Project Inspire Presents: A Pre-Tisha B'Av Walking Tour of the Old City

check one two three check one two three check one two three check one two three welcome to the holy city of jerusalem thank you to everyone for tuning in and thank you to project inspire and the countless people who put a tremendous amount of effort to bring incredible jewish content all year round at your doorstep and in particular i want to thank rabbi simpson barnett rabbi josie friedman and his awesome kids who i know are tuning in right now as well as shippy endelmen and so many others and of course to all of you again thank you for tuning in during this auspicious time here in jerusalem and what i am going to try and do over the course of the next hour is to do two things one is to give you a historical tour of the beautiful city of jerusalem and that's because i know so many of you wanted to be here this year this summer on some of the awesome trips that project inspire conducts here in israel most notably the momentum trip or maybe you wanted to come here with your families on your second third fourth fifth time here to israel in particular in jerusalem but of course could not because of the pandemic because of covet and don't worry i do have my mask right here which i will be wearing as we are walking through the city of jerusalem but right now there's nobody around me and i feel safe not wearing it so i'm going to give you the historical tour but i also want to be able to tap into the energy of this time so that we gain a greater understanding of what tisha b'av really is because if you are like me then sometimes you have a hard time really capturing what this time of mourning is really all about because oftentimes when we think of mourning we immediately associate it with sadness but mourning isn't directly sadness it's oftentimes a byproduct but rather mourning is focusing our attention on to that which we have lost whether it's a loved one whether it's an object a building a temple or an ideal right an ideal that we have um that we hold dear to us that we feel is lost so i'm gonna try and tap into that a little bit and i'll start with that by noting that my tisha bob will never be the same you see last year three days after tisha bob i lost my father and i wasn't close with my father we had a very rocky relationship in fact unfortunately we didn't speak for four years prior to his death and i spoke to him about an hour before he passed on and when i was at home sitting shiva that very first night my my asia tayo my incredible awesome wife melissa who is an absolute rock to me and for me and our family i told her i'm not too sure what's going to happen tomorrow morning when people show up here what are they going to think they're going to see that i'm not really mourning that i haven't been doubt the significant blow in my life that there isn't this sudden void because my father is no longer here i didn't have a father that i could lean on a rock that could support me when i was weak and she said well maybe what you're mourning is the loss of potential that no longer exists because as long as your father was here there was always potential that the relationship would be healed that it would be rectified and you would have that traditional relationship of a father and a son somebody who you could turn to but now that he's no longer here that potential doesn't exist and that is something to mourn that ideal so even though we don't know what it was like when the second the first temple stood when there was open miracles that you could see with the naked eye maybe what we can do is mourn the potential that could have been especially during these times right now i mean the world is in total chaos there's wars terrorism pandemics riots in the streets of major cities across america what could it be if we had a temple unifying the jewish people so that we could spread forth that light that we're commanded to be upon the nations maybe that's something that we can mourn and i hope by the end of this tour we could tap a little bit more into those ideals but i want to get started right now with the historical tour and we can look at the walls of jerusalem here behind me and these aren't the walls that the romans breached on the 17th of ta'amu's 18 days ago nearly 2 000 years ago but rather these are the walls that were built by suleiman the magnificent the powerful turkish ruler of the ottoman empire who built these in the middle of the 16th century in the 1500s but the walls are built on the ruins and the foundations of the walls that did stand here during the second temple period that the romans did preach and if we were doing a walking tour of jerusalem around the old city walls you can actually see some of the foundations and some of the stones from that wall you can even see burial tombs from the first temple period that still exists there but we're not doing a walking tour around the old city we're going into the heart of the old city ultimately ending up on the top of the asia tour world heritage center with a magnificent view of the western wall and the temple mount the holiest place to us the jewish people so what i want to point out though is this line of stones that you can see over here that lead all the way up to jose gates and this line of stones is actually part of a wall that you can see over here and even though this wall does not date to the second temple period but rather this is a crusader wall from a thousand years ago it will give us an idea of the way jerusalem was built 2 000 years ago because jerusalem just didn't have one wall in fact it had three walls and each time the romans were able to penetrate one of those walls it was an opportunity for the jewish people to do cuba to do repentance to refine themselves to rectify themselves to return to themselves in order that we shall be saved that we could