HaRav Rebbe Aharon Kroll would relate: When he was young the ‘Imrei Emes’ of Gur made Aliyah and came to live in Yerushalayim. He wanted to go up to the Kosel Hamaaravi, and he – R’ Aharon, merited to be among those who accompanied him on the way. Of course, they went by foot, and from Shaar Yafo [Yafo Gate] to the Kosel they had to climb many steps, and since the Rebbe was old and weak, those accompanying him had to carry him on a chair and exerted themselves to bring him up quickly as was their custom, until they reached the Kosel Hamaaravi. When they arrived, they put down the Rebbe’s chair and hoped that now they could rest a bit from the strenuous hike and regain their strength for the way back. But they hardly had enough time to read one perek [kepital] of Tehillim and immediately the Rebbe wanted to go back since he was not able to endure the great suffering and pain of the destruction [Churban] and the distress of the Shechina, when he saw the place of the Bais HaMikdash in its destruction.
We are literally standing at the peak of the days of mourning for the destruction of the Bais HaMikdash, and to our great suffering and disappointment, the Bais HaMikdash is so distant from our understanding and comprehension, and we do not even know what we lost and what we are mourning for, until we must strengthen ourselves to suffer and mourn for the Churban. In the siddur of R’Yaakov MiEmdin he brings down the testimony of a goy who was a commissioner of the Romans in Yerushalayim, and he witnessed firsthand the offering of the Karban Pesach, and he described the glory and beauty that was there. At the end of his testimony, the goy writes that after all he had seen with his eyes, he did not understand how the Jews are able to survive and live without the Bais HaMikdash!
True, we are not asked to feel the same feelings as the generation of the Churban, and also not to conduct ourselves as Gedolei Yisrael have conducted themselves through all the generations, as they merited to feel the pain of the Churban. But at least we should not hide, and we should not think that everything is good, and even if we do not understand what we have lost – the very awareness that we lost something great, should make our spirits sad, and from this no one is exempt. This is why Chazal established for us the customs of mourning in these days ‘to help us’ remember the pain and feel it for ourselves. Chazal said (Taanis 30b), ‘Whoever mourns for Yerushalayim, will merit to see its rebuilding’. May it be His will that we soon merit to see the consolation of Tzion and Yerushalayim and the building of the Bais HaMikdash.
Tiv HaEmorim –The Three Weeks
