Rabbi Tzvi Fried's Dvar Torah

Our Speaker and Tish`a BAv Program

     Our Holocaust survivor to speak for this year on Tisha bav is our own R' Max Lew. Max spoke for us about a
decade ago. He will be the first individual to speak a second time for us in 26 years (and perhaps the last survivor we will hear from). 

     The Holocaust has already been rendered a historical flash. It's enormity , it's brutality, it's evil innovations have become forgotten. They have been intentionally erased by our enemies. And unfortunately bypassed by our own
communal fatigue. 

     On Tisha Bav, we need to retell, mourn, and be moved by the suffering of Klal yisrael. All Jewish suffering, even personal pain, is folded into the story of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and exile.

     Max Lew is a person that we respect on various levels. His reputation as a Torah personality, a Torah I'm derech
eretz Jew, is very strong. He is also a first hand, eloquent witness, to the events of the Nazi oppression in France. And, the events as they unfolded in the years prior to the actual deportations and final solution in France in that agonizing process.

     So much to learn from his history! So appropriate for the holy day of Tisha Bav, to breathe a sense of personal
experience into the holy words of Yirmiyah and the kinnos.

     Also this year we have a film from the people at Aish and an early and later mincha.

      May our tefilos and mourning be accepted by Hashem this Tisha Bav. May they help bring Moshiach bimheira, and may Tisha Bav convert to a great day of simcha, just as the curses of Bilaam became the greatest Brachot for us.