How to make the 3 Weeks Amazing

Jul 29, 2019 by et@humornetwork.com

For the past several years, I personally have received my greatest gifts and blessings during the 3 Weeks and especially during the Nine days of Av with the highlight of these gifts being revealed to me in a deep meditative Amida of Shaharit, the morning prayer service, of Tisha B’Av – considered the deepest of the low moments. How is this possible?

For thousands of years, most Jews have dreaded the 3 Weeks – the sad time period between the Fast Days of the 17^th of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, the 9^th of Av, which bring in the energy of the lowest periods of Jewish history.  These three weeks contained the full gamut of disastrous incidents, from the golden calf and the doomed spies, whose bad report on the Land of Israel caused the generation of Moses in the dessert to have to wander for 40 years, to the breaking of Jerusalem’s walls, the destruction of both Beit HaMikdashes – Temples –  to continuous calamities including the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the beginning of WW1, which led to WW2 and martyred half the Jewish population.

In Judaism, time is a spiral – so the same energy keeps coming around again and again every year at the same time. So the energy for Simcha – Joy – comes around the holiday of Sukkot, the energy of redemption is heightened around Passover, and the energy of sadness, negativity and lack of mazal for Jews and the Jewish people historically is maximized during these 3 weeks. These 3 weeks have been traditionally dreaded as a period where individually and as a nation, we had Bad Mazal – bad luck. It was considered a time of mourning, a time for personal and business failures, anger, bad court decisions… in effect a time when nothing goes right.

But times have changed.  Because of the age we are in, it is not only possible for all of us,  but really should be the goal for all of us to have a happy, successful and blessed 9 Days.  Of course, I am still following halacha – Jewish law  – fasting and following the guidelines of the 3 Weeks, as we all should, but my perspective is different as I am “post mourning”.  So I would like to share with you my not so little secret.

The secret for shifting the energy is shifting our view of the world to one of Moshiach or Geula – Redemption -Consciousness.  Every Tzaddik – Righteous saint in the Jewish world – regardless of background, is in full agreement that the Geula is upon us. The only discussion is whether we are at the very very tail end of what is called Ikveta D’Mashiach – the footsteps and birth-pangs of Moshiach – or if we are already B’Emtzah HaGeula – already in the Geula period, but just don’t know it yet. If we look at history, people were already living in the renaissance years before historians looked back and called it such. And people were participating in the industrial revolution well before it was “created”. And how many of us knew we were living in the Information age when it actually started?

We know that some Hebrew months are 29 days, while others are 30 days. While a bit complicated, the simple rule is that if there is a major holiday in the month, then it is 30 days. The Hebrew Month of Av has 30 days but there is no holiday in the month. The secret is that in the very near future – at the time of the Geula –  Tisha B’Av will become a great joyous holiday, so the energy is already built into the month.  We are also taught by our sages, that the energy of an era already comes into the world before the era starts. For example, Abraham came into the world in the Hebrew year 1948, and his energy ushered in the next millennium – the year 2,000 – of bringing G-dliness into a previous chaotic G-dless world.

SO HOW DO WE SHIFT TO GEULA CONSCIOUSNESS?
The most important aspect is shifting your perspective to seeing the world through this different lens, the lens of the Geula. In a simple comparison, have you ever traveled to another country and watched its local TV news.  All of the sudden what you probably realized is that the news seemed different, as it was from a different perspective, and that your local TV news at home was also from just another perspective.  But what if you could get above it all and see it from G-d’s true perspective – to see what was really going on. This is the perspective of Guela Consciousness, and while of course we can never fully understand Hashem’s  — The “usable” Hebrew name for G-d, as most names used are too holy to pronounce  – perspective, we are given a lot of glimpses of the Geula from our sages over time. For example, we know that the Geula includes bringing the Jews back to Israel, so by seeing things through this lens, we can now understand that the Argentinean Financial crisis, the shifting of South Africa, Anti-Semitism in France and elsewhere in Europe and financial troubles in the US have all caused a bursting of the mental bubble of living in the rich Western world and have caused significant aliya – or immigration into Israel of many talented individuals.

And on a more challenging level, we can see what is happening with Israel and the Middle East as direct from the “playbook” of some of the prophets about the end of days. But unlike the prophetic versions, we are actually in a version of the Geula called D’ita Acheshena – which effectively means it is a much toned down, much sweeter version of the Geula and that our actions – Mitzvahs, Torah learning,  and other actions to bring in Divine light are sweetening the Geula process every day.

In fact – and this is being elaborated in another article to come put shortly, called Why The World is So Crazy –  the more Divine light we bring in the world, the sweeter will be the Geula process, but  since the “side of evil” does not have the vessels to hold this Divine light, they will act crazier and crazier and apparently more dangerous.   Sound like what is going on in the current Middle East?  So here is the essence:  “The more apparently dangerous and crazy things appear to be, the actually safer we are and the sweeter we are bringing the Geula. “ The emphasis is on apparent, since it is not a real threat.  In the current Gaza war, literally thousands of missiles have been sent with almost no hits.  As Jews, even one injury or G-d forbid death, is a major tragedy, and we are not minimizing any of the pain, but let’s not ignore the miraculous situation.  Elsewhere in the region, a conflict means tens of thousands slaughtered in barbaric ways. But not in Israel.  And the same miraculous situation happened in 1948, 1967, 1973 and during the Gulf War when not one of the scud missles hit anything. To ignore that Hashem is moving the missiles is foolishness that is even against logic.

So, by switching our view to one of Geula Consciousness,  that everything is happening for a reason, that apparent bad is good, that our positive actions – Torah, Mitzvah, kindness to others,  achdut (unity), ect.  – are all bringing more Divine light to the world, which in turn is sweetening the Geula,  is the mental space where we all need to be — and this is turn will absolutely sweeten not only the 3 Weeks but your entire life moving forward.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem
Chaim David Targan