Are You On Gods Battleship ?

A Torah anytime original series. Have you ever wonder how could it possibly be that the reason Rebbe Akiva 24,000 tell me didn't die was because they weren't acting with proper respect towards one another nagel covers how does that make any sense? Doesn't that seem like a little extreme? Doesn't that seem just a little bit harsh? Or think about the second base of this for a second. It was destroyed because of baseless hatred. Ever thought about it? What exactly is so bad about So I didn't care for what your serves at the kiddush. Okay, so I'm Breslov and you're Yankee and we don't exactly see eye to eye. We have our differences. That's what destroyed the base mikdash. How does that make any sense? When you compare it to the first base which was destroyed because of murder, adultery, idolatry this seems to pale in comparison. I believe the answer lies right over there. Let's take a look at this battleship. This is the USS Olympia, the oldest steel warship still afloat in the world. Launched in 1892, this wasn't just any ship. It was the cutting-edge battleship of its day. Steel hull, massive guns, speed that left most fleets in the dust. It was a floating powerhouse. This ship carried around 450 men from officers in the bridge giving orders to midshipmen learning the ropes to sailors manning the engines climbing the rigging, loading the guns. Everyone had a role and every action mattered. Life aboard wasn't easy. Steel corridors, roaring cannons, and storms at sea, but this crew made history. This was Commodore George Dewey's flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay. In a single morning, Dewey's fleet destroyed the Spanish Pacific Squadron, a victory that announced America as a global power. The Olympia traveled the world, Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific carrying sailors orders and the hopes of a young nation and every bolt, gun, deck plank you see today is a piece of that history. Walking these decks now you can almost hear the orders shouting, the cannons firing, the sailors racing through the corridors. It's not just a ship, it's a floating time machine showing what it really meant to fight and lead and live on the high seas at the dawn of America's naval power. Let's go take a look. So I'm walking around this boat and I see all the mechanical rooms, the dining room. I'm checking everything out and I notice something I cannot figure out where the sailors would sleep. There's no beds. There were hundreds and hundreds of sailors on here. Where did they sleep? So I asked the tour guide and he said, "Come here. Take a look at this crate." Every night the sailors would take a hammock and they would hook it up onto a onto a hook like this. And that's where they would sleep suspended in mid-air. There is barely a centimeter dividing them. Now think about it. This was World War I. There was a draft. These were lawyers and doctors and accountants, grown men. Can't have yards that are too close to each other and now they're dangling over each other like this. How did World War III not break out? So I asked the tour guide and he said something that I'll never forget. He said that when you believe and you're genuinely convinced you're saving the world, then small things don't bother you. When you genuinely believe that what you're doing is saving the world, small petty things don't bother you. These soldiers genuinely believed that they were saving the world. You want to know why? Cuz they literally were. Small things didn't bother them. They didn't have mental space to be bothered by small things. They were too busy chasing big things. They were so filled with pride in their mission that they viewed each fellow soldier as a teammate. I need him. He needs me. His victory is my victory. His defeat is my defeat. We are one. United we stand and divided we fall. Or in this case, sink. I've noticed Hashem is the very same thing. If we really felt that each and every member of Klal Yisrael has a task given and collectively, as the Jewish people, we are the last moral standing people in the world and the entire spiritual world relies on us. Then I need you and you need me and our mission is so massive that there's no time for petty differences between us. When we don't get along, it's demonstrative. It's reflective that we don't really cherish the task given that's inside of us. We don't really see ourselves in Hashem's army steering Hashem's battleship. All we see are ourselves in a game called life where all our neighbors and all our co-workers are competitors fighting for pleasure. The Jews in the times of the Second Beis Hamikdash were fragmented. There was infighting. There were groups that hated everybody religious. There were groups that fought tooth and nail with each other. There were groups that couldn't stand each other and Hashem was sitting up in Shamayim and he was thinking, "These aren't people who are on my team. These are people running their own lives. They aren't here for me. They're not on my battleship. If they don't see the godliness in others, that means they don't really see it in themselves. If that's the case, the base of miktish has got to go. And now you can begin to understand why the talmidim of Rabbi Akiva were wiped out. They were supposed to be the next chapter. They lived right after the destruction of the base of miktish. That generation had already shown us what happens when Jews tear each other apart, when they're not on the battleship of Hashem. So, the students of Rabbi Akiva were meant to do something historic. They were supposed to be the generation that fixed it. They were supposed to show klal Yisrael how to rebuild after sinas chinam, how to treat one another with dignity, how to restore achdus, how to prove that we learned the lesson, that we are proud to be at Hashem's battleship, on Hashem's team. But, Chazal said, "Shlomo Hamelech said they once again didn't show respect for the godliness of one another." And so, the message was devastatingly clear. If the very talmidim who were meant to repair sinas chinam are still living with it, then their rebuilding can't begin yet. And so, the entire generation was taken. Because if we're going to rebuild what was lost with the base of miktish, it can only be built on one foundation, and that is kavod zeh lazeh. So, as you walk through life, think about those hammocks. Think about the closeness, the focus, the mission, and ask yourself, are you a member of Hashem's crew, or just another citizen of the world? Are you a Jew that happens to be walking around on Earth, or are you a piece of Earth that happens to be a Jew? When you know you're part of the mission, the petty nonsense stops mattering, the squabbles shrink, the ego quiets down, because when you realize you're fighting on Hashem's battleship, you don't waste time arguing over hammock space. You stand a little taller, you hold the line, and you remember who you are. And when Jews remember who they are, we become indestructible. A Torah anytime original series.