is the purpose of life, transformed them from head to toe.
The Epitome of Happiness
It made them also the most happy people on the face of the earth. “We don't need any other form of happiness,” they said. “This is it!” Because the yearning of the human soul is to see Hashem. Retzoneinu! That’s the only thing! If you have a yearning for anything else in this world, you don't realize that you're being duped. You think you're longing for travel. You think you're longing for pleasures. You think you're longing for money. You think you're longing for good times. No; you're longing to see Hashem!
Only that man doesn’t know it; he thinks he’s yearning for something else so he looks for substitutes to still that yearning. It’s like a man who is hungry and he thinks he'll chew paper and that will cure his hunger. For the moment you deceive yourself but chewing paper won't nourish you. You spit it out and you'll still be hungry.
And so all the substitutes, all the good times, after they're over leave a man with an empty feeling; “This is not really what I wanted.” That's why all the people who revel, go to entertainment, go to affairs, they come home with an empty feeling. The movie ends, the lights go off, and you walk out into a dark street. That's not it. We've been deceived. We’ve been had! Because the human soul yearns for Hashem. That’s all he wants.
Olam Haba in Olam Hazeh
And so if the Shechina comes among us, that’s the highest form of fulfillment and happiness a person can experience in this world. It’s actually me’ein Olam Haba; it’s something like Olam Haba. Because that is the World to Come; the righteous sit with crowns on their heads, and they enjoy the delight of the splendor of the Shechina. That’s the greatest form of happiness that Hashem Himself could invent. He can’t make anything better than that because He can’t make anything better than Himself! And so to have such a demonstration of Hashem’s Presence, that He lives among us, there’s nothing like it.
That’s why Yerushalayim was called the joy of all the world. Because the Beis Hamikdash, the Home of Hashem, was there. It was the city of our glory, the city of our happiness, because there they gained what was the most necessary desire of the human soul, that feeling of the closeness of Hashem. The Beis Hamikdash requited the fundamental yearning in the heart of every human being, what we want more than anything else.
More than anything else in the world the Beis Hamikdash did that and so when we had that, we had everything! The awareness that the Shechinah resided among the nation, the people felt that this is the greatest happiness above which there is nothing greater in this world.
Charging the Nation
And that gave the nation the charge, the energy, to fulfill our destiny to the highest degree. His Presence in the midst of our nation! It’s one thing to know that we have a function of singing His praises, but it’s something else entirely when He’s living among you, when He demonstrates not merely in teachings, not merely in theories, but He demonstrates by His actual Presence that He is with us.
Nothing could bring the clarity of perception of emunah as much as the Beis Hamikdash with the Presence of Hashem there. It had an unfailing effect on everybody. We cannot realize how living with the Beis Hamikdash transformed our forefathers.
And our nation lived that way generation after generation. Even though after a while they became habituated, they became somewhat dulled by habit, nevertheless the Beis Hamikdash that was in their midst always fulfilled its function. The Beis Hamikdash provided our nation with an actual awareness of Hashem's presence, the success for which men are created.
Part VI. Open Mourning
A Reason to Cry
And so when that went lost then Hakadosh Baruch Hu declared a public mourning because that’s everything! When it came to the destruction of the Mikdash even Hakadosh Baruch Hu – the One about Whom it says the One Who is always happy – even He announces a day of weeping and mourning, and putting on sackcloth.
Because His happiness is when we are fulfilling our function. Hashem is happy with His people when we live up to our purpose of “Am zu yatzarti li tehilasi yesaperu.” And without the Beis Hamikdash we are an orphaned nation because that was the place that made it most easy to see Hashem.
That is the essence of our mourning. We’re mourning primarily not for the destruction of Yerushalayim and the loss of Eretz Yisroel – which in itself is a tremendous catastrophe. I would like to explain to you more what Yerushalayim meant to us. We don't have time however. We need a long time to understand what it means the loss of Yerushalayim. We need a very long time to explain what it means the loss of Eretz Yisroel. It needs a great deal of talk to explain.
But whatever we'll say is nothing compared to the loss of the Beis Hamikdash. Because the Beis Hamikdash, that's the place from where the human soul was recharged with a new energy, from where it received that mysterious power of confidence, of awareness that Hakadosh Baruch Hu fills the entire universe with His Presence.
Message Of The Mikdash
From the Beis Hamikdash came forth the awareness that Hashem is in the trees. Hashem is in the wind. Hashem is in the thunder. Like Dovid Hamelech stood at the seashore and said “Kol Hashem al hamayim” – the voice of Hashem is over the waters (Tehillim 29:3). He wasn’t saying poetry. He was saying what he experienced.
And so from the Beis Hamikdash came forth that great message that made all the people of Yisroel fulfill the purpose of their lives. All the greatness of our nation, greatness that we can only dream about, came from the holiness that poured out of the Mikdash, the Home of Hashem.
