Rebuilding the Mikdash of the Heart by Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

please forgive me for for sitting down I want to thank Rabbi sha and uh Rabbi Burman and the whole all you staff uh for arranging uh these uh types of outof town events and uh it's really a great great tribute to the OU that uh we want to go where the people are and uh therefore the Rees and the teachers will go to the students rather than we compel the students to take the trip to us so I think this is one of many many future events that the Lu is planning and I'm very honored uh to be part of part of this um I want to start off with an observation that uh the great d salic ma J salic and he pointed out that the trajectory of aut for private mourning someone loses a relative moves in the opposite direction than the a with theban when we talk about a private bereavements for example God forbid somebody loses a spouse or a parent or God forbid even a child so aut always proceeds from the to the C it starts off very very strict for seven days you don't even leave the house and then after seven days you go out but you're still in aut for schim up to 30 days after 30 days if it's not apparent par the Aus is over for a parent it's another it's a whole year but even that is much more lenient than the 30 days aot goes from the highest strictness to gradually becoming easier and easier more make and the like when we talk about the period of time that kazal set aside where we mourn theban mik and of course let me point out right right off the bat that the truth of the matter is we are supposed to mourn theik every single day uh that is why the in the very first Simmon talks about Tios getting up midnight and the like most of us do not do that but still the idea is that Raw O it is fitting for everybody that one should be distressed and concerned and anxious and feeling sad over the lack of the Bas mik I'll discuss what that would mean as we go on every single day nevertheless all of us know that for the three weeks from the 17th of until including the ninth of the A is for thean but it starts off easy and it ends in a very strict way shivas Bas first of all for many spam there's no particular morning rituals associated with the uh three weeks but kazum at least we don't get married we don't get haircuts then we hit the nine days you know no laundry no eating of meat Etc no no washing and then we reach actually these few days the week of Tisha which is just Sunday and Monday is even more and then we have Tish the cresendo of a meaning the the movement of AOS is instead of going it moves from the C to and raic explains in his beautiful way that that is because the function of the two morning rituals the function of private morning versus public morning are are in two opposite directions private morning a person suffers a bereavement they are immobilized their life is shattered often they feel they cannot go on uh one of the things it's not the only thing but one of the things that Aus does is it provides provides a gradual healing mechanism so the person can eventually come back into society because after all it is the will of God that life go on you don't forget your grief but Hashem wants a person to come back to contribute to be a person who functions in the world so one of the things again not the only thing but one of the things that Aus does is it provides a gradual re-entry system into the Rhythm RMS of life so for the first seven days you don't even leave your home people come to you and then eventually like the person who know wants to go into cold water you stick your toe into the cold water and you gradually get accustomed and eventually what happens is as I said before although you don't forget your grief but you're able to contain it in a segment of your mind and you go on and you live so AOS is a healing mechanism because a person would otherwise be shattered and devastated in fact the old secular saying uh Time Heals all wounds is very very true in I mean the actually talk about the idea that one of the Hashem is that the passage of time lessens the acuteness of pain otherwise pain would be unbearable when it comes to theban mikdash we have an opposite problem our problem is not we are so shattered and devastated over the destruction of the temple that we can't function you know I I tell my this could be a very creative new excuse if you miss daving or don't come to she don't come to class so let's assume the B would say well Reby I just couldn't get out of bed thinking about the B mikdash just devastated me so much I couldn't go on well I can tell you we're not going to buy that as an excuse because that's not the way we are uh our problem is not that we're so devastated with the mikash that we can't go on our problem is we have no idea what it is we're supposed to be crying about you know a blind a person who was born blind cannot really understand what music is and a person who was born deaf I'm sorry blind know what color is that's color is and a person who's born deaf cannot understand what music is We have no idea our parents never had a beta mikdash uh our grandparents our great-grandparents we'd have to go real real real real bad what is it that we're even mourning about you know there's a famous story that's part of Israeli culture in The Six Day War in 19 back in 1967 when we finally uh captured recaptured regained the old city of yush and the harab everyone those of you who are a little older remember harab beo the stirring words of Arab Bodo Mator and the one of the first groups of soldiers that reached the kotari which certainly was not the Magnificent Plaza it is