Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
During the period known as The Three Weeks, we mourn the destruction of our Beit Hamikdosh. In Sichot Eliyahu, Rabbi Roth zt”l quotes the Shulchan Aruch that says that all who have yirat shamayim/fear of Heaven should mourn the destruction. The obvious question is shouldn’t we all mourn the destruction? Citing the Chidushei Harim, Rabbi Roth notes that he who has no fear of Heaven has a greater tragedy, and he must mourn the destruction within himself. After all, the purpose of the Beit Hamikdosh was to teach us that Hashem wants to dwell not only within a physical, material structure, but especially within us. Therefore, Rabbi Wolbe zt”l says, we mourn both the internal destruction and severance of our connection to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, and the external symbol of that destruction, the Beit Hamikdosh.
Rabbi Roth notes that for forty years before the churban Hashem sent us messages about the impending destruction. As part of the Yom Kippur service, the lot for the goat sanctified as an offering to Hashem usually fell on the right. With God removing His presence from the Sanctuary, from the strong right hand of the kohain, the lots identifying the scapegoat and the offering were reversed. And the scapegoat’s red string did not turn white as the sign of atonement. Also, the westernmost light of the menorah, the light which had remained constantly lit from one day to the next, was extinguished. As a further sign of insecurity, the doors to the holy area, the heichal, which usually remained closed until the kohain opened them, flung open on their own, no longer protecting the sanctity within.
How are these changes omens of the impending destruction? Rabbi Roth explains that keeping Hashem as the strongest focus, at one’s “right” hand, was no longer the case. Bnei Yisroel became more interested in all the mundane aspects of life, relegating Hashem to the left, weaker, less significant part of their lives. The string did not turn white, for Bnei Yisroel were no longer interested in expiation and atonement. In fact, the Temple Mount is referred to as the Levanon/the White Mountain. If we were no longer interested in purifying ourselves, what purpose did the Beit Hamikdosh serve? Finally, the light of the Menorah symbolized the light of Torah and of the great rabbis who kept that light aflame. When we no longer listened to these luminaries, the flame of the Menorah itself went out.
In this context, Rabbi Schorr notes, the Gemorro tells us that the Temple was destroyed because Bnei Yisroel did not recite the Blessing on the Torah first, as primary. It was not that there was no Torah study or mitzvah observance, but that it was not first and foremost in their lives. Further, the blessing on the Torah is considered a blessing over nehenin, things we enjoy. We are meant to enjoy Torah study, but we must recite a blessing first, just as we recite a blessing over enjoying a piece of fruit. As testament, we acknowledge the primacy of Torah at every bris, by blessing the newborn first to enter immediately and most importantly into a life of Torah, and then to marriage and good deeds.
The Gemorro then continues that Bnei Yisroel also lo holchu boh, they did not walk, conduct their lives according to Torah rules and spirit. Torah was not the path they took for personal growth and spirituality. They had lost the desire for internal sanctity.
Rabbi Bloch zt”l uses an analogy to explain the attitude of Bnei Yisroel toward the Torah at that time. If two patients consult a doctor with the same illness, they will usually be prescribed similar protocols, perhaps diet and certain medication. The patient who embraces these protocols and is grateful for the cure will probably have a better outcome than the patient who complains about the changes in his lifestyle and the cost of the medication. Are we approaching our mitzvah observance mostly as an obligation to complain about, or with joy as the path to spiritual growth and optimal health?
We lock our doors or put into safes things which we hold valuable. We do not allow every stranger into our homes, nor do we keep valuable jewelry out in the open. Sichat Eliyahu notes that within the Beit Hamikdosh, that which was holy was also kept behind closed doors. When the doors flew open on their own, there was no protection for the valuable sanctity within; Hashem had removed His heavenly guards from the walls of Yerushalayim.
We ourselves are also precious. We must guard ourselves from the strange impurities that surround us. We must fortify the walls and doors of our psyche and being so that we discriminate between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable [just as we clench our lips and teeth to prevent poisonous and distasteful food from entering our mouths. CKS].
Hashem punishes measure for measure. Thus, the punishment is in some way a reflection of the sin itself. Our Second Beit Hamikdosh was destroyed for the sin of sinat chinom/baseless hatred. Rav Desslerzt”l explains the source of this hatred was arrogance, the characteristic most closely associated with Esau/Edom and with his descendants, Amalek and Rome, the destroyer of our Second Temple.
Rabbi Wolbe zt”l reminds us of perhaps our first example of God’s punishing us with a mirror of our sin. When we approached Torah with a cold intellectualism and asked, “Is Hashem within us, or not,” Hashem sent Amalek to “break the ice” of antisemitism and attack Bnei Yisroel for no realistic reason.
How does this analysis translate into our current situation? Rebbetzin Smiles reminds us of the chilling news images of Hamas tanks breaking through the gates of the Israeli kibbutzim, entering and ransacking homes, and brutally murdering everyone in their path. But, in contrast, miraculously, two shomer Shabbat kibbutzim whose gates were locked for the holiday escaped that massacre and destruction. Are we protecting ourselves from the invading negative social forces around us?
The Beit Hamikdosh was exactly the holy home we built to share intimacy with Hakodosh Boruch Hu, just as the home is the place of privacy and intimacy in a Jewish marriage, suggests Rabbi Pincus zt”l. The home without shared common values is just roommates sharing space, not a marriage. Similarly, the Jewish home must be filled with the sanctity of Torah and mitzvoth.