have been saved that jerusalem could have been saved but we didn't heed the call and one was breached and the second wall was breached until finally the main the fortified walls were breached and just come around here i want to show you something super cool is that underneath this bridge that you're gonna see the cars driving underneath is that you have some ruins down below underneath the bridge you're gonna have some ruins down there and those ruins do date back to the second temple period and what we have over there is a marketplace that existed outside jaffa gate the main gate into the old city for thousands of years as there was a road that led to the port city the ancient port city of israel which was jaffa which is now known basically as tel aviv and this was a market that people would take their mice or shiny what does maestro shane michigan is like tithes a portion of your field remember we're an agricultural people back then we weren't lawyers and doctors back then we were an agricultural people we're farmers for the most part that a portion of our field would be used the food to eat it in jerusalem during the gleam the three major festivals and that maestro shami of course would have gone bad by the time they got here so they would sell it and those coins that money would then be spent in the markets place over here even though we're not commanded for maestro cheney at this time we don't have a temple right there the times are different now people still carry on this tradition and they'll set aside some money some of their earnings from the year and they'll say this is holy this is kedusha this has been sanctified this has been set aside to help me bring my family to jerusalem to israel or if you're planning on coming to israel anyhow that this money will be set aside to use in the restaurants here in jerusalem like in the days of old that i should use this for food here in jerusalem during my journey or that this um or that that that this money is going to be used ultimately here so if you're going to come here maybe you can use it in the shops what a great idea that you guys could take on right now and say hey you know what this percentage of our earnings every year is going into our little you know piggy bank into our reserves and this is what we're going to use when we're in jerusalem you should lie please god all of you will be able to have the merit and we should have the merit to receive you here in jerusalem when this is all said and done so i'm going to go ahead and put on my mask right now as we are about to enter into the old city through jaffa gates and it's and it's beautiful in fact if you look at the stones you can see some of these stones um they none of them really match they come from different time periods some of them are actually herodian from the second temple period some of them are crusaders some of them are huben and really only a small portion of them at the very top are turks even though they're the ones who built the wall and as we enter we can see them as over here you know just a another beautiful concept of the jewish people taking darkness and turning into light finding the sparks within the lowest of places is that this message is actually made from um from the copper that were from the bullets that were shot during the various wars or particularly for 1948 the war of independence in 1967 when the old city was liberated and they melted them down and they made the mezuzah covers on it that we should never forget the battles that were fought and the heroes who fought them in order that the old city would become liberated and once again we would be able to um we would be able to return here to jerusalem to the western wall and in order to practice now we just entered into old city and i got to tell you it breaks my heart as a tour guide who walked these streets very regularly that i that i see the streets are now empty that the people are not here the tourists the pilgrims and those that want to connect can't come here at this time because of covet 19 and because of the pandemic that is occurring at this time so here we are we're in it and so what a great opportunity now to tap into or to discuss the political nature of jerusalem 2000 years ago you see jerusalem and the jewish people were very divided towards the end of the second temple period there was sectarian violence there were maybe even dozens of various groups vying for power but really there were four main groups one of which didn't reside here in jerusalem they had like almost done away with jerusalem and they sort of built a commune at the edge of the judean desert near the dead sea a place called qumran and those people are known as the essenes okay the essenes are the ones who wrote the dead sea scrolls and we're not going to discuss them maybe at another time we could do another tour discuss the essenes we're going to talk about the other three major uh groups that were here in jerusalem the first i want to mention are the sadducees okay the sadducees were really the um the rulers of jerusalem and the jewish people the priesthood the high priests the kings of israel at that time and you might think to yourself well these must have been the righteous ones well unfortunately that wasn't the case and the temple had become corrupt and there was a lot of good people there were a lot of righteous individuals within their ranks but there was also a lot of bad people and there was a lot of embezzlement that was going on there was a lot of embezzlement that was going on and there was a lot of bribery that was happening and so the sadducees weren't the best of people at that time to lead the jewish people and then you had another group that was so self-righteous known as the sakarai and they could not accept any other way than their own and they wanted to throw off the yoke of roman influence which the