Prior to last Shabbos, Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh/Yeshivat Hakotel alumni received a note from our Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Bina. His granddaughter had endured a very long and dangerous surgery to remove a cancerous tumor, and the news, with the help of God, was good. May little Miriam bas Chaya continue to gain her health and strength, and may Hashem send her a complete recovery, among all the sick of Israel and beyond.

No words can possibly express my gratitude to Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One Blessed is His Name) for all He has done to us. I ask that the song "hatov hatov ki lo chalu rachamecha" be added to this. I just came from Mincha and was greeted by twelve doctors - I can't thank them and Hashem enough. The Beis Yisroel (Rabbi Yisrael Alter, the Gerer Rebbe, 1895-1977) explains that there are angels surrounding the doctors. I must begin by thanking Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but I must also thank all of the people who prayed for my granddaughter with such incredible mesirut nefesh (altruistic effort). Although I have always believed that Moshiach (the Messiah) will arrive one day soon, I never believed that it could come given all the sinat chinam (baseless hatred) that is so rampant today. Then I saw so many people davening for us - small children, parents, grandparents, friends, ordinary Jews - all together completing hundreds of books of Tehillim (Psalms)….From the beginning I had a very positive feeling. Before the operation I was my usual self - the Jewish mother, but when I realized the support of so many people saying Tehillim together I felt very strongly that Hakadosh Baruch Hu could not say no, Hashem accepts the prayers of the righteous. … There was so much ahavat Yisrael (love among the Jewish people)- the hospital was filled with a wide range of Jews: Chassidim, Conservative, you name it - not to mention the Jewish doctors who treated us so nicely. It is definitely time for Moshiach…I witnessed here so much love between Jews - Moshiach has to come, start believing. With Hashem's help we will merit the Beis Hamikdash (Holy Temple) above and below (the Talmud based on a verse in Psalms teaches that there is a Jerusalem in the heavens paralleling Jerusalem on earth) being rebuilt. I ask you to be nice to one another and not only when there is illness. I'm so impressed with the Jewish people, I love them.”

There’s no question that many people prayed for Miriam bas Chaya, Rav Bina’s granddaughter. We don’t know what happened in Heaven, and we must continue praying for positive outcomes. This poses a deep theological question, one that is almost futile to ask: why did Moshe Rabbeinu, the human who came closest to God, have his prayers rejected? One of the greatest tzadikim (righteous people) of all time, the one who brought the Torah to the Jewish people yearned to witness the revelation of the covenant: to enter the land of Israel. All he wanted was to see it. The Midrash relates how he was willing even to go in briefly, or to go in transmigrated as an animal or an insect. Alas, the answer was a resounding no. Why was Moshe not granted this one request he wanted more than anything? Was his crime so egregious? For those commentators who posit that had Moshe entered the Land of Israel, his personality alone would have warranted for the immediate onset of the Messianic era, what is so wrong with that idea? We certainly could have avoided a lot of tragedy, including the tragedies that befell our people in Israel this past week?

Rav Soloveitchik suggests something different, which indicts the nation that heard Moshe’s final soliloquy, the second generation of the Jews in the Wilderness. The Rav wrote (Vision and Leadership pp. 211-214 and cited in the newly published Chumash Mesoras Harav, Devarim pp. 12-15), based on the Midrash (Sifri 3:24), that Moshe prayed alone; the nation did not join him.

Had the people joined him in prayer the Holy One would have been forced to respond. But they did not join… The disciples were not worthy of being Moses’ representatives… Their background is pagan; they have not been reeducated and retrained in practicing the morality of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… Moses was too great for his generation. He rose high above them. His vision was too penetrating, his depth superhuman, his sweep too high. They could not follow him; they failed to understand him. Had they understood and appreciated him, Moses would have been admitted to the Promised Land. The people’s guilt consisted of their not opening up to Moses’ influence, in resisting his redemption and cathartic power, in not being willing to become his deisciples. Of course, Moses suffered the consequences. The halachah states, if the student was sentenced to be exiled to a city of refuge, his teacher goes with him into exile (Makkos 10a). The Israelites sinned because they closed their minds and hearts to Moses’ teaching and to the richness of his personality. Moses was found guilty and he was punished.