today but there was that little bit of wall that was popping above the ground were the Hester Yeshiva Boys the boys that all of us are so proud of those who combine their with their military heroism and hasem in the fullest way and they were at the Cel and they were crying and they were sobbing both crying of joy that we have a m connected to the bet mik that we can and they were also crying tears of sadness because after all the cotel is just a Remnant it's not the beta mikdash it's not even a wall of the beta mikdash it's a wall of the harab but they were sobbing crying the emotions were so powerful and then near to them was a Kon soldier who had no connection to Torah observance at that stage in his life and he too was crying and his friend said to him mockingly what are you crying about you have no idea what this is and he said I'm crying because I don't know why they're crying meaning to say he sensed there was something really real real powerful here something really important and he had no idea what it was and that tore him apart well we can tell that story like Kon versus but the truth of the matter is we are 100% in the same boat with that Kon Soldier what is it that we're crying about and for that we should cry Somebody went to the famous and said Reb I don't know what to do I cannot cry over the so this says cry over theban of yourish that doesn't know how to cry over the so what is it I can't say that I know in particular was it a beautiful building surely it was a beautiful building but there are other beautiful buildings in the world the Taj Mahal even Y is beautiful buildings uh many point out that the b b which ises but not the bik the b b resembles the Bas of mikdash architecturally but surely we're not going to abolish Tish because we have the beler b medish in y so really what the B mikdash is about is a symbol of God's presence resting in our heart and in our soul this is what is so important let's go back to the very beginning of the first Mitzvah to construct a sanctuary for Hashem this is the mishan in the desert mikem says make for me a holy building a holy structure so I will dwell in them now it's interesting uh everyone says that in them and not in it it actually is not a it is not a medish or gor but it is something that is brought in a number of the so really it's a little later than people often assume but it's still brought down by authoritative sources that the Tyra does not say make for me a b so I will dwell in it says make for me a bik so I will dwell in the heart and soul of am Isel the mikash is simply a symbol of God's presence resting in our hearts and in our soul as we say the words The Immortal words of the a contemporary of Rose Caro and this has been set to music B M I build a sanctuary for Hashem in my heart and that is why the medish tells us when netar the king of Babylonia through his generals destroyed the first B mik he was very MIT he was very proud he said I destroyed the house of God I was strong enough I was powerful enough to Drive Hashem out of his home and Hashem responded to him I don't live there anymore you're destroying a house that's already been destroyed because you read the PK in Reverse as well make the PK says make for me a mikdash so I will dwell in them you can also read it when I dwell in them they have a mikash when our hearts and souls are no longer a repository for the the bik is a building in a sense the Bas mikas was not destroyed on Tish I can't give you a calendar day Tish was a physical destruction of a temple that had already been destroyed when the Shina was no longer in the hearts and souls of am Israel and this is what the Met says hasem said to I'm not sure how hasem communicated to uh right you you ground up flower that's already ground up you burnt a building that's already destroyed I don't live there anymore you could not destroy the house of God but it was no longer the house of God this is the idea of how we build a Bas mikash today our aod in building a b of mikash is not to bulldo the Ro a Masque or replace the Dome of the Rock as much as we would like to do that that's the job of mas according to the ra or according to rash we don't do anything at all the third mikd comes down so what do we do to build a to make our heart and our soul a place where God's presence can reside and as the Kut rebbi said where does God live wherever you let him in you let him in he will live with you you don't let him in now he's very intrusive say you don't want me I won't be here it's up to you is our great great abod and when that happens and there's enough of a critical mass and again I can't give you numbers then the mikash will come now the med inos when yov impersonates as and he comes in wearing the goat skins and the PK says smelled the aroma of those garments kind of the Garment of the field and said this is the field that God has blessed the medish darans bav garments without nikot could be read bav that y had a prophetic revelation of the bdav of the traitors of am Israel or the Traders and he saw that even they were righteous and blessed by God uh even a Jew who rejects Judaism is ultimately holy in his Pim and the medish gives the very amazing story of a man who was called Yosef Misha yosf Misha was not a not a religious Jew in any way Yosef Misha was what we would call a collaborator with the Romans and he would give away the whereabouts of Jews so that the Romans would be able to find people who were Reb in ETC and when Titus when Tios decided to burn down the bet mikdash he gave Yos Misha the right to enter the temple and take from the temple any treasure he'd like go in there take a souvenir