אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
TL;DR
Rav Touitou's French shiur on "La Puissance des Larmes," delivered during Ben HaMetsarim (28 Tammuz), teaches that tears are the language of the soul, the one channel of prayer that remains open even when all the gates of Heaven are shut. Drawing on the Meraglim, Yosef HaTzadik, David HaMelech, Rabbi Akiva, and the Arizal, the Rav lays out both the danger of crying for nothing and the staggering force of sincere tears, with practical kavannot for tefillah and teshuvah.
I. Tears Are an Tool, Not a Weakness 🗡️💧
The Rav opens with a warning from the paracha of the Meraglim (Bamidbar 14:1). The people cried that night over the report of the spies, and HaShem said: you cried tonight for nothing, so I will give you reasons to cry for generations (Tisha B'Av falls on that same date). The frightening part is that the people did have reasons to be afraid. They had just left 210 years of slavery. The land sounded dangerous. Their reasons were real but not justified.
The distinction matters. Even if you have a reason to cry, if the reason is not justified, the tears themselves will generate justified suffering later. Why such strictness? Because tears are the conduit through which all prayer travels. They are the most powerful weapon in creation, and using them carelessly is like firing a loaded weapon at your own feet.
II. Why HaShem Sometimes Adds Weight to Your Shoulders 🏋️
The Rav shares a teaching from Chassidut: one of the reasons a person is tested is because he does not cry enough in his prayers. So HaShem adds pressure, not to break him, but so the prayer will come from the heart.
The more you pray with emotion, with tears and real feeling, the more likely the prayer is to be received, even if you are praying alone. The Chachamim say: if a person cannot pray with a minyan one morning, let him pray with his tears. Just as a minyan automatically elevates a prayer before HaShem, tears do the same, like a stream that rushes upward before HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
Practical kavanna: When praying alone, do not rush through the words. Let the weight of what you are asking for reach your heart. If tears come, they are doing the work of a minyan.
III. Yosef's Tears and the Two Pessah Rituals 🥬🌊
The Rav connects tears to two moments in the Seder that most people perform without thinking about their deeper source.
Karpas in salt water. We dip the vegetable in salt water to recall the tears of Yosef HaTzadik. Sold by his brothers out of baseless hatred (sinat chinam), thrown into a pit with scorpions and snakes, Yosef wept. We say the bracha "Borei Pri HaAdama" (He who creates the fruit of the earth) because the brothers brought him down into the earth. Those tears are still active in every Pessah.
The Rav draws a practical midda from this: one of the greatest mitzvot is to bring a smile to someone's face. One of the greatest aveirot is to make someone cry. Making another person weep is treated with extreme gravity. The Rav says plainly: if you are in a couple and your spouse is crying, do not walk out and slam the door. Do not leave the house until she (or he) has found her smile again.
Kriat Yam Suf. The Midrash teaches that the Red Sea split because the Israelites carried Yosef's coffin. Yosef, who resisted the wife of Potiphar and "dried his tears" (literally held back from crying, from breaking), earned a measure-for-measure reward: the sea split and the ground was dry. "Al charava ba'toch hayam." They walked on dry land, because Yosef HaTzadik dried his tears.
IV. The Zohar: An Angel With a Bowl 👼🏺
The Zohar HaKadosh teaches (and the Rav stresses this is stated specifically about women, though it applies to all): when a person cries, an angel immediately appears holding a vessel. Every tear that falls is collected. Each tear is examined in Heaven the way a jeweler examines a diamond under a loupe. HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself looks at each one: Who made this person cry? Why is she crying?
This is not a metaphor for "G-d knows everything." It is a specific angel created for this one task. The collection of tears is a dedicated operation in the Heavenly court.
Sod dimension: Tears occupy a middle realm. In the world above, communication is telepathic: the soul expresses and the other receives instantly, with perfect clarity, no ambiguity. In this world, we use words, which are limited, clumsy, easy to misunderstand. Tears sit between the two. They are the language of the soul expressing itself through the body. When you cry, you are connecting the upper worlds to the lower worlds. You are, whether you know it or not, bringing HaShem into whatever is happening.
V. The Israelites in Egypt: Beyond Words 🇪🇬
The Torah says HaShem "heard their cry" (Shemot 2:24). But the Midrash asks: they had no strength left to cry out. So what did He hear? The moisture of their hands, the sweat of suffering. Another level: they were weeping silently. Under the lash, with no strength to scream, they wept.
The point: tears go further than words. The Rav gives a vivid human example. When a man tells a woman how much he loves her, how she is the one he has been waiting for, and she responds by crying, that does not end with "I don't care." It ends with "Yes." Because the soul speaks through tears. Emotion expressed in tears carries a truth that words alone cannot.
VI. David HaMelech and Why Tehillim Work ✡️📖
Here the Rav shares a chiddush he studied years ago: Why are Tehillim the go-to prayer for every situation? Kippour, Tehillim. Rosh Hashanah, Tehillim. Morning, Tehillim. Sickness, Tehillim. Mourning, Tehillim. Even Hallel is Tehillim.
Because David HaMelech suffered so much in his life that he wrote every single psalm with tears. Humiliated. Lied about. Pursued. Insulted. Rejected by his own father, ignored by all his brothers ("You said 'bonjour,' the brothers turned around, you don't exist for us"). His own sons Adoniyahu and Avshalom tried to kill him. He said: the war of Gog and Magog I can handle, but your own children wanting your death is harder than bombs falling on your country.
