Embracing Our True Selves
Kinnos 2025 @ Avodas Halev
Transcript
Okay, so just by way of introduction to the kinos in general, we're gonna.
Speaker A:We have a list of which kinos we're saying.
Speaker A:We're not going to say every single one.
Speaker A:And we have different people speaking in between and sing a little bit as well.
Speaker A:There's a story that most people, I'm sure, are familiar with.
Speaker A:One of Rabbi Nachman's classic stories.
Speaker A:He tells the story of the Turkey Prince.
Speaker A:So just to tell it over quickly, I'm sure people know it, but the story of the Turkey Prince is that there's a king who used to host meetings of all different foreign diplomats and royalty in his.
Speaker A:In his palace.
Speaker A:And he had a son that he was grooming, the prince that he was grooming to become.
Speaker A:To become the king.
Speaker A:So he used to have him dressed in all the royal garments, and he had people who would tutor him in the etiquette and how to receive.
Speaker A:How to receive nobility from foreign places and how to conduct himself at the table, etc.
Speaker A:And one day, the prince decided that he had no interest anymore, and he took off all his.
Speaker A:All the royal clothing.
Speaker A:He got rid of all the.
Speaker A:All the silverware that he was.
Speaker A:You know, all the different things that he used to sit at the table with.
Speaker A:And he went under the table, and he started acting like a turkey with no manners, no dignity, no human behavior.
Speaker A:He wasn't wearing any clothing.
Speaker A:He wasn't eating human food.
Speaker A:He wasn't speaking.
Speaker A:He was acting like a turkey.
Speaker A:And the king, of course, got very nervous and didn't know what to do.
Speaker A:And he called in, can anybody come and help?
Speaker A:So there's a line of people, you know, all the psychiatrists and the philosophers and the healers and the energy healers and this type and that type.
Speaker A:And everyone lines up to try and help, and.
Speaker A:And nobody has any success.
Speaker A:And there's an old man standing in the back without any credentials, and he asks.
Speaker A:And he asks if he can have a turn.
Speaker A:So the king says yes.
Speaker A:And the man all of a sudden takes off all his clothes and goes under the table and starts acting like a turkey right next to the prince.
Speaker A:And he spends time there under the table, acting the same way the prince is acting.
Speaker A:They're both acting like turkeys.
Speaker A:And as a little time goes by, they develop a connection.
Speaker A:There's a sense of camaraderie between them.
Speaker A:The prince looks at him and sees this is a fellow turkey.
Speaker A:So the man, eventually, after a little bit, after he gains more connection with him, after a little bit, the man reaches out and Takes his shirt and puts on his shirt.
Speaker A:And the turkey looks at him quizzically, like, what are you.
Speaker A:You know, what are you doing?
Speaker A:You're not supposed to wear a shirt.
Speaker A:I thought we were turkeys.
Speaker A:And the.
Speaker A:The man says to him in turkey language.
Speaker A:Somehow he says to him, you know, who said.
Speaker A:Who said a turkey can't wear a shirt?
Speaker A:I'm still a turkey.
Speaker A:I'm just.
Speaker A:Who said a turkey can't wear a shirt?
Speaker A:So the boy, the.
Speaker A:The prince real.
Speaker A:Okay, I hear that.
Speaker A:So he reaches.
Speaker A:He takes his shirt.
Speaker A:He puts his shirt on.
Speaker A:And then after a little more time, the man reaches out for his pants.
Speaker A:He puts on his pants.
Speaker A:The boy looks at him again.
Speaker A:You know, who says a turkey can't wear pants?
Speaker A:I'm still a turkey.
Speaker A:I'm just wearing pants.
Speaker A:The boy says, here, he puts on his pants, one thing after another.
Speaker A:And eventually.
Speaker A:Eventually he gets.
Speaker A:He gets food.
Speaker A:And he.
Speaker A:And he starts acting in a more refined way.
Speaker A:And the man eventually sits on a chair at the table, and the boy looks at him, you know, what are you doing?
Speaker A:And he says, who says a turkey can't sit at the table?
