and the aveilus allows you to direct them
in productive ways, as they guide you towards reintegration into normal
life.  The feelings are there, the aveilus acts on them to reduce them.
 
> I would therefore suggest that the 3 Weeks were designed with the
> assumption that people would feel sadness for the loss of the BHMQ and
> of la'asos chovoseinu beveis bechirasekha, and the qiyum is using that
> sadness properly.

I don't see that assumption at all, given that the aveilus of the 3 Weeks 
is the reverse of the norm.  Aveilus for that which we personally never
experienced, that which was lost 2000 years ago, that nobody we know ever
experienced, is going to be pretty dim.  The aveilus of the Three Weeks
seems to create a real sense of loss.

Here the effect would be the reverse of the
norm, at least for those unfortunately experienced as aveilim.  As the
depth of aveilus increases, it invokes feelings closer to those at the 
moment of loss, until the morning of Tisha B'Av, which is the mourning 
of the day of burial - the meal of eggs and ashes, the sitting on the
floor, etc.

In parallel with that, the fasting/inuyim, exactly parallel to Yom Kippur,
invokes feelings of teshuvah, davka *because* of Yom Kippur.  That,
combined with the idea that standing at the open grave inspires 
teshuvah in a "there but for the grace of God go I" sense, would imply
a strong teshuvah component to Tisha B'Av.   RYBS would see it somewhat
differently,

IIRC from R' Mayer Twersky - that the inuyim, while parallel,
are supposed to have different effects - for Tisha B'Av, to increase the
"feeling bad", for Yom Kippur, to separate us from the cares of the world
so that we focus on our true selves and teshuvah.

In my view, though, One is explicitly made to "feel bad", both over loss
and over aveiros, where for normal aveilus, the halacha guides one *away*
from the bad feelings that are presumed to be there.
 
> Which would be teshuvah, at least in part.

As above, I don't see that loss and teshuva are incompatible, rather,
synergistic.
 
--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com