Spill Milk If You Have To

I've heard the saying that tears are the sweat of your soul.

mmmmm, spiritual shvitz.

What I believe lies behind that saying is when something affects us deeply enough to 'move' or 'exert' our equilibrium - the result is tears.

During this traditional time of mourning we usually find ourselves wondering - are we really mourning enough ? Is the discomfort we feel attributable to our inherent loss or the restrictions we place upon ourselves in an attempt to 'make it real' ?

I ask you - does it matter ? No.

The reason the sages enacted these laws ( such as : diminishing from joyful activities, avoiding long pleasurable baths or showers, refraining from eating meat etc...) is because we sometimes need a sharp smack to bring us back into the reality where we should have been in the first place. That's ok - it's ok to exercise our soul a little (even in a different direction than we intended) in order to enable ourselves to exercise it in the right direction.

In short, we can and should (as part of our mourning) dwell on unpleasant and painful thoughts to evoke a proper feeling of sadness and then - when the tears come - try to add a few for the churban.

If there was a time or place that we were sad - try to tune into that same feeling and then relate it to the tragedies that have occurred to us as a nation. If you were ever hurt by someone's words - realize that that hurt is also a hurt longing for the times when people wouldn't talk like that because we had the laws of tzaraas to keep us from descending to such a level.

If we succeed in really shvitzing our souls into tears - may we merit to see the fulfilment of the teaching of chazal - "All who (truly) participate in the mourning for Jerusalem will merit to see it rebuilt" and may this year represent the first Tisha'a B'Av that we laughed instead of cried - with the coming of Moshiach, Amen.