Thoughts During The Three Weeks

We are now in the middle of the 3 weeks. As important as music is to me, I find that I need to pull back from it. There is a shul that I stop at for evening prayers. As always, when I go there I stare at the yarzeit plaques. In this one shul, a man put up plaques for his wife and kids who were all murdered the same day (May G-d avenge their blood) My co worker observes a yarzeit for his father's home town, in which every Jew who was not fortunate enough to have been elsewhere was murdered on the same day.

I need three weeks to absorb all this, to incorporate it into a world view that is not random and godless.

We try to avoid factional bickering and hatred during the 3 weeks. This is at least as important as any of the rules about music and getting haircuts. It is amazing that the orthodox Jewish world is as beset by factionalism as it is. When you look at pictures from the camps of people in striped uniforms with shaven heads, it is impossible to see who was a chossid, who was reform and who was a socialist. There was a unity imposed from without. There has to be a way of creating unity besides tragedy. We are breaking our heads trying to make peace in the Middle East. Maybe we need peace talks between Jews