sadducees had fell fallen prey to and they're the ones who really wanted to go to war against the romans and to throw the yoke of foreign oppression off of our shoulders and that sounds really holy and that sounds awesome and i'm gung-ho for that as well i mean you know it took us a little bit longer two thousand years to finally be able to throw off the yoke of foreign oppression then i'm talking 1948 when we finally declared our independence here in our ancestral homeland in the land of israel but the sikhari literally murdered fellow jews here in the streets of jerusalem that did not walk their path or did not agree with how to attain the same objective that we all had which was peace for jerusalem peace for us and to save our holy temple from the destruction that everyone saw coming and then you had this middle group known as the pharisees the rabbinic teachers the scholars who pleaded to both parties but primarily to the sakarai that fighting against the romans was futile that their armies were vast that their wealth was basically unlimited and that the best solution for this at this time we all want to throw the yolk of foreign oppression off but the best solution at this time would be to come up with some type of diplomatic agreement with the romans and to save yerushalayim and to save the holy temple but they refused to listen and they wanted to go to war this war did not happen overnight this war took decades it was brewing for decades and the war starts up north when it finally pops off in the year 66 66 ce it's happening in the north and four years later it rolls into jerusalem jerusalem is under siege the romans and their tens of thousands of soldiers are surrounding the city nobody comes in nobody comes out and we have food and reserves and water and grain in storehouses that were purchased by some of the more wealthy individuals here in jerusalem enough to allow the jewish people to survive under siege for years years and years and years much longer than the romans could have survived on the other side of the wall so it seemed like maybe a diplomatic solution would come in the end but the sakhari hell-bent on going to war with the romans literally burned down the storehouses of food they destroyed the food there was no other option it was either starvation or war and so what were we left to do at the same time on the 17th of tammuz the romans finally breached the walls of jerusalem and there was blood being spilt right here right where i'm walking streets of now yerushalayim just want to talk a little bit again we're doing a little historical tour as well jerusalem has four quarters the jewish quarter this is a jewish court right it's our eternal spiritual capital and state we're good great we're in the armenian quarter why is there an armenian quarter and if armenians are christians so how come there's not a christian quarter so the armenians have actually been here for 2 000 years they were [Music] hired as mercenaries talking about right here now they were there when the walls were breached they were there at the destruction of the temple two thousand years ago hired by the romans and at the end of the war the romans looked to the armenians and say hey help us repopulate the city we'll give you tax breaks instead of being mercenaries you can become merchants and tradesmen and we'll even give you a section of the old city and that's this section right now they still have the same section i was given to them for 2000 years but mostly armenians who live here today are not here for two thousand years this is their spiritual center and uh where the armenian church is located and there um there was a genocide against the armenians between 1915 and 1923. swat with me 1923 where one and a half armenians were systematically murdered by the turkish government the ottoman empire and those that could flee came here to jerusalem because there was enough international eyes here that the turks who were living here weren't unable to massacre the armenians who arrived here so mostly armenians who live here are here since 1915. folks we just arrived to the beginning of the jewish quarter and you can see a sign right here that even says welcome to the jewish quarter but underneath it it says something very auspicious it says restored 1967 to 1983 why did it need to be restored well the jewish quarter in 1948 during the war of independence fell to the jordanians and for 19 years under jordanian occupation the jewish quarter not only was looted in the first several hours of the jews being forced to flee but the entire jewish quarter was destroyed and in that destruction you can imagine 19 years later when we liberated the old city that men women children right men and women 36 45 55 years old who grew up here in the old city who want to return to those homes and what they found was rubble they must have cried seeing the destruction of their homes and um but again just like the mezuzah right the jewish people taking sparks of light wherever they can find them turning sadness into joy right classic example of that is um is uh yomazicarone our remembrance day for our fallen soldiers which at night when it goes you know the hebrew calendar changes at sunset and then tonight it goes from yom zhi growing a day of of of uh sadness of mourning into a day of joy where we celebrate yo matsuma our independence day so just here too seeing the destruction of our beautiful jewish quarter and our ancient and old synagogues and homes that were once populated what we had now was a bunch of rubble so what did we do we took uh we dug down deep in order to build these new apartment buildings there's a residential area you can see the children behind me right there's a residential area we built these new apartment buildings but in order to do so we had to dig down deep and build better and bigger foundations and so that they would