Hashem promised Avraham Avinu and his descendants Eretz Yisroel, our symbolic home. Hashem did not promise Avraham Torah and mitzvoth; that is understood to be the lifeblood of the home. That was the Beit Hamikdosh. Today that has become the role of our shuls and batei medrash. Both in our shuls and in our homes we must maintain their sanctity and not give entrance to anything that violates or offends that sanctity and that privacy.
In Why We Weep, Rabbi Reisman explains how our relationship with Hashem developed and then devolved. At Sinai, we entered under the chuppah, the marriage canopy with Hakodosh Boruch Hu. The mountain itself formed the canopy, and the luchot, the Tablets, represented the marriage contract. We were soon going to enter Hashem’s special home, Eretz Yisroel. When, after the sin of the golden calf, Moshe Rabbenu broke the luchot on the 17th of Tamuz, he symbolically tore up the marriage contract, although we remained forever engaged to Hashem That sense of intimacy was shattered. On that day, centuries later, the walls of Yerushalayim were broken, and again we lost the intimate privacy of our relationship with Hakodosh Boruch Hu as we were in the process of being expelled from our joint home.
The walls were broken. The barrier between us and the other nations came down, and we were attacked not only physically, but spiritually, psychologically and emotionally with the impurities and depravities of the nations of the world. Our eyes, our ears, our homes are constantly being invaded by the impure images and mores of the peoples around us. We must maintain some defenses against them.
The final barrier separating the holiest place in the Beit Hamikdosh was the parochet, the curtain covering the Holy Ark. When Titus destroyed the Beit Hamikdosh, one of his final acts of sacrilege was to stab the parochet. Miraculously, the parochet started bleeding, and Titus claimed he had killed the God of the Jews. Just as the climax of the churban is with the parochet, writes Rabbi Z. M. Zilberberg in Sichot HItchazkut, so too will the redemption begin with the parochet, for the entire Beit Hamikdosh is already built and ready to descend from on high. We must start by reestablishing the parochet in our homes and around ourselves, the separation between ourselves and the alien cultures that invade our souls. We must strengthen the walls of our homes and protect our children as the walls of Yerushalayim and of the parochet protected the sanctity of the Beit Hamikdosh.
It is not just in the spiritual realm of our relationship with God that our privacy has been invaded. Indeed, the lack of privacy and intimacy has invaded all aspects of our lives. We no longer communicate with each other in the privacy of our homes, but in the public streets via cell phones, and in public forums like Facebook and blogs. [How often are we unwittingly privy to the private conversations of others as they talk on their cellphone in the street, on buses, or in waiting rooms? No invitation necessary. CKS] Rabbi Pincus zt”l reminds us that our beginnings are rooted in modesty and privacy. When Avraham descended to Egypt because of the famine in Canaan, Sarai maintained her separation from the filth of Egypt, a legacy she transmitted to her descendants when they were enslaved in Egypt. Yosef too kept himself separate from the licentiousness of Egypt. We must remain alert to the small breaches in the sanctifying walls of our homes, because a small crack can easily spread to a major rupture.
But, continues Rabbi Pincus zt”l, walls and barriers not only prevent things from coming in. They also keep inside that which is already there. Shabbos, our Beit Hamikdosh in time, is our time of intimacy with Hakodosh Boruch Hu even now. While we greet the angels escorting us to our homes from shul on Friday night, we respectfully ask them to leave so that we can have our private Shabbat time with Hashem. This time parallels the service of the High Priest on Yom Kippur, when even angels were not permitted in the holy of holies.
Shabbos gives us a taste of the great joy the future holds, writes Rabbi Wolfson zt”l. Now we have three weeks of sorrow followed by seven weeks of comfort after Tisha B’Av. This parallels both the seven nations we conquered in Eretz Yisroel in contrast to the three we did not conquer. But it also parallels the seven sefirot representing Hashem’s emanations and interactions with this world. The three upper sefirot are not manifest on earth, except on Shabbat, when we can experience the supreme joy of rising from the valley of tears. At the final redemption, these three weeks of mourning will be transformed into weeks of great joy.
This theme is alluded to by the first words in the Haftorah of each of these three weeks, writes Sheveli Pinchas דברי/sight./speech, שמעו/hear, and חזון/sight. The first refers to creation, for Hashem created the world through speaking words. The second week refers to the revelation at Sinai when we all heard Hashem’s voice. The third refers to the future redemption, as Isaiah says, “Each eye will see Hashem’s return to Zion.” To be worthy of these future three weeks, we need to focus on what we say, what hear, and what we see.
Similarly, each of these weeks should urge us to focus on one of the different relationships of a human being, writes Rabbi Schorr; Our relationship with God, our relationship with others, and our relationship with ourselves.
Every Shabbos we are entering Hashem’s domain, writes Rabbi Pincus zt”l. Maintain the aura of Shabbat in the home environment. Greet it properly when it arrives. Act with respect and humility even as we enjoy the Shabbat delicacies. Conversations and reading material should befit the presence of the King in Whose home we sit on this day. For Shabbos is Hashem’s gift to us, a taste of Gan Eden,and an intimation of the world with the intimacy of the rebuilt Beit Hamikdosh. Savor it, and don’t rush to leave.