Amen Effect ch 5: GRIEVE and LIVE sheet 1: Holding Joy and Pain with One Heart

Our teachers taught in a baraita (Tosefta Sotah 15:11): When the Second Temple was destroyed, the number of people who refused to eat meat and to drink wine increased in our community.

Rabbi Yehoshua addressed himself to them, and said: "My children: why do you refuse to eat meat and drink wine?" They replied, "How can we eat meat, the meat that used to be sacrificed on the altar, but is no longer?! How can we drink wine, the wine that used to be poured out in libations on the altar that is no more?!"

"Then," replied Rabbi Yehoshua, "we should not be eating bread, because the grain offering has also ceased."

"Then we will eat fruit!" they responded.

"But," he went on, "we really shouldn't be eating fruit, since the offering of first fruits has ended?"

"We will eat other kinds of fruit!" they responded.

"And," he went on, "should we be drinking water, since we can no longer make the water libation?"

They fell silent.

He said to them, "My children: listen to me. We cannot refrain from mourning: the decree has been carried out and the Temple is no more. But we cannot mourn in the way you are doing, because we do not make laws that people cannot keep!...

Rather, this is what our Sages say we should do. When we plaster our houses, we must leave a piece of wall unplastered. (Rabbi Yosef says this should be a square cubit: Rav Hisda says it should be opposite the entrance.) And when we prepare a meal, we should leave out something small. (Rav Pappa says: small fried fish.) And when women put on their cosmetics, they should leave something off (Rav says: she should shave some hair away from her temple), as it says: "If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth..." [Psalms 137:5-6]

Mar, son of Ravina, made a wedding feast for his son, but at the wedding, he grew disturbed when he saw that the Sages were excessively joyous. He brought a valuable cup worth four hundred zuz and smashed it before them and they became sad.

The Gemara also relates: Rav Ashi made a wedding feast for his son and he saw the Sages, who were excessively joyous. He brought a cup of extremely valuable white glass and smashed it before them, and they became sad.

Similarly, the Gemara relates: The Sages said to Rav Hamnuna Zuti at the wedding feast of Mar, son of Ravina: Let the Master sing for us. Since he believed that the merriment had become excessive, he said to them, singing: Woe unto us, for we shall die, woe unto us, for we shall die. They said to him: What shall we respond after you? What is the chorus of the song? He said to them, you should respond: Where is Torah and where is mitzva that protect us? In a similar vein, Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai: One is forbidden to fill his mouth with mirth in this world, as long as we are in exile (ge’onim), as it is stated: “When the Lord returns the captivity of Zion we will be as dreamers” (Psalms 126:1). Only “then will our mouths fill with laughter and our lips with song” (Psalms 126:2). When will that joyous era arrive? When “they will say among nations, the Lord has done great things with these” (Psalms 126:2). They said about Reish Lakish that throughout his life he did not fill his mouth with laughter in this world once he heard this statement from his teacher, Rabbi Yoḥanan.

What is the source for the halakhah that one must approach prayer from an atmosphere of gravity? Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said it can be derived from here, from this verse: “Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice with trembling” (Psalms 2:11). Having cited this verse from Psalms, the Gemara asks: What is the meaning of "rejoice with trembling?" Rav Adda bar Mattana said that Rabba said: One may not experience unbridled joy; even where there is rejoicing, there should be trembling.

And accordingly, how do I realize the meaning of that which is stated: “There was nothing in the Ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there,” which, according to the opinion of Rabbi Meir, teaches that something else was in the Ark besides the tablets themselves? It serves to include the broken pieces of the first set of tablets, which were placed in the Ark.