They lived in the shadow of Hashem. On the streets people greeted each other with the words Hashem imachem; because Hashem was top of mind. If you look in Tanach every Jewish name had the name of Hashem in it. The spirit of Hashem filled the atmosphere and it came out of the Beis Hamikdash.
Living With Awe
If we could view how the kohanim walked slowly doing the sacrifices we would become so overwhelmed with true genuine intrinsic piety. They were dressed with especial garments of white linen; everyone was dressed exactly in the same uniform. And as they walked through the courtyard of the Beis Hamikdash in the azarah, they walked slowly, one foot was just behind the other; that’s how they walked, with fear, with the utmost reverence.
Like it states at the end of Shemoneh Esrei when we yearn for the days of old and we ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to restore the Beis Hamikdash: “V’sham na’avodcha b’yirah k’yemei olam u’k’shanim kadmoniot” – There we should serve You once more in fear, in the greatest of awe, like the olden days and the years that passed by.
Anyone who saw that became deeply impressed that here was the palace of a Melech Gadol; a great King resides here and everyone who enters the premises steps with the utmost awe. And all those who witnessed this became impressed and it never forsook them for the rest of their lives.
And so the Beis Hamikdash was the gem of our nation. It was the heart of our nation. Not only our pride; it was our neshamah! It was our life! It was more than our lives!
A Nation in Sorrow
You know, Josephus was a witness to the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash and he describes how the people reacted to the Churban. The people had been already besieged in the city for years; it was a siege of three years. And the people were dying of famine and also pestilence; epidemics had set in. Outside were the Romans who were besieging them and inside the people were dying.
Then finally the Romans breached the walls and entered the city and the iron legions of Rome began clanking over the streets with their armor and slaughtering everybody. Slaughtering everybody! No exceptions! The city was bathing in its own blood.
All the people of the city now were groaning in sorrow and crying out in wretchedness. And in their misery they looked up into the center of the city, to the joy of all the earth. And what did they see? They saw a flame shoot up from the Beis Hamikdash. That's the way it’s described by Josephus. A Roman soldier set fire to the Beis Hamikdash and the people saw now that the Home of their Father, their King, was burning.
Now, when the dying Jews who were being slaughtered saw that, a great outcry came up from them; a cry so loud, so piercing, that it drowned out all the cries of those who were being slaughtered. The Beis Hamikdash! The soul of our nation! The breath of our nostrils! The Beis Hamikdash is burning!
The Greatest Cry
That’s how the scene is described. A great cry came up from the entire city; as more and more people saw the fire the cry became louder and louder. All the dying, all the suffering, cried out with one voice over the destruction of the Mikdash; louder than all the cries of sorrow over the destruction of the people and the city and the land.
Because the Beis Hamikdash, that was the heart of our nation more than anything else. Our fulfillment of our function in this world – to live with Hashem, to think about Him always, to walk and talk and think in His Presence, and to see Him in all of creation and sing His praises always – reached its highest point because of the Beis Hamikdash where our Creator resided among us. We knew that He lived among us and we therefore lived according to that understanding. We lived entirely different lives.
And therefore Hashem said, “That day I proclaim sadness in public! For this I don’t weep only bamystarim. I weep secretly for the pride of our nation, the dignity of the Jewish people who once were uppermost in the world. But once it comes to the Beis Hamikdash, I emerge from My secret chamber and I weep publicly for the Churban. For the Mikdash I weep in public because I want everyone to know that I’m weeping for the destruction of My home where I dwelled among My people. Because I want you to know what to weep for most.”
Why We Weep
And that’s mostly why we weep on Tisha B’Av. Of all the things we have to weep for, the most important – the sadness that actually breaks the heart of our nation – is the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Because by means of the Mikdash the nation lived with Hashem. We lived with the awareness of our function in this world – to be with Him in our thoughts always.
And when we finally understand what the loss really was and we weep for that perfection gone lost then Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, “Now I see that you understand what you’re missing. Now I see that You desire to be with Me once again.” And then He’ll fulfill His promise to us that “All you who loved Yerushalayim will rejoice with her, all those who mourn for Yerushalayim will rejoice together with her in her happiness.” (Yeshayah 66:10).
Have a Wonderful Shabbos and a Meaningful Tisha B’Av
Let’s Get Practical
Expressing Our Sorrow
In Rav Miller’s ‘Ten Steps to Greatness’ he urged his talmidim to sit on the ground for one minute every night and mourn the churban. He recommended doing this all year round. Surely this week, the week of Tisha B’Av, we should take the lessons we learned about to heart and spend some time each day mourning for our ancient perfection and what we lost at the churban.
This week’s booklet is based on tapes: 605 - Pride of Israel | 613 - Longing For the Days of Old 696 - When Hashem Weeps | 925 - Lessons of the Churban