you know could withstand and and and we could build taller wider more apartments and have more families move into the old city but digging down we found the ruins not of the homes that were destroyed in 1948 but rather the homes that were destroyed by the romans 2 000 years ago and there are incredible museums right here in the jewish court we're not going to visit them today that you go underground underneath these buildings and you could see the homes that were lived in by the priestly families and and and some of the wealthier families here in the upper city in the new city what is the jewish quarter today um but not only that we've found ruins from different time periods as well and what i'm going to do right now is i want to focus on the cardo because the cardo might be my favorite place to guide really in the entire old city but definitely here in the jewish quarter you know you might think to yourself well ricardo that's roman why would something roman be your favorite place to guide in the jewish quarter and the fact of the matter is is that the cardo really has nothing to do with the jews but at the same time it has everything to do with the jews you see the carter was built after the destruction of the temple okay let's just go down here a little down to the stairs so i can take off my mask uh the cardo was built after the destruction of the temple about 70 years later rose up this great jewish warrior i'm gonna just stand right here so maybe stay there rose this great jewish warrior by the name of barcokfa and bokofa led this revolt against the time led the romans led the jews another revolt against the romans and he dug out tunnels and caves uh in the hills leading up to jerusalem and chevron and all of the holy cities of biblical israel right the heartland of the jewish people are holy places and he was so successful in this guerrilla warfare and these tactics that he was using that he literally threw out the entire roman empire the roman army in fact there was not one roman official who um who who was still here in jerusalem fighting against the jewish people he even made blueprints to rebuild the beitha mikdash in the temple in print of his own coins i mean it looked like redemption was upon us but the emperor rome at that time a man by the name of hadrian brings half of the roman army here to jerusalem and completely destroys this revolt in fact there are stories that are recounted that there was blood in the streets of beta which is a city just south of jerusalem that flowed from there all the way to the mediterranean i don't know if that is the case um but for sure there was a lot of yes yeah let me see hold on we might have a technical issue here i don't think that is for us sorry about that i had it on uh do not disturb apparently a call was coming in there was a request to all right great there was a request to change the angle hopefully everybody is happy with that anyhow what are we talking about we're talking about barcode we're talking about the year 132 ce he revolts against rome he throws the roman army out of here it looks like redemption is upon us but that evil nasty um uh uh emperor hadrian brings half the roman army he squashes this this rebellion there's blood in the streets from baits all the way to the mediterranean and he destroys jerusalem because he realizes yerushalayim is the battle cry of the jewish people destroy jerusalem you destroy the hearts of the jewish nation and he raises it to the ground and he builds and instead a roman city every roman city needs to have a major thoroughfare a shopping or rodeo drive if you will and that is known as the cargo in fact you can see some of the original shops just behind me you can see the arch that was the shop that was used for over a thousand years here on the cardo and he lines the street with these incredible pillars with corinthian capitals on the top of it and who do you think he has built this street you think he's he's bringing in uh roman masons no he's using jewish slaves how many jewish slaves died underneath the boot of roman oppression building this cardo that i'm standing above right now well take a look on top of this pillar you'll notice that there are stones placed on top well for a long time i used to live here in the old city for four years i've been guiding here for 12 years and for the longest time i always saw those stones and i thought to myself those stones must be placed in memory of those jewish slaves that were killed by the romans just like you see stones placed on graves and i said to myself isn't that amazing look at how the jewish people remember those that came before us that they actually memorialized those jewish slaves by placing those stones there until one day i saw these little hippie jews with peyo coming down like down to their knees and white keepers with pom-poms that said no not knocking on it and they were throwing stones to see who could get one to land at the top of that pillar and i just laughed to myself and i said isn't that amazing those stones which i thought represented death don't represent death but rather represent what they represent life they represent the return of the jewish people here to yerushalayim to our holy city watch out watch out car and they represent life they represent the return of the jewish people and i thought to myself you know what even if you had a time machine and you went back in time 2 000 years and you saw that jewish slave with a roman food on top of his neck and he's about to die and you say don't worry in 2000 years your great great great descendants your grandchildren we'll be back here in yerushalayim celebrating the barnbak mitzvahs you would he would say i know what do you mean you know and he would say i read the book of zaharia the prophet who says even though it will become unfathomable to you right speaking about hashem here