J

erusalem becomes a virtual ghost town every summer between Tishah B’Av and Elul. Traffic dwindles to fewer cars and fewer pedestrians. The city seems to empty out. The press reported at the time that tens of thousands of Israelis were flying abroad each day.  That’s because Israelis take vacation time very seriously and those three weeks are bein hazmanim (“intersession”) — official summer vacation season.

One morning during bein hazmanim I received a delightful gift: My regular swimming pool was completely empty. Only the lifeguard and I were there. Instead of a group of splashing men crowding the swimming lanes I was utterly alone. I reveled in the silence and the solitude the only sound being the delicate lapping of the water.

That afternoon I went to the beis medrash where I normally do my daily Talmud study (my spiritual exercise…). It is normally filled with men similarly engaged plus the members of a kollel studying in groups. But this was bein hazmanim. Again I was utterly alone. Instead of the hum of learning total silence.  Once again I luxuriated in the solitude the only sound being the rustling of the pages of my sefer. I felt like I alone had been appointed guardian of both the physicality and the spirituality of this holy city. Everyone else was gone.

But after a few days of this I became a bit fidgety and found myself wishing that someone — anyone — would show up. Finally a solitary figure appeared in the beis medrash and though I had no idea who he was I was relieved to see another human being .  And the next morning when someone else showed up at the pool I welcomed him warmly even though the delicate lapping of the water was no more.

This small trek from the reveling in aloneness on Monday to the joy in having company on Thursday illustrated the profound truth at the beginning of Bereishis: “…it is not good for man to be alone…” Aloneness is not a natural part of the human condition. Man is wired from the very beginning to be connected with other people. Aloneness for man is lo tov not in G-d’s plan. Which is why solitary confinement is a dreaded punishment for prisoners. Which might be why people use cellphones even when they have nothing to say: The need for connectedness is constant.

So it is in religious life. When for example we visit the sick — bikur cholim — we not only perform an important mitzvah. A sick person often feels helpless and isolated.  A visit demonstrates that others care. The chilling sense of being alone melts away before the friendly attention of a visitor. Loneliness is banished; connectivity is re-established.

Similarly with nichum aveilim comforting mourners.  No one feels more alone and isolated than someone who has just lost a loved one. A visit to the mourner helps relieve his aloneness. And when the visitor says “Hamakom yenachem — May G-d comfort you among the other mourners of Jerusalem” the mourner understands that in his sadness he is not alone. “Among the other mourners” — you are not isolated in your grief. Others grieve with you. You are connected to them and they to you.

This is also the value of davening with a minyan. Of course only with a minyan can one have public Torah reading or Kaddish or Barechu or Kedushah — because only a minyan constitutes the Biblical eidah/community — but there is a concomitant subtlety: When a community davens each separate individual is subsumed into the greater whole. Aloneness disappears. For example one can certainly recite the Shemoneh Esrei while all alone but  within a minyan one gives and receives spiritual energy from all the others.

This is not to suggest that occasional solitude is not a good thing. “There is a time to be silent and a time to speak” says Solomon in Koheles 3:7.  The “lo tov” of Bereishis refers to being lonely; it does not refer to the occasional solitude which is a voluntary withdrawal from others. Many spiritual giants would occasionally withdraw for a few days from the noise of life in an act of hisbodedus a self-imposed solitude in order to be able to reach deeper into one’s soul and its connections to heaven. Solitude is positive; loneliness is negative.

In truth a Jew is never truly alone. The only truly Alone One is G-d Himself. He is Echad which means not only “One” but separate apart. But such singularity is exclusively His. He does not wish us mortals to be lonely so He keeps us eternal company.

I look forward to next year’s bein hazmanim when I will have Jerusalem virtually all to myself again. The solitude will be welcome but when it turns into lo tov loneliness I will surely hope someone else shows up.