Mourning of the Individual and of the Klal

Baby boomers like myself can still remember an America in which people did not despise one another; an America in which politics was a subject, not the only subject; an America in which friendships and relationships were not subject to a litmus test of political affiliation. Obviously, I’m citing historical memory totally incommensurate with the loss created by the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, but the example brings home how far we are from being able to grasp what we are missing in the absence of the Temple.

Rav Reuven Leuchter writes, “[T]he essence of Churban HaBayis is not a private tragedy but a universal one. The Churban caused the Shechinah to be without a fixed makom, dwelling place, in the world, and thereby stripped the entire world of kedushah (holiness) and spiritual elevation.”

We intuitively recognize that the world in which we live is not that which Hashem intended. But what that world might actually look like or how we can possibly get from the present world to that of Mashiach and a third Beis Hamikdash is beyond our imagination.

AS I MENTIONED LAST WEEK, I have tried in recent years to overcome the lack of historical memory of that which was lost with the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash by recourse to Holocaust literature. This year, however, I have chosen an alternative path during the Three Weeks — i.e., delving into a work on aveilus by Rabbi Asher Resnick, Pain Is a Reality, Suffering Is a Choice: Grappling with Divine Justice (Mosaica Press).