god's speaking through him even though it'll be unfathomable too it'll be unfathomable to me i am going to gather up the jewish people from around the world from all four corners and bring them back to yerushalayim and one day you will see old man with staff in hand and you will see children playing in the streets of yerushalayim and there i was standing to look at those stones which i thought represented death but don't just represent life and the return of the jewish people but represent the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and i just think it's so awesome especially during the nine days and especially to think about the anticipate that here we are one giant leap forward from just 75 years ago the end of world war ii the showa and the holocaust that we have our land we have an army to protect ourselves and that we have yerushalayim where you can see countless children playing in the streets these aren't tourists these are children who live here in their old city who might even say to you you know what this is the uh the main square hello and spanking now well it pretty much is it was rebuilt or re-inaugurated in 2010 but it was built exactly the way the one prior to it was built which was built on the ground one that was built in the 18th century in the early 1700s by a rabbi by the name of yehuda hassan who was a follower of another rabbi who's known as the false messiah by the name of shabtai speak and even though these guys were following somebody who led them really astray their heart was in the right place they wanted to rebuild jerusalem they were ahead of their time they came here three hundred years ago to rebuild the bait the mitas to rebuild yerushalayim and so we remember them by even though this building is new by calling it the hormone synagogue something that's been ruined but another thing i just want to point out is the menorah the beautiful golden menorah that you can see behind me that was built by the temple institute it is kosher in other words it is permissible to be used in the temple when it will be rebuilt please guys soon and the reason why i want to highlight this to you is not only that you can see what the menorah look like in the temple and know that we have one ready to be used is that i was in the middle of a speaking tour and i was in uh atlanta just outside of atlantic city i was speaking at the jcc there and as soon as i came in the head of the place he looked at me and he says what do you think of the menorah in jerusalem in the old city in the jewish quarter in the rover i said well i think it's wonderful i think it's great you know it's kosher to be used in the temple he goes well that's what i want to talk about just watch other some pillars behind you that's what i want to talk about i said you want to talk about it i said what do you want to tell me he says well don't you think it's offensive i said what do you mean offensive he goes well don't you think it offends some people i.e the arabs that you have a menorah that's permissibly used in the temple which you want to rebuild on the temple mount which is where the dome of the rock exists right now and i said you're telling me that because i might offend somebody we shouldn't have a menorah that's permissible that that is identical to the one we had in the temple that i can use as a teaching tool to describe to people what the menorah really represented that was something in order to represent that light that we're supposed to shed upon the nations because it might offend something then i looked down and i said but don't you want the temple to be rebuilt and he says i don't want world war three you don't want i i don't want world war three either why do you think i want world war three he goes well if you build a temple in jerusalem on horror bites and where the dome of the rock is you're gonna have world war three and i said well don't you think that it's possible that you know the arab nations might do chuva that they might realize this holiness in this kedusha that jerusalem has to the jewish people that they might go ahead and willingly give over that parcel of land so that we can build our temple there that they have mecca that they have medina isn't that possible well it's highly unlikely i said okay maybe maybe i said but don't you dive in for that don't you pray for that don't you want that to happen i don't want world war three i want it to come in peaceful ways but you know what i do want i do want the temple to be rebuilt don't you want the temple to be rebuilt you couldn't answer me but i'm asking you right now here we are just a few days away from tisha b'av right four days away from tishabad we're here in jerusalem in the holy city we just saw a menorah that's ready to be used rebuild it and we have the menorah don't you want the temple to be rebuilt anyhow it's just so special here actually walking through the jewish border in fact this alleyway not only as a tour guide do i know so well watch out you got a puddle behind you uh is that also um this was a path that i took for many years uh as i attended uh yeshiva aisha torah which is where we're going right now to the aisha tour building in order to ascend to the rooftop which offers just this incredible majestic view of horrobite the temple mount the holiest place of the jewish people but also the western wall which is the closest place that we can get to the holy temple to the to the to the mock home where the temple can be built and while we're heading down there we just got a few more stairs to go and we're going to meet one of the rabbis here at asia torah i want to share a story with you that is represented by this beautiful magnificent glass sculpture right in the lobby of the main building here of the heritage center which was done by the famous dale chihuly and that glass sculpture epitomizes what asiator is all about