The Three Weeks & the two opposites
This time of year between the fasts of Tammuz and Av is explained by the Lubavitcher Rebbe as symbolising two opposites: destruction and rebuilding.
So often we (rightly) sit and weep, but we don’t always recognise the duty to smile in the midst of our tears and to determine that the destruction is not going to be the last word.
A modern historian spoke of the lachrymose conception of Jewish history, the (understandable) habit of seeing ourselves as the people of panthos and pain.
There is a time to weep when nothing can hold back the tears. There is also a time to pick oneself up out of the gutter and plan and implement the future.