In another commentary (Chumash Mesoras Harav, Devarim pp. 26-27 based on Blessings and Thanksgiving; The Community, pp. 20-21) the Rav made a similar point on the first word in the parshaH, Va’eschanan, “I entreated.”

We read that with tears in his eyes Moses tells the Children of Israel, ‘Va’eschanan,’ I prayed alone. It was not ‘vanischanan,’ we prayed. I was a lonely, solitary prayerful person; I prayed, no one else joined in with me… After the Golden Calf incident, when Moses prayed for the community for forty days in succession, God tolerated his intercession on behalf of the community. Indeed, He granted atonement to the people. On this occasion, however, when Moses tried to pray to the Almighty, God stopped him in the middle. When Moses’ prayer was recited in the plural, all the gates of prayer were open and the Lord allowed him to intercede many, many days for the people. When Moses changed his prayer to the singular, the gates of prayer and loving-kindness were slammed in his face. The Almighty rejected the prayer. He did not permit him to continue praying; nor did He grant his wish.

What a lost opportunity. The People of Israel, the new generation free from the sins of their forefathers, coddled in God’s direct providence in the Sinai desert, did not learn this valuable lesson. They loved Moshe; they mourned for him upon his death. They feared life without him. But they did not comprehend the difference between va’eschanan and va’nischanan.

Rav Soloveitchik’s comments remind me of a famous story (mentioned in a memorial volume for the Chofetz Chaim entitled Michtavei Chofetz Chaim, pp. 262) that the famed Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu Kramer, 1720-1797) asked the Dubno Maggid (Rabbi Yaakov Kranz, 1741-1804) to rebuke him, to inform him which components of his religious personality needed improvement. The Magid demurred, until the Gaon’s insistence propelled Rabbi Kranz to visit him. The reclusive Gaon, whose brilliance was matched by his incredible piety, was an impending and intimidating character. His every moment was dedicated to Torah and God. What could the great and eloquent Maggid possibly say to him? According to the story, the Maggid looked into the eyes of the Gaon and said, “It is not so difficult to be a Gaon, a sage, sequestered in your study, studying Torah night and day. Try to join the regular people. See if you can sustain your level of Torah study and piety with the yoke of responsibilities upon you. See if you can do that and remain a Gaon!”

Ouch! Some narratives claim that the Gaon indeed endeavored to accept more mortal responsibilities, while other stories claim he rose and ripped his clothes, thanking the Maggid for “speaking truth to power.”

This Shabbos is called Shabbos Nachamu because we begin reading seven prophetic passages that stress the greatness and potential of the people of Israel. This comforts us, compared to the hard-hitting three haftaros that we just read. Yet the Gerer Rebbe noted that we read Va’eschanan on the Shabbos after Tisha B’av because Moshe’s prayers were unanswered. Like the destruction of the Temples and all the tragedies we recall on Tisha B’av, the sad narrative alas continues.

As Rav Bina said, there are times when we become disheartened and redemption seems elusive. Last night I heard the controversial actress and comedienne Roseanne Barr use the term “hatriots,” people who hate in the name of some misplaced supposed ideal. I think this could be a definition of sinas chinam; hating not because of any personal angst or history, but loathing someone because of their beliefs or ideals. That is baseless hate.

But then there are the other times, when we as a community ‘get it.’ When we truly empathize, when we drop what we are doing to help others, when we are truly selfless, when our actions and prayers pierce the heavens because we truly appreciate what it means to be part of God’s nation. If we can emerge from Tisha B’av and understand that God wants to see us caring for each other more than all the sacrifices we offer to Him (a message of the Haftarah of Tisha B’av), we can find comfort. When we absorb the message of praying for one another, we will be comforted and redemption will come.

Nachamu Nachamu Ami – Be Comforted, Be Comforted My Nation…