and really i think epitomizes the mission of the jewish people not necessarily as a nation but as individuals and what do i mean by that is that the the chandelier we're just going to wait for something to open up the building oh we can't see the chandelier so much but here we'll stand over here in fact come with me over here there's like a a small section that you can look out onto the western wall and i'll share this story with this magnificent magnificent view which i can promise you is only going to get better when we go to the top of the building and now i can shed this mass once again for a few moments so anyways the glass sculpture built by dale chihuly designed by him um who spoke with the rosh yeshiva rav noah weinberg here of aisha torah in order to learn what the story was all about and rav noah shared a story that is in the gemara by one of the most famous rabbis i think of all time there was a mount rushmore rabbis rebbi akiva would be on it and rebbi akiva believe it or not could not read or write at the age of 40. and he was a landscaper working in the yard of a very wealthy landowner and while there he caught eye sights of his beautiful daughter raquel rachel and they fell in love instantly and rachel must have said to rebbi akiva oh i can't wait to have children with you and for you to teach the words of the tour of god's beautiful wisdom to our children this little noise over here someone come this way and he says you know there's only one problem is i don't know how to read or write uh and i don't know god's wisdom and she says do even though i could see where brasharots were meant for one another if you can't teach our children i have to think about them i don't know if we can get married he says no no don't worry i'm gonna go learn all of it don't worry i'll be right back you know and he tries to learn a little bit of uh torah and he's breaking his head open his alibed he's gotta learn the alphabet he's gotta learn the language and finally he does something that all of us have done at least once in our life probably our children have done this well and we hope that they won't but you know it's inevitable he takes his books and he throws them off the table and he says two words that we should never say he says i can't i quit right i'm too stupid i'm too ugly i'm too fat i'm too this i'm too bad i'll never succeed i'll never make it in this world it runs off into the woods and there's this waterfall and the water is crashing all over the place then he notices this water there's one drop of water that hits the rock and goes through it there's a hole in the rock and he has this epiphany realizes that hole was borrowed out by rot by water drop after drop after drop and he said to himself if water which is soft can borrow a hole in the rock which is hard then i too can break through my own clipboard through my own shell and tap into my own greatness and i'll be able to not only earn learn the aleph bet but i'll also be able to learn all of god's wisdom and he became one of the greatest rabbis of all time most people know who rebbi akiva is but the lesson there in the lesson of asia torah is that it's never too late project inspired it's never too late it's not too late right now to reverse the curse right i'm from boston to reverse the curse and to end this baseless hatred that we saw 2000 years ago and have unconditional love for our fellow jews for humanity to put aside our political differences to put aside those things that we disagree and just look at one another and realize that that individual has a neshama that that person has a soul that that person has an essence inside of them that never was never will be again that needs to be shined that needs to be spread out so that the world can experience it and that i can experience that we can resonate together but that will never happen if we have hatred in our hearts and that's why the temple was taken away from us because we could could not accept one another even if we don't approve one another that we could not accept one another all right the door's still locked over here i know that somebody's supposed to be coming here soon just what time is it right now one more time ah 5 41. okay fantastic so you know what come on over here come on over here i want to show you something really cool about the rest this is awesome we got just a couple more minutes until the uh the the building is going to be open this is a very special they're opening the building for us because unfortunately it's closed right now due to coven 19 and all the classes are online and the students aren't in that main building so we're just going to walk through this little tunnel over here and just come right around the corner here and we will have another magnificent magnificent view of the western wall and you can see this new building that's still under construction you can hear some of the construction right now and this is going to be the new visitor center here of the western wall will be a beautiful museum that people can learn about the history of the jewish people now when we get up to the rooftop you'll get a better view of it but right now you see the western wall you can see how it's all divided too right now because of covet 19. um with different areas for different uh prayer circles for what we call mignon um so everybody is safe while praying here at the western wall but the western wall really runs about 470 meters or roughly about 1500 feet we only see about a tenth of it and the height of the wall itself also we would have seen it would have been triple that right it stood 153 feet which is 15 stories it stood 15 stories high and it was a 1500 feet long and a thousand feet wide in fact it was the largest edifice the largest building sorry for the noise the largest building in the roman empire at that time when it was built and when it was