you get to keep it he went in and he took out the manora so tius said immediately I didn't mean that that's too much that's too expensive too precious Etc go back in and take something else take something smaller Ys Misha said I have angered my Creator once I am not going to anger my Creator again and initially the Romans offered him well listen we'll give you uh more and more stuff we'll give you up to three years of tax revenue from colonies just go in and take something because they psychologically they wanted Jews to be devastated by Jews going into the temple and desecrating it y Misha said no I will not anger my Creator again and the medish tells us he died a horrible death he was tortured to death and he died because he refused to desecrate the bik and the p and this is what saw that even the bav even the rebellious again as the batan writes so beautifully in every Jew there are hidden recesses of love of God and reverence of God you don't have to learn how to do it it's always in you it gets covered up but in moments of stress ales AEM as the balat points out even the person who seemingly is most from has that to be M I know the other speaker talking about kabad so forgive me foring the Babb didn't even like the term right it's common in Jewish Outreach we talk about taking people who are far and bringing them close it's a very common phrase everybody says it I say it the Reb didn't like it and he said there's no such thing as a Jew that is RA from Hashem every Jew is kov to Hashem maybe they don't know it yet and then the rebi added a little bit of a and who says anyway who's ra and who's you you assume or I assume I'm the to and he's the ra well maybe it's the opposite right you never you never really know but be it as it may going back to the story of YF mishis the pitov asks the very simple question if Yosef Misha went in the first time and that didn't bother him why didn't he go in the second time he became from like all of a sudden the second time the P says yes because by entering the B Mikes he became transformed he became different it was his experience with the basa mikash that was that's the Holiness of the B you know the describes the third mikash right the final mikdash that will come down actually I don't want to get into this this is a whole complicated thing the truth of the matter is we commonly say that the last Pro of are the third base of M but he doesn't say the third the truth of the matter is it could have been the second Bas of mikdash there's a whole discussion that the second Bas of MDES could have been the Mikes of mashia it could have been the GAA uh had more Jews come when Cyrus allowed it in fact Yuma says that only a small minority of Jews heed the call and as a result the second mikdash was ephemeral it was not longlasting and therefore y's Prophecy of the Eternal Temple has to now become the Third Temple in reality when ycal had the vision it could very well have been the second temple okay that's a a different question and some say that that's very relevant to us as well if we want to be Z to the base of mikash we have to have more and more Jews come to erit Israel and the like uh of course there are two reasons people come to AR Israel one is the attraction of er Israel and the other is to get away from everything that's going on there and unfortunately when we don't follow the first reason sometimes gives us the second reason so there's either a push or a pull theory of alah hopefully we should be pulled here but sometimes we get pushed here and ultimately that will be for for good as well uh but the idea is that by putting that aside whether it's the third Temple the second temple but in y's description of what we call the Third Temple he has a very interesting Hal he says there are many gates 13 Gates and neged the tribes of am Israel plus the gate if you don't know your tribe whatever but he mentions you must leave by a different gate than the gate you entered if you entered on the north gate you must leave by the south gate you entered by an East Gate you must leave by a West Gate what is the symbolic meaning you don't leave the same way you came that's a reference to the transformative effect of the basa mikash you see this with the story of Y Misha and you see this with the that there has to be a transformation again it's hard for us to understand this because in our heart of hearts we don't really know what it is that we're missing now some give the answer some say well obviously clausel is going through difficult times S I mean the truth is we've had a history of War going back to 1948 and before that but certainly since October 7th since s t we've been in a state of War there are who are not yet with their families and so many have died there are who are mes and just as I mean the Kamas struggle has not been finished yet far from it but just as it seems to be getting maybe a little towards the end we now have even bigger threats from Hezbollah and Iran and who knows right all of us I think might be in a little bit of a state of anxiety a state of fear a state of not knowing what's coming down the pike uh the next uh the next day it's reminiscent of the garah about a person who was attacked by a bear and was rescued and was very happy until he was attacked by a lion so like every time he got out of one thing there's something else that comes down the pipe so some say there's a sober lining here in the sense that maybe this gives us the ability to yearn from mashia and the B of mikash more intensively because we have so many that mashia will save us from Etc so therefore maybe it's a way of increasing our yearning well I