Speaker A:And he starts acting with royal manners.
Speaker A:Who said a turkey can't act with royal manners?
Speaker A:And finally, eventually, he's doing the whole thing, acting fully like the prince who says a turkey can't be a prince?
Speaker A:So the story has many, many messages, many layers of meaning.
Speaker A:But today, I think the story is that we all just sat on the floor.
Speaker A:We've all entered into that turkey state.
Speaker A:Usually we have all sorts of ways that we act with royalty, nobility.
Speaker A:We have all our comforts, all our ways that we've been trained to carry ourselves as normal, to say that things are good.
Speaker A:When people ask us how we're doing, to act in ways that present, that carry ourselves within the norms of society.
Speaker A:And what we're asked, what we're invited and called to do today, is to say that we know that really in the story, everybody thinks the prince is the crazy one and he needs to be.
Speaker A:To be healed when he.
Speaker A:He needs to be fixed when he decides to act like a turkey.
Speaker A:But the truth is that everybody wearing all the clothing, acting like how you hold your fork is the most important thing in the world.
Speaker A:And what food is on your plate.
Speaker A:What the.
Speaker A:What the turkey prince is trying to say is that you guys are all crazy the whole rest of the year.
Speaker A:We're crazy in a certain sense.
Speaker A:Tisha B'Av is actually the only day of the year that makes any sense.
Speaker A:We think about it as, like, we have the whole year, and then, Tisha Bavneboch, we have to do this really difficult and unusual experience.
Speaker A:But the truth is, Tisha B'Av is the only day the whole year that makes sense.
Speaker A:Does it make any sense that after that, I mean, even just in our time, does it make any sense that after we hear that somebody in our community that lives on our block, the Daven's in our shul, that we.
Speaker A:That they lost a child, like, does it make any sense that I can still go to Chalice that night?
Speaker A:Does that make.
Speaker A:And that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker A:It makes a lot more sense that I'm sitting on the floor.
Speaker A:Does it make any sense that I have nieces and nephews in Israel who.
Speaker A:Who for like, a year would it.
Speaker A:They were so anxious about being outside when the siren went off that they couldn't.
Speaker A:They couldn't go, like, have a play date, like.
Speaker A:And I'm.
Speaker A:And I'm trying to figure out what to do with my kids to get through a Sunday because it's just overwhelming.
Speaker A:And I'm complaining about who knows what.
Speaker A:But the turkey prints on the floor is actually the only thing that makes sense.
Speaker A:Tisha B'Av is the day that we're being real, that we're taking off all of those coverings, all of those outer garments, all the things that we put on so that we can kind of avoid and distract and make ourselves feel better and get caught up in all sorts of different things, you know, I don't know if anybody.
Speaker A:Anybody.
Speaker A:I just unfortunately just saw this picture of one of the hostages, like, emaciated, one of the people that's still in captivity.
Speaker A:It's like.
Speaker A:It's horrifying.
Speaker A:And if today wasn't Tisha B'Av, I would still.
Speaker A:I would probably be, like, having a barbecue today.
Speaker A:Like, even though I saw that picture, that.
Speaker A:That's not normal.
Speaker A:That's not normal.
Speaker A:We have to do it, because.
Speaker A:Whatever.
Speaker A:I don't even know why, but we have to do it.
Speaker A:But this.
Speaker A:This is actually what makes sense.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's sad that this is what makes sense, but this is the reality of what makes sense.
Speaker A:And the reason we need to do this is because if.
Speaker A:Imagine.
Speaker A:Imagine we didn't have Tisha B.
Speaker A:If we didn't have this, what we would be saying implicitly, if we didn't have one day of the year that we sat on the floor, implicitly, what we'd be saying is that the reality we're living with, the reality we're Living with where there's women in Israel who are still living their lives with their little kids at home by themselves, not knowing if they're going to see their husband again.
Speaker A:And he comes home, like for 36 hours, and then he's gone for another two weeks, and they don't know.
Speaker A:If we didn't have this, we'd be implicitly saying that that reality, this reality that we know, this is all there is.