destroyed it would only be eclipsed in size nine years later when the romans built the coliseum when the romans built the coliseum right what was the colosseum the colosseum was a house of death what was the temple the temple was known as beita shalom a house of peace it was known as a house of prayer for whom for all nations the jewish people's battlecry was that we're all one not just the jewish people but everything all of humanity the jews and the non-jews together and not just humanity but all the beasts in the fields and not just the beasts in the fields but the trees and the flowers and the inanimate objects that everything needs to be treated with honor and with respect to realize that it's all part of our creator that we are really all one watch others wall that we're really all one and they destroyed that concept right they destroyed a house of prayer for all nations we're inclusive right jews are inclusive right we want everybody to celebrate with us we even say hey come on zoo codes and celebrate with us we'll even pay for the sacrifices just come celebrate us and realize that we're really all part of this together that we all have a mission in this world and they destroyed that and they built the coliseum which is a house of death it's the house of death it's terrible they pitted man versus man and yet people go to rome before they come here to jerusalem before they come here to jerusalem so um there's open to us now the watch one the mayberg entrance has been opened for us okay don't know okay we're gonna come around this way we are going to take you up two no just wait right there phil i'm just gonna see if this is the entrance here [Music] no not to worry folks stay with us because we are going to the top of asiator we're going to meet one of the rabbis here in asia torah who will um who is also going to share some of his wisdom with us that uh will give us a greater understanding of exactly what it is that we that we lost here oh yeah this is right here this is what i thought oh wonderful and here he is take the camera again thank you so much rabbi rossman thank you so much for joining us today and for giving us access to the rooftop before we go there i just want to show everybody just real quick that i just spoke about the glass chandelier i want them to see it and then we're going to head right on out with you okay come on over here we're in the beautiful building right now and you can see if you look up to the top here you can see the beautiful glass chandelier i spoke about and asia tour in hebrew it's the fire of the tour you can see the fire at the very top you can see the the flames the yellow the orange the red but coming down to a single drop of water all the way at the bottom represented by the blue glass which of course was the waterfall that i spoke about um that rebbi akiva went to when he had his epiphany that said hey just like that as long as i'm consistent right as long as i practice every day right all my friends out there in philadelphia practice i'm talking about practice right every day be dedicated to grow that love inside of yourself for your fellow jew for your fellow mankind so that we can hopefully see the rebuilding of the bait of mikdash and that's really the story i think of asia torah project inspire and other uh organizations like that that are connecting us to our heritage and our deep philosophical values and ideals that we spoke about all the way in the beginning right what are we mourning morning a loved one or morning an object a building or an ideal that's been lost look how chaotic the world is today right and then we spoke a little bit about potential right the potential of what could have been the potential of what it might have been like had the temple existed this year would there be less wars would it be less terrorism would there not be this pandemic i don't know but i do think it's very possible i do think it's very possible so here we are folks look around here this is just absolutely unbelievable the top of the asia tour world heritage center overlooking the western wall you get a beautiful view of the dome of the rock again the dome rock when i see that i think to myself hey god it's there it's been protecting the place that the temple was built and the only place the temple can be built here in jerusalem if it wasn't there maybe there'd be condominiums up there a roller rink a mall who knows but that's the oldest islamic building in the world constructed in 691 and it's been preserving that holy place for the time that we merit for the rebuilding of the bait so let's get a better understanding now of what the beita mikdash really represented and i'm going to invite one of the rabbis here of asia torah rabbi david rasman to to hopefully shed a little bit of light onto us about what this uh what this holy city and what the holy building the temple really stood for and uh and hopefully what we can gain from its rebuilding and maybe something that we can think about uh during this auspicious time of tisha bob i'm going to put on my mask and come a little close because the microphone's in my ears right now so can you see also the temple mount just to make sure everybody can see that one just down this end thank you so shed a little light on to us a little bit about what the temple represented and what it stood for i did not know it's my that day back actually wow wow so normally when i come up here with tours guests that come up and they always ask me they say you work here every day like i have to be honest uh i don't feel it because i'm here every single day bother you like you know you don't even think about it and i tell the truth for the first time here in a month [Music] and sometimes when we're complacent in our everyday lives like sometimes i'm complacent being here we don't even realize what we're missing we don't realize how great it