Q: Dear Rabbi Levy shlit”a,
Baruch Hashem, I’m blessed with a large family, bli ayin hara, and every year during the summer, I find myself confronting the same challenge, which is the huge gap between my boys and girls. The girls are out on vacation by the end of June, sleeping late, running off to camp and the beach, drinking ice coffee, and hanging out with their friends, while the boys are still plugging away full time in cheider and learning about Bein Hametzarim. It’s easy to sympathize with the envy and resentment they feel. How can I help them minimize the hard feelings and teach them to value the importance of their learning and what they’re doing?
A: Hagaon Harav Dovid Levy shlit”a replies: For starters, it’s worth our while to know that the original summer vacation was instituted years ago for economic reasons only: In the agricultural villages of yore, farmers recruited their children to help them harvest the fields during the summer season, and the intolerable midsummer heat made it difficult for children to concentrate on their schoolwork. Obviously, neither of these reasons is relevant in this day and age, when working parents expend endless time and energy trying to occupy their kids during the summer, and air conditioning has thankfully solved the heat problem.
I believe that the vast majority of mechanchim concur that it’s high time to abridge summer vacation (at least in Eretz Yisrael, where kids aren’t privileged to spend a month or two in camp), and the primary obstacle to this is funding. Over the years, there have been various initiatives to extend the school year, and there is hope for this occurring in the near future.
As far as your question regarding the gap between your boys and girls, I would say that the gap itself is not the problem, because boys and girls have different schedules throughout the year, as well. A young bachur is in yeshivah until 9 every night, while his sisters are home by mid-afternoon. Girls of all ages likewise enjoy many more extracurricular activities than their brothers.
What compensates for that difference?
Knowledge and appreciation. When a person knows what he is doing and why, the challenge shrinks and can all but disappear.
If we want to address this issue on a deeper, adult level, we can also compare it to the challenge we face connecting to our obligation to mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and Yerushalayim.
The chiyuv to mourn Yerushalayim is bewildering, as the general halachic approach is to limit our tendency to mourn the past. The above is sourced in the words of Chazal and cited by the Rambam: “Man should not distress over his dead too much, as written, ‘Do not weep upon the dead, and do not bemoan him’, meaning more than the custom of the world; and one who grieves beyond the natural way of the world is a fool” (Hilchos Eivel 13:11).
In contrast to these words of the Rambam, we find that despite the passing of 2000 years, Bnei Yisrael continue mourning the Churban and destruction of Yerushalayim. To understand why and how this is, we must delve into the words of Chazal:
The Gemara teaches regarding a mourner: “Do not weep upon the dead – too much; and do not bemoan him – more than the [normal] amount. How is this? Three days for weeping; seven days for eulogies; thirty days for ironing and haircuts. Beyond this – Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, ‘You are not more compassionate for him than I’” (Moed Katan 27a).
Grief is an inevitable natural reaction to death and loss, although it is also an emotion that we are meant to overcome with the knowledge and faith that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is Good, Compassionate and that all of His actions are truth and justice.
However, the passuk states, “Simchu es Yerushalayim v’gilu ba kol ohaveha, sisu ita mesos kol hamisablim aleha. Rejoice with Yerushalayim and exult in her all those who love her: rejoice with her a rejoicing, all who mourn over her” (Yeshaya 66:10).
Chazal teach that this passuk refers to the Churban, “From here they said, one who mourns Yerushalayim merits seeing her rejoicing; and one who does not mourn Yerushalayim does not see her rejoicing” (Taanis 30b).
The Chasam Sofer explains that the difference between these two can be gleaned from the words of Rashi who taught that Yaakov Avinu refused to be consoled upon the loss of Yosef “because one does not accept condolences upon the living.” Since Yerushalayim and the Beis Hamikdash are built and prepared in Shamayim, and they were only temporarily taken from us, the grief exists full force until this very day. (This explanation also illuminates the words of Chazal who assert that any generation in which the Beis Hamikdash was not rebuilt is regarded as if they destroyed it (Yerushalmi Yuma 1:1).
Thus the dividing line between human death and the Churban is that the Churban is meant to end and there is genuine hope for tikkun ha’olam every single day. This is why, unlike with the death of a human being, that there is always reason to mourn the Churban and anticipate the rebuilding of Yerushalayim.
One benefit of grief is that it allows us to recall that we are the Am Segulah, Hashem’s Chosen Nation, the ultimate purpose of Creation. As long as we have not returned to our Land, and as long as the Beis Hamikdash is not yet rebuilt, we are failing to fulfilling our role in Creation, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is thus in a state of mourning as well.
Mourning the Churban also reminds us of our tafkid, our role in life, and the tachlis of the world, the ultimate goal of the universe, which maintains our connection to these two concepts.
A famous legend is told of Napoleon Bonepart who once passed a shul on the eve of Tisha B’av and heard the wailing and tears from inside. Inquiring why the people inside were all crying, he was told that the Jews were mourning the 1700-year-old destruction of their Holy Temple.
Replied the French emperor: “If these people can continue mourning a Temple and land destroyed so many years ago, I have no doubt that it will, one day, be restored to them!”
The words of a gentile leader who unwittingly paraphrased the words of the Gemara: “Kol hamisabel al Yerushalayim zocheh v’ro’eh b’simchasa, one who mourns Yerushalayim will merit seeing in her rejoicing”…
May we be zocheh to this very soon!
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