Speaker A:This is the ceiling of what the world has to offer.
Speaker A:This is all there is.
Speaker A:This is what the world has to offer us by having Tisha B'Av.
Speaker A:What we're saying is this is not the ceiling.
Speaker A:This is the floor.
Speaker A:This is the bottom rung of the ladder.
Speaker A:We don't believe, we don't accept that this is what God created as the totality of what he's offering us, of what the world is supposed to be.
Speaker A:This is the floor, not the ceiling.
Speaker A:It's a day, in a sense, of a protest against reality, that we hold onto the belief that this is not the whole thing, this can't be the whole thing, that all of those realities, and any one of us can think of a million more examples.
Speaker A:I just threw out a few things that popped into my head as I'm speaking.
Speaker A:But losing a child, the anxious kids in Israel, the young mother and the husbands in reserves and, I mean, but you can all think of a million other things that every single one of us knows, personally, globally, nationally.
Speaker A:That's not the whole thing.
Speaker A:We don't accept that.
Speaker A:That's the whole thing.
Speaker A:So today we're the turkey, we're under the table, we've taken away our comforts, and we're being real about what reality is.
Speaker A:And the important thing is to not be scared of that, is to actually allow ourselves to feel that as much as possible, to feel that pain, to feel that reality, to realize that on a certain sense, it's really tragic.
Speaker A:But if you stop and think about it, today is the only day there that makes sense, that we're actually in reality.
Speaker A:Just one other point of introduction, and then we'll start saying the first Kino Ravicha Meyer, in many of his many of the different writings that I've seen about Tisha B'Av.
Speaker A:One of the things he emphasizes, so I just want to pass it along.
Speaker A:One of the things he emphasizes is that it's extremely natural for so many people to feel that, okay, I have to do this avodah, like I have to do the day of Tisha B'Av, but what am I really doing?
Speaker A:What does it do?
Speaker A:Is my attempted focus on these words that I barely understand?
Speaker A:Is that really doing anything?
Speaker A:Is my moment of thinking about someone in pain and feeling some pain, Is that really doing anything?
Speaker A:Like, what's it really doing?
Speaker A:We've tried so many times.
Speaker A:You know, we've all had those younger, like, summer camp Tisha Buv experiences where we really got into the feeling and we felt really emotional and we thought, Mashiach's Mamish coming, and then he didn't come.
Speaker A:So now I'm already a jaded, hardened, callous adult.
Speaker A:Sitting here, like, now, am I really getting.
Speaker A:Is what I'm feeling?
Speaker A:Is what I'm doing really going to do anything?
Speaker A:These are all natural thoughts.
Speaker A:These.
Speaker A:These are all the things that I think most of us probably think, like, we have to do it, but is it really doing anything?
Speaker A:One of the things that she Mayer just emphasizes again and again that I want to just pass along is that every.
Speaker A:Every little bit of what we're trying to do is doing something.
Speaker A:It's hard to believe that.
Speaker A:I think that's part of the Korban.
Speaker A:Part of the Korban is how hard it is to see that, to believe that, but to really know that every moment that we're sitting here, every moment that we're spacing out and then trying to come back to it, that we're singing a nigyn, trying to feel something, trying to be real with ourselves, trying to realize that there's so, so much Khorban in this world and today is the day to actually pay attention to it, to be that turkey.
Speaker A:Every moment and every little bit of effort to connect to that really is part of creating, is creating the return of what we're longing for.
Speaker A:The Avelos of Tisha Bav, he writes, is really.
Speaker A:It's an Avelus of longing.
Speaker A:If it was an Avelus of something that was gone, that was lost, we would stop.
Speaker A:There's a halachos about how long Avelus lasts, and Avelos would have been over a very long time ago.
Speaker A:The reason the Avelos continues is because it's an avelos of longing, of something that's going to happen.
Speaker A:And every little bit of availas that we connect to of that longing actually helps bring it together.
Speaker A:So we'll start now with Kinoh 6.
Speaker A:Shabasuru Meni Shabasuru Meni.
