Part II. Looking Forward
Building with Billions
Now, we have to understand the purpose in looking back at the Churban Beis Hamikdash. Is it merely to express aveilus for all those great eras and great possessions which we once had?
Yes, certainly! But it’s also a way of looking forward. I’ll explain that. Suppose it's possible for you to go tomorrow to Eretz Yisroel and rebuild the Beis Hamikdash. Let's say you have billions and billions of dollars and you could buy off the Arabs; they would obligingly remove themselves and give you the opportunity to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash. Imagine that because of you, the Israeli government would resign and the Gedolei Yisroel would take over. Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Satmar Rav also; all the roshei yeshivah. You’d bring them in and they’d all sit together to make decisions about building the Beis Hamikdash.
Now, some things they couldn't do because you need Eliyahu Hanavi to answer some questions, but very many practices could be restored immediately. ׁ ָּ̆„¿ ̃ƒמ ין≈‡∆ׁ ̆ יƒּפ לַﬠ ףַ‡ יםƒיבƒר¿ ַּ̃מ∆ׁ ̆ יƒּ ̇¿עַמָׁ ̆ – The Mishnah (Eduyos 8:6) says you can bring korbanos even today. I'm not giving any piskei halachos, but superficially, we can say that many things could be done before Moshiach comes.
Sincere Weeping
Now imagine a man who has the power to organize all of that. But instead of doing anything, as soon as Tisha B’Av is over, he goes back to his ordinary life. On Tisha B’Av he sat on the ground all day long weeping for the lost Beis Hamikdash; the tears were flowing. And then on Motzei Tisha B’Av he gets up from the floor and wipes the dust off his pants and he goes home. He goes back to his job and back to normal living.
Can we say that this man was weeping sincerely? Did he even know what he was weeping about? It can’t be! A person cannot be considered a sincere aveil for the Churban Beis Hamikdash unless he makes use of the opportunities he has; unless the mourning spurs him to look forward and to rebuild.
And actually, that’s what happened at the time of the Churban. Our forefathers weren't yotzei with just mourning. They didn't throw up their hands and say, “We give up.” You know what they were doing? As soon as the churban took place, they began building immediately; that was their reaction to the destruction.
Rebuilding in Yavneh
While they were burning the Beis Hamikdash in Yerushalayim, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai was sitting in Yavneh and making takanos for the future of the Jewish nation. The Sages were establishing Yavneh at the time as if it was a substitute for the Beis Hamikdash. They blew shofar in Yavneh on Shabbos like they did in the Beis Hamikdash, and the people were summoned to be oleh regel to Yavneh three times a year instead of to the Mikdash. It was an innovation, something new.
Now, you might think, how could Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai do that? He should sit and mourn! He should have been heartbroken!
The answer is that certainly he mourned, absolutely. But in the midst of his mourning he was a very active builder. He was very old, by the way, and old people usually are the ones to give up in despair. But not Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai. He understood what mourning means; you appreciate what went lost so intensely that you’re doing whatever you can to replace it.
And so, with his eyes to the future, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai was as busy as could be preparing for the future. He brought in a young nasi, Rabban Gamliel, and he appointed him to take over the job. And he told the older Chachomim, “You obey him. He's the boss.” He was building and he encouraged all the Chachomim who were his disciples to build along with him.
The Mishnah Mikdash
While the Beis Hamikdash, the center of Torah life, was burning, they sat down to rebuild the spiritual Beis Hamikdash. They began now to review all the Mishnayos and to argue about every letter, every detail. Many halachos were clarified in Yavneh. They built up the Torah sheba'al peh at that time so that it should be a solid building for generations.
And then when Rabbeinu Hakadosh came along after the churban of Beitar – the Rambam says Beitar was even a bigger churban than the Mikdash. So Rebbi didn't say, “What can we do? We’re so sad” and that’s all. Of course he asked Hakadosh Baruch Hu that He should restore the glory of old. But he wasn't yotzei with that. Rebbi called together all the Chachomim and for years and years they sat and counted every ois until finally the Mishnah was sealed by Rebbi.
The churban that took place didn't stop them from building a new Beis Hamikdash, and the new Beis Hamikdash was the Torah sheba'al peh, the Mishnah. And the Jewish nation now lives in that Beis Hamikdash. We are housed in the Mishnah.
Beis HaTalmud
And then along came the Chachmei hadoros, Rabbi Yochanan and all the other Chachmei Eretz Yisrael, the Amora'im. And then in Bavel came Rav and Shmuel and then Rav Huna and Rav Yehudah and then Rabbah and Rav Yosef. There were many others.