understand the point but in reality that's actually superficial to say I want mhia to come because I don't wantas to be around anymore I want mhia to come because that's gonna get rid of Hezbollah all of that is true but that's not the ultimate point the ultimate point is not oh I'm yearning for GAA so the bad guys aren't going to be around and my life can go on the way I want it to go on I'm yearning for GAA because I'm yearning for I'm yearning to feel the presence of AES in my life and if I'm not yearning for it at least I yearn that I would be able to yearn maybe that's the best we can actually say maybe I'm talking about myself I can't make a judgment of anyone else maybe I'm not yet ready to yearn but I wish I could J I wish I wish Gula is not just about getting rid of a negative that's again it's a TR it's true but it's ultimately a a a superficial type of perspective okay so this is what we think about and again going back to ra and that is why the a has to get more and more hum because the hope would be that maybe by depriving myself of external Pleasures maybe just may maybe that'll put me in a frame in a frame of mind Theos is Mas on the pus and that's why the a moves in the opposite direction the goal of the three weeks culminating in the ninth of is not to get out of your grief but to get into your grief so you'll feel you'll feel you know when R hutner came to erel somebody asked him I'm not sure it's kind of a left field question was there anything he missed about Kitz so he he didn't answer uh you know the kosher pizza flat and Flatbush what whatever it would be uh but he gave an answer he said the one thing I miss about erel is the yearning to make Alia the yearning to live here you know Shakespeare said absence makes the heart grow fer and that is you know you're living init and you dream maybe every day I want to live here I want to come here I want to be connected to the cadua of the land I want to be in God's place and that's something that makes you very close to arel you're very very attached to AR Israel because it's in your mind and it's in your heart and then what happens some sometimes is a person comes here and we're caught up in the bureaucracy we're cut up in the struggles in the frustrations alah is not indeed it's not always such an easy process maybe Isel nness be assured because I already he say and as someone told me recently uh the aurin may not stop either meaning to say uh there'll be constant struggles but what happens as a result is we don't always have the earning so much anymore because we're here and we take it for granted and we're even frustrated with it and everything else zutter said he missed the yearning that he had in and he wanted to bring that to Eric Israel too so the truth of the matter is Tish which is the day in which we commemorate the absence of Hashem in our lives the lack of a b mikash the fact that we're in galot even in but that yearning itself can create a phenomenal degree of closeness and connection because when we cry over the Corbin God is is crying with us God is mourning with us as says alas to the children who have been exiled from their father's table and fun of a laugh to the father who had to Exile his children and in our crying and in hashem's crying and knowing how far apart we are are we can generate tremendous tremendous closeness maral says this is the meaning of the M kazal the famous M kazal that mashiach is born on Tish it doesn't necessarily have to mean that the human being who is designated to be mashiach his birthday is antia maybe yes maybe not but it means what brings Redemption into the world the Messianic kak is Born Into the world through the depth of our mour in kishaba the more we feel how much we don't have the more the kak of redemption comes in God wants to reconcile God wants to connect that's why it's interesting that there used to be a minut you know uh the M of most of the kenos that we recite on the ninth above you know more than half of them is the most famous of the religious poets panim RAB Alazar H who wrote many many things he wrote a lot of the Rashana yam Kipper parts of the karat he wrote the kenos he wrote the otos of the four paros he was exactly when he lived this is a whole question I'm not going to go into that now but he was before Rashi because Rashi quotes him a lot and uh reab alzar KH wrote many many around 21 kenos of his are in our kenos but he actually wrote around 60 of them he wrote many that didn't even make it into the collection of kenos but it's interesting that side by side with the kenos of he also wrote poems of Comforts that were recited by many after very very interesting that until Min we said OS and after Min P by the same author rabar and in Mak Roma in the Roman makur you can actually find these p in the Tish service for various reasons that custom kind of got extinct but it's still the case that Tish above has certain qualities of yum it is called moed we don't recite uh there's an old custom in y that women clean the houses clean their their DS Tish afternoon in honor of mashia how do you reconcile all of this and the answer is side by side with the yearning comes closeness yearning can generate a kirat Kim that is unbelievable and Hashem responds to us because he's yearning to be connected to us as we yearn to be connected to him and that is why Tish indeed side by side with the a there is a certain element of um are we uh okay so let me just yeah okay this was the introduction of my remarks okay sorry about the the long hak but I just want to say that obviously when we talk about building a base m in our heart and in our soul that means