In Shaare Teshuva, Rabbenu Yona tells us (shaar 2, letter 5), ” One who relies on Hashem, to hope from his deepest of difficulties, that your darkness will actually be the cause of your light.”
It’s not in spite of the darkness, that there will be light, but because of the darkness, there will be light. He brings a pasuk in Michah ( 7,8)
אַֽל־תִּשְׂמְחִ֤י אֹיַ֙בְתִּי֙ לִ֔י כִּ֥י נָפַ֖לְתִּי קָ֑מְתִּי כִּֽי־אֵשֵׁ֣ב בַּחֹ֔שֶׁךְ יְהֹוָ֖ה א֥וֹר לִֽי
Do not be happy, my enemies, because I fell, I’ll get up
I’m sitting in the darkness, Hashem will be my light.
The Midrash Tehilim (chapter 22) says it’s not just that I fell and I will get up, but if I didn’t fall, I never would have gotten up. If I hadn’t sat in the darkness, it wouldn’t be light.
This is an important principle, especially as we start the seven weeks. If you’re scratching your head wondering what the seven weeks are, we had three weeks of Haftaras that were negative, which are followed by seven weeks of Haftaras that are comforting. We tend to forget about the seven weeks that come out of the three weeks. Rav Wolbe says that there is an extra dose of comfort, more than double the dose of comfort than of suffering. For the individual as well as the general people, the end goal is all that comes out of the suffering.
The Ramchal, known for his Sefer Mesilat Yesharim, writes in a Maamar HaGeula that this pasuk tells us the secret of the Jewish Bitachon and hope that we will be redeemed. The redemption has many preparations, and many affects beforehand. He says that in the end, when it comes about, people will realize, “When the Jewish people thought that God hid His face and forsook them, it was the opposite- Then God prepared for them huge treasure houses; there is no end to their width or to their greatness. He says, in these treasure houses, there will be such beautiful treasures that the mouth cannot ennunciate what the treasure house will look like, and the ear cannot hear. Then the time will come that we will be allowed into these treasure houses, with all kinds of delicacies for the Jewish people that worked hard. That is the meaning of the pasuk in Tehilim (90,9) that we say,
“ שמחנו כימות עניתנוmake us happy like the days we were in pain.”
All those days when they were in exile when there was no light on them, that light was not lost. Rather, God is putting that light away and saving it for us, for the future.
He says that when that light is finally opened up, “It will all come out at one time.“
It will be super saturated, super condensed, super concentrated light. He says that there will be a happiness like there never was. The world will be a world of peace and tranquility. Without any sorrow afterwards.
This is a very heavy statement, and a very heavy concept, to realize that even in the most difficult times (the Holocaust the Crusades, and all the like) all the light that should have been there is being deposited into one account and it becomes concentrated together, and will be released. Think about the nicest party or the nicest wedding or the nicest vacation, whatever you can imagine. All of that doesn’t compare, because as it says, in the future, “No eye ever saw what is awaiting us.“
Imagine Queen Elizabeth jewels, millions of dollars worth of jewelry… it doesn’t even compare to the treasure houses that are waiting for us.
When times are difficult we have to think about those things. And that is what we are supposed to be doing now during the seven weeks of Nechama. As we get ready for the high holidays, we want to re-commit ourselves to Hashem our loving Father, our loving King, and do His will.
Have a wonderful day and a Shabbat Shalom.