Because each psalm was written with tears, and tears are the language of the soul, there is a neshama inside the Tehillim. Every time you read a psalm, you reawaken the tears of David HaMelech. 150 psalms for 150 dimensions of suffering. That is why they carry energetic force across all generations.
Practical kavanna: When reading Tehillim, know that you are not reading words on a page. You are activating tears that David already cried for the same kind of pain you are feeling.
VII. Moshe's 515 Prayers and the Water That Penetrates Stone 🪨💦
Moshe prayed 515 times (the gematria of "Va'Etchanan") to enter Eretz Yisrael. At the 515th prayer, HaShem told him: Stop. One reason given is that Moshe said in his prayer "I have loved my Master and I do not want to leave Him," and that declaration bound him to the other side. But the deeper reason: at that 515th prayer, Moshe cried with tears. And HaShem said stop because if the tears kept coming, they would have penetrated even the decree.
Why? Stones do not pass through walls. Dust does not pass through walls. But water seeps through. Drop by drop, it enters the stone, saturates it, passes to the other side. Tears do the same in Heaven. Even if there is a wall of concrete between you and an answered prayer, even if HaKadosh Baruch Hu says "I refuse your prayer," your tears will seep through, one after another.
This is the same lesson Rabbi Akiva learned at the spring. He saw drops of water falling on a piece of flint, drop after drop. Over time, a hole formed. He said: if drops of water can bore through stone, then if I cry from the depths of my soul to study Torah, perhaps I too can become great in Torah. The tears of Rabbi Akiva are what made Rabbi Akiva.
VIII. The Sea Opened Step by Step 🌊🚶
The Rav returns to Kriat Yam Suf for a second teaching. When the Israelites stood at the sea, four groups formed: go back to Egypt, commit suicide, fight, pray. HaShem's answer was none of those. He said: Advance.
The sea did not open all at once like in the Cecil B. DeMille film. The Midrash says it opened step by step, as the people walked. Each step they took, the water receded a little more. They could not see the far shore. They walked into the unknown, and the path appeared as they moved.
The lesson for tears: even if you are crying, advance. Do not limit HaShem. The moment you stop walking, the sea closes. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says: "Don't limit Me. I am infinite. I can do everything for you." But He opens the door as you take the step, not before.
IX. The Imahot Were Barren Because HaShem Wanted Their Tears 🤱
The Gemara asks: why were the matriarchs barren? The Rav gives a striking answer. HaShem, so to speak, was concerned that once they had children, they would stop praying with tears. Once the baby arrives, life takes over. But while they lacked, they prayed from a place nothing else could reach. Their tears, the Rav says, were among the most sincere in history because women tend to be more emotionally open.
The principle extends beyond fertility. The Gemara says: honor your wife. Not "yes dear" as a doormat, and not domination. Genuine respect. Because whoever makes his wife cry will answer for every tear. And whoever makes her smile, whoever wipes the tears from her face, performs one of the greatest mitzvot in this world.
X. The Arizal: How to Erase Your Sins With Tears ✨🤲
The Rav brings a practical kavanna from Rabbi Yitzchak Luria (the Arizal): every sin you commit inscribes its first letter on your forehead. How do you erase it? When you do teshuvah and cry, take the tears that flow down your cheeks and pass them over your forehead. The moisture of those tears erases the letter of the sin.
The proof text is Leah. How did she change her entire mazal? She was supposed to marry Esav. Through crying, not casual tears but crying so hard that her eyes became sunken from the weight, she changed her destiny entirely and married Yaakov, the tzadik.
The Rav adds: if you want something, it is not "I cry a little." It is "I cry with my entire soul." As long as your soul speaks, your tears exist.
Practical kavanna (Arizal): During teshuvah, if tears come, physically bring the moisture from your cheeks to your forehead. This is not symbolic. The Arizal taught it as an operative practice.
XI. When to Cry and When to Smile 😢😊
The Rav maps the Jewish calendar onto the rhythm of tears and joy:
Adar: we laugh. Nisan: we smile. Tammuz through Tisha B'Av (Ben HaMetsarim): we cry. But then what? After Tisha B'Av, you stop crying and find your smile again.
Elul is the curious one. In Elul, we cry with songs. "Chatanu lefanecha, rachem aleinu." You are singing? Yes, because doing teshuvah means giving direction to your life, and that is a reason for joy. You can cry and sing at the same time.
Yom Kippur is the same. There is no greater day than Yom Kippur, and we cry on Yom Kippur. But we also sing. If you use tears as a positive language, you earn the right to sing, because HaShem forgives everything through the merit of sincere tears.
The Rav makes a critical point about teshuvah: cry over what you did wrong, but once the crying is done, find your smile. Because it was sadness that caused you to sin in the first place. If you remain sad while trying to repent, you will sin again. Teshuvah must end in simcha.
XII. Do Not Cry Without Changing 🔄
The Rav closes with a warning against empty tears. If someone left you, and you want them back, crying alone will not help. They did not leave because you failed to cry. They left because you were the problem. Change first. Then cry. Crying without changing is like a garden without flowers.
And if you ever encounter someone you have made cry, even if you brought bad news, do not walk away. Wipe their tears. One of the greatest mitzvot in this world is to dry another person's tears and return their smile.
The Rav ends by recalling Israel's history as the people of tears: six million tears shed over a procession of innocents, tears shed in the camps that were powerful enough to raise the flag of a nation returning to its land.
Baruch Adonai LeOlam, Amen VeAmen.
AI-assisted drafting (Claude Opus 4.6). All claims checked and final text approved by the author.