And then came Abaye and Rava, and these were the builders of the Talmud Bavli. They were building up the Beis Hamikdash even more. They put stone on stone. They made doorways. They made roofs. They made chambers. Each mesichta is a huge lishkah in the Beis Hamikdash. And finally came Rav Ashi and his great assemblage of Chachamim, and they made a Chanukas Habayis and they concluded the Talmud Bavli.
The Talmud Bavli, you have to know, is our sanctuary. The Jewish nation lives in that Beis Hamikdash even more securely than the generations of old lived in the physical Beis Hamikdash. To this day, the Jewish nation lives in the Talmud; we rejoice in the Talmud. We pass in and out of those doorways. We breathe the air of the Talmud. We live with the aspirations and the ideals of the Talmud. We look at the world through the eyes of the Talmud. And therefore Rav Ashi and all those who came before him were building in the midst of their mourning.
And so we see now what the subject of Tisha B’Av really is. What is the function of mourning? Building! If we really mourn for the past, if we regret what we lost, then it means that we are full of interest, full of desire and ambition to build everything that went lost. We want to rebuild the Torah nation.
A Torah Nation
That’s what makes us a nation after all; like Rabbeinu Saadya Gaon says ין≈‡הָרֹוּ ַ̇ה ילƒב¿ׁ ̆ƒּב ‡ָּל∆‡ הָּמּו‡ּינו≈ ֹ̇וּמֻ‡ – our nation is only a nation by the Torah. That’s what gives us our right to exist; that’s the common thing that would make us be called a nation.
We don't have any common thing that would make us be called a nation. Not the land or the language, not the Beis Hamikdash. “Our nation is only a nation because of Torah!” If a Jew does not accept Torah, then he's not a Jew. And if a black man accepts the Torah and he's megayer k’halachah so we say to him achinu atah. He can't become a melech Yisroel—affirmative action won't go that far—but otherwise he’s our brother, a fellow Torah Jew. And those people, the Israelis, who want to make a new nation in Eretz Yisroel and speak Hebrew and eat treif and forget about the Torah, they’re not our brothers. We are a Torah-nation and that’s the only reason we have a right to exist.
And that’s the pivot of our mourning. We want everything back because we want to best rebuild the Torah nation. That’s what we’re mourning most of all, that we were a nation that lived most loyally, most proudly, according to the Torah.
Geulah for Torah
Now, some people when they hear this, they are confused. Is that really what we’re talking about when we mourn for the Beis Hamikdash and look forward to Yemos Hamoshiach? For the Torah?
So we open up a Rambam. The Rambam (Hil. Melochim 12:4, Hilchos Teshuva 9:2) asks, what is it that the tzaddikim and the chassidim look forward to when they await the days of Moshiach? Is it that they want to come back to Eretz Yisroel and eat the beautiful fruits of the land and enjoy that happiness? No, says the Rambam. That's not the happiness we're yearning for. It's not the physical joy which we once experienced that we want to re-experience.
Listen to what the Rambam says: We are looking forward to be free from the shibud malchuyos so we can achieve perfection of the mind and character. We want to be free to study Torah and its wisdom in order to acquire Olam Haba.
Difficulties of Exile
Today we’re subject to the nations. They make us work for them. If you pay taxes it means that one day out of five you’re working for the government. Our lives are given away for programs that help loafers and criminals. College professors get big grants of money from the government to go and study the Aleutian Indians; big grants to study rocks from the moon. Rocks! Tremendous grants of money from the government they get and we’re paying for it. So we're giving away our lives for shibud malchuyos.
Besides, the shibud malchuyos is a very bad influence. We’re so busy struggling against the immorality we see all around us, the sheker of evolution in the colleges and the wildness of the youth. Every form of degradation we see in golus. That's also shibud malchuyos.
And so we mourn for what we once had—the purity of Eretz Yisroel in the days of old—and we look forward to the time when Moshiach will redeem us from all this and we will finally be at leisure among only kesheirim.
Limitations of Geulah
Now, what will we do with our spare time? You think you’ll sit in the mountains at a kosher hotel and eat three kosher meals a day? No, we're not asking for that. The Rambam says we’re mourning because we’re looking forward to leisure time when we’ll be able to sit in the shtiebel or in the yeshivah all day long.
“That’s all?!” you’re thinking. “To sit in the yeshivah?” It’s disappointing. Maybe you’re too ashamed to admit it but that’s what you’re thinking. Oh, it’s a disappointment? It means we’re not mourning for the Beis Hamikdash; we don't really mean it. Because once the Beis Hamikdash comes we'll have to sit in the beis hamedrash all day long. There's nothing else to do. You don't have
