Yarzeit 5771

This Sunday marks the yarzeit of my dear father, may he rest in peace. I therefore dedicate this learning to the elevation of my father’s neshama, Shmuel Nehamia ben Eliyahu z”l.

Growing up as a ‘Grainger’ in Leeds was always an experience, for the simple reason that having the surname ‘Grainger’ automatically linked you to my father. Known to most of the community – my father was a real ‘macher’ known for not only his involvement in the community but also for his great chesed. To his close friends they would say that he had many ‘Selwynisms’ – those things that when something still happens today they say ‘Selwyn would have said that’. He was one of those men who even if you were not fortunate to know him, you knew there was something great about him. Being called ‘Grainger’ to me is truly an honour and a name I can only hope to aspire to live up to.

My father though, after my brother and I were both born, referred to himself by a different name. He once made a remark to my mother that he should now be called Avraham as he had had more children at an older age. He was certainly like Avraham in quite another way. From a young age I watched my father practising acts of chesed. Whether it was setting family up in business and homes, raising money for Shul and charities or being a support for his friends – it was always done with a modest subtlety that alludes many. For me it was an even greater feat knowing his inner battles with his health and the struggles he faced in his final years.

Although chesed means kindness it specifically connotes the loving kindness with which Hashem created the world, “The world was built with Chesed” (Psalms 89:3). It is further explained in Kabbalah that Chsesed is the reason for creation itself – so that Hashem could have something to bestow his kindness on. During the month of Tammuz however we see some of the hardest things to reconcile with the notion that Hashem wants to bestow kindness upon us – the very worst events in Jewish history happened in this month culminating with Tisha b’Av.

Each month, it is written, brings with it a certain letter and talent which both represent and can be used to explain and rectify that month. Those referring to Tammuz are the letter Chet and the sense of light (Sefer Yetzirah). The first letter Chet and the first mention of sight in the Torah occur in the first four verses of Genesis (1: 2-4)

And the Earth was chaos and void and darkness (choshech) was upon the face of the deep…G-d said let there be light and there was light. G-d saw the light and that it was good”

There is no coincidence here that the first mention of seeing in the Torah also mentions light - after all don’t we always need light to be able to see? But the first mention of the letter Chet is in reference to darkness. How then can the rectification of the month of Tammuz require us to both see but be in darkness?

One of the core principles of creation is that our deepest growth occurs not as a smooth, problem-free journey but instead it happens in a pattern of ‘light-darkness-light’. Often when you have a goal or task that you want to complete you begin overly excited and in anticipation of what you can achieve. Along the way however you are invariably going to run into stumbling blocks and difficulties and only if you persevere and get to the end will you achieve not only your goal but you will have grown and transformed yourself along the way.

Let’s look at Moshe to try and understand this fully. Moshe underwent this very procedure when he spent 40 days with Hashem learning the inner secrets of Torah on Har Sinai. During this time, Moshe had been given a set of tablets which he was to deliver to the Jewish people. Hashem had mystically made and written these tablets himself. On journeying back to Am Yisrael though, Moshe was confronted by his own people who were worshipping a golden calf. Moshe did not give in here on seeing such a failing of the Jewish people, rather he returned to Har Sinai. However these tablets that Hashem had made himself had been destroyed with the Golden Calf. The second time that he ascended Sinai, Moshe had to carve the set of tablets himself.

Moshe had gone in with great intentions and aspirations but met enormous obstacles on the way. It would have been easier for him maybe just to give in on seeing what some of the Jewish people had done, but instead he persevered and saw what he could achieve at the end if he continued. Hashem had provided him with a source of light but in the end it was Moshe who had to create the vessel to hold it in.

This idea that the light has always been here but we have to work to create the vessels to hold it in can be beautifully seen in the words of Psalm 92:

“It is good to thank Hashem and to sing praises to Your name O exalted one. To relate Your kindness in the dawn and Your faith in the nights.”

It is easy in the light of day to see Hashem’s kindness but in the nights when it is dark we must have faith that this is also for the good. This is the rectification of the month of Tammuz – to see in the dark. There are two kinds of love and kindness we can ‘see’ in the month of Tammuz. The first is the revealed good – where it is easy to see Hashem’s miracles. The second is the concealed good, where through our stumbling we learn as a people to absorb lessons for our life and develop our own personal relationship with Hashem and grow to greater heights than we ever could have before. For only when we can strive to turn darkness into light can we appreciate this month of Tammuz.

My father is a striking example of turning darkness into light. No one would have blamed him for complaining about his lot and his hard life. When I think of the suffering he faced it defies me as to how he always had such a smile on his face. Yet he saw through his darkness and turned it into a springboard for chesed. He was never a defeatist but someone who looked at history and told me to learn from it and to go and write my own. That is the true chesed we can repay Hashem, to make a tikkun in the world in our own way, to not give in to the challenges in our lives but to grow from them and have faith that this Tammuz can be transformed into one of abundant light and blessing.