Two articles ago, which is a month ago, I said that I'll share something new that I learned, so here it is.

There is a verse in Ezekiel where the prophet finds a group of women involved in idol worshipping. It says (8,14), “the women were sitting, making the Tammuz weep.”

Rashi, the famous Medieval commentator, explains that there was a Mesopotamian idol called Tammuz. The eyes of the idol were made out of lead. They held a ceremony every year in the height of the summer. Women would gather and heat the idol with fire. When heated, the lead melted and the eyes started dripping. It looked like the idol was crying and the gathered people would cry together with this idol.

I heard an explanation that is relevant for us. The spring ushers in a wave of hope and aspirations in the world. People are awakened and are looking forward for something special. In the height of the summer, when the day starts getting shorter, a depression can descend with feelings of trashed hopes. This brings a period of crying. That's why they had this ceremony.

In Judaism we had a period of mourning and now we are in the period of consolation. The mourning, however, is very different than the mourning of the idolators. The idolators were celebrating the mourning and the sadness itself.

There is a tendency in a person to enjoy crying over things and mourning over past nostalgic times, just to wallow in sorrow and self pity. This is the negative way of mourning.

The right way is when the mourning has a point so that it brings a person awareness to what was and what is supposed to be. In our case, the mourning awakens us to want the rebuilding of the Temple and to want the world to be perfect. “He (the Messiah) shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2,4)

When we mourn for something worthwhile and we strongly want it to be that way, deep inside us we can feel a certain happiness. Why? The happiness is that we know for what we stand and what is worth mourning for.

Being upset about something that doesn't make a difference in our real world of values and beliefs, creates a sadness inside us. The sadness is on the fact that we became upset or depressed about something that is not worthwhile. This sadness makes us more upset and the cycle continues.

Whereas when we stand for something thats right, worthwhile, and important, that brings inner happiness. Even if we try to make a difference and we were not successful and we are sad about it, at least we are sad for something worthwhile. That itself is an immense blessing that many people don't have.

Many people today are charged up with politics. The question is, “for what am I rooting?” For a person and party or for a virtue and value. If it's for a person and party then it's not really worthwhile to get charged up. The party would rarely really help an individual's needs.

However, virtues and values are worthwhile things to stand for. But even those need to be thought out to reflect the truth. When a person achieves that, they can be happy that at least they know what's right even if the world is yet far from perfection.