is coming from up north and down south from everywhere the same reason you know that's an amazing and amazing thing and it recharges you and it gives you a sense of purpose and it gives you clarity of like where we're going and what we're doing and three times that's what happened they've come here to the temple and they refocus they see the beauty of jerusalem the beauty of the temple the beauty of god like you felt it was in the air and sometimes in our lives we lose that even when things are good smoothly and we forget what it's like that relationship with the wife would like to have released with our kids what it's like to have a job we forget we forget the normal way of life and we need to change sometimes hopefully i should change that coming to the temple say wow it could be even so much better i thought life was so good and wow it could be so much more i think that was one of the one very unique part of having the temple that we still when you come to the hotel it's all the types of people you feel but how much uh do you mind putting these in when we uh when where when we're the unity that we feel when we come to the hotel now and see all the different types of people how much more so it was in the times of the temple so you only imagine that coming and praying for the same person saying god you're here for the same thing you don't care about what this person is wearing that person is wearing where he's from where she's from that's irrelevant you're here for a common purpose and you see what you could grow to and raised too and enjoy and everything like that and uh it allows you to reflect to push yourself back when you leave the law was you have to sleep here you want to just come and leave you have to sleep over for a night it has to sit in like wow i can live this way will you no matter where i [Music] you am it's a little bit windy and i think the one's coming here do you mind if we just move over there and i think we could block the wind a little bit okay follow us around here just gonna come up and around it's actually a really beautiful model of the second temple it's really the second temple 2.2 it was built by king herod this one but there was the original second temple when we returned from babylon seven year exile and then the hashmonians also after the story of hanukkah re-sanctified and expanded it what we see here is actually king herod's but come down with me kind of hoping and i think if you come right here that it has blocked the wind a little bit so rabbi it kind of reminds me a little bit when i come here with groups on shabbat and you see jews of all walks of life right here i am i have a knitted keeper on and you have a black velvet keeper on and you see jews who have strong animals the just decline it and uh and you see jews from all walks of life and they're all coming here celebrating in a unified way shabbat right that which that has kept the jewish people together for all of these years and to be able to tap into that and to realize that you know when we stand together we really are unstoppable as the jewish people when we can put aside some of our differences and just see each other for what we really are which is that small aspect of hashem's glory of his and shed that light onto one another um you know this world could be a really really a better better place and i'll just close with this and stay on because i'm just gonna also do a couple panoramic shots of this area of jerusalem so you could take you know to heart everything that we spoke about today and from the wonderful words that rabbi rossman shared with us i want to share some words and idea that i heard from another great rabbi of the 20th century rabbi victor miller who was speaking to some of his students in new york and he said you know living here in flatbush living in borough park we walk around and we see jews all day long and we see jews wearing black hats and we see jews wearing cables and we see jews wearing their teeth seats and we see jews keeping their mitts booked that sometimes we take those jews for granted and just like the rabbi said that coming here every single day you almost take this for granted and then you weren't able to come here for a month and you realize how much you didn't have during that month and you rekindle that love and rabbi victor miller said it's time to put a stop to that and not just the ones with the black hats and not just ones with the keeper but every single jew that we should love them unconditionally because they have something inside of them that needs to be expressed and we're constantly putting them down and constantly focused on our disagreements will never nurture will never water that particular part in that it can bloom into what it needs to be so again thank you so much for joining us today rabbi thank you for allowing us up here if you don't mind i'm gonna just take a couple more minutes i'm gonna show you guys the view and uh i just want to wish all of you a meaningful uh powerful and really a successful fast right a successful fast that we should be able to tap into our you know beautiful nishamas our souls our greatness so that uh from this moment not tisha but this is the fifth of all moving forward we should be able to love one another and instead of the temple which was destroyed for basis hatred it will be rebuilt for our unconditional love for one another thank you from the holy city of jerusalem enjoy some of these panoramic shots and i bid you all farewell thank you [Music] so so again thank you so much everyone for joining us here thank you to project inspire for all the wonderful incredible content that you deliver every single day to all of our homes especially during this time thank you to all the rabbis and to the individuals who make it possible i'm david sussman your personal tour guide here in israel i hope to see you again here soon