The boy was stunned. He stood there. He didn’t know what to say. There were tears streaming down his face. He stood there looking at the grave and said, “Momma, Momma, you gave me everything. You gave me my life. I promise you that there will not be a day in my life that I don’t think about you. There will not be a day when I don’t do something for your neshomah. You should have nachas from me in Shomayim. And I will carry on your memory and I will make you proud. Your sacrifice will not have been in vain.”
And so he went home and for the rest of his life he spent every single day, thinking about what his mother had sacrificed for him. For the rest of his life he tried to live up to what she expected of him.
There was a time in history when Klal Yisroel sinned, and Hakodosh Boruch Hu decreed that we have to be punished. Terribly punished. There was a gezeirah of annihilation upon us. The Beis HaMikdosh, the Momma of Klal Yisroel, went and pleaded our case before the Heavenly Throne. And the Beis HaMikdosh said to the Ribbono Shel Olam, “Take me instead! Let me be destroyed and burnt to the ground so that my children can live, so that the nation of Am Yisroel should be able to continue.” And as Chazal tell us, Hakodosh Boruch Hu was in great anger and He intended to pour out his wrath on us. But instead, he poured out His wrath on wood and stones. He took all of that wrath and He took it out on the stones of the holy Beis HaMikdosh. And the Beis HaMikdosh was burnt to the ground so that we could survive, so that we should live on, so that there should be an Am Yisroel. But it is our sacred obligation never to forget the Beis HaMikdosh. We must live with the memory of what the Beis HaMikdosh did for us. The Beis HaMikdosh was like the mother of Klal Yisroel. Because a mother cleans her children when they are soiled and dirty. When Klal Yisroel became soiled with aveiros, where did we go to cleanse our neshamos? We went to the Beis HaMikdosh to atone for our sins. That was the place that cleansed us of all of our aveiros. That was the place that rejuvenated us and renewed our spirit and breathed life into us. And the Beis HaMikdosh sacrificed for our existence.
And so we must never forget the Beis HaMikdosh. But it isn’t enough just not to forget the Beis HaMikdosh. A mother is the very essence of her offspring. When you daven for someone you mention his mother’s name because she is the very essence of that person. That’s who he is. As long as we are connected in our minds and our hearts to the Beis HaMikdosh, then we have an identity. We know who we are. Our essence is clear. We have no doubts about our identity. A child who knows his mother knows who he is. But if we distance ourselves, if we forget, if we don’t live with the memory of our mother, of the Beis HaMikdosh, we lose our identity.
May we be zocheh to see the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdosh speedily and in our days!