we have to at a minimum rectify the reasons for the I heard before me mentioned thei that every generation in which the B mikdash is not rebuilt is as guilty as the generation of thean so this is very important so when K say bikash was destroyed because of ab c d it must mean that we still have the ab c d because every generation in which it's not built is as guilty as the generation of theban very important so there's a lot that we can talk about because there are a number of AOS but suffice it to say that I think the Biggie or maybe maybe I don't have the right to say the biggie but the one that I think we should focus on most is the well-known gar that the first temple was destroyed because of the second was destroyed even though they were largely observant because of hatred polarization groundless I'll talk about that in a in a second and the gamarra points out that the first cor which was for the worst ofis in the Torah only lasted 70 years and the the second we still experience even today now on some level sinat means groundless hatred well who on Earth hates for no reason I mean if if I hate somebody and uh someone says why do you hate the person I'm not gonna say no reason I just hate him everybody has a reason so who's ever going to be guilty of everybody has a reason the answer has to be even if you think you have a reason it's not a reason meaning to sayam says we got to set aside our divisive now that doesn't mean we don't debate ideas and it doesn't mean we can't have strong hashas and it doesn't mean we accept things that are evil but we don't demonized people we don't look at other Jews and call them amalik because we call one group of people amik they'll call us parasites or whatever it's going to be schlom laid down a fundamental rule in human relations upon him as water reflects the face that you show water all right I smile at the water I get a smiling face I frown at the water I get a frowning face the heart of a human being reflects what you show that person I show that person respect I show that person that I try to understand you you I show that person that I respect your integrity as a human being as a Jew even if I disagree with you they will be open to me in that same in that same way part of why religious secular issues in Israel never get resolved is because each is demonizing the other each is looking down at the other each is excluding the other and therefore it gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse we have to love each other we have to care about each other now there's a famous statement of Rook that says if the Bas of mikas was destroyed because of it'll only be rebuilt because of it's a beautiful statement and I have no right to take issue with it and maybe Rook didn't even say it because have an issue with that statement because imply I have no reason to love you but I'm a nice guy and I'm a sadic and I'm going to love you that in some ways is condescending and patronizing I think the real idea of overcoming sin is to recognize the worthiness of a Jew to be loved not that I love you even though you're worthless the is not the is look at a person who struggles who works even if they come up with ideas that I can't agree with and again I'm not suggesting that you concede to every wrong idea there are ideas that are wrong but the person ises he's seeking they're worthy of respect worthy of emulation so I would suggest again I mean in a way is like what Mark Twain once said about the weather everybody talks about the weather nobody does anything about it I understand every year we pull out the and we talk about it for a while then we go back to exactly you know one of the Silver Linings in October 7th which was of course a tragic day that inaugurated a very difficult period for Israel but one of the Hidden Bros was that if you remember remember before October 7 the judicial reform narish the judicial reform foolishness and by the way Biden who had the fantry to accuse Natan of extreme uh if you follow American News the reforms that he proposes for the United States Supreme Court are far more radical than what Nan was proposing but somehow it's okay there okay but be it as it may if you remember this was not just a Judicial reform academic debate this was tearing apart the country people were talking about leaving arel people were talking about pulling Capital out of Israel were even saying at the time that maybe they wouldn't report to do although they did but they were saying they might not and one of the things that happened after October 7 was we realized as Benjamin Franklin said we got to hang together or for sure we're going to hang separately and there was and there was unity and there was reconciliation and all types of religious secular groups were coming together and we still have a lot of that but I fear and I'm afraid that as the war progresses and progresses and progresses and there's a lot of fatigue going on like an elastic band that after can stretch it but it still snaps back to its original position we are returning gradually to business as usual and this is going to hold back the Gula this is going to hold back the Redemption so as we focus on Tish of making a base of Mikes in our heart and our soul if we can focus on seeing the good in others the prayer of Reb the rebi reab melik May I I see the good in each person and not focus on the negative and then my AA will not be an a it will be an AA because I truly see the worth and the value of every je even now it's possible there will not be a fast this year shalam we do have to fast may it be the last fast of the N of and may Tish be a time of yes for [Music]