Rabbi Avrohom Walkin | CHAZAQ Tisha B'Av Marathon

So, obviously, it's a big zchus to be able to speak between Reb Pesach Krohn, even before that Rabbi Goldstein, who is I consider my rebbe in Torah, and b'ezrat Hashem Rabbi Goldwasser. So, it's a big zchus to be surrounded by such great rabbanim. But, I really want to I want to dive diverse a little bit with all the you know, the speeches were about. Ahavas chinam, sinas chinam. We understand that. But, what are there a void on Tisha B'Av? You know, in a few hours Mashiach chas v'shalom does not come, you know, people are making plans, and they should make plans, and people are excited going upstate Shabbos Nachamu. You know, it's almost like we finally got through the three weeks. But, what are we supposed to learn and yearn and bring with us this coming Tisha B'Av if chas v'shalom does not come? What are we supposed to take with us? Now, I actually was in shul yesterday, a half hour before Maariv, and I was speaking to my rav, and I was pacing I was pacing back and forth, and I was in a state of panic. I was in a state of panic. Tisha B'Av is going to come. The doors are closing. Can we go through another year without a Beis Hamikdash? Can we go Can we go through another year? And it brought back a memory probably around 25 years ago when my grandmother, Rebbetzin Walkin, was rushed to the hospital with kind of a time, and she was deathly ill. But, we we didn't believe it. We didn't understand it. And she had a heart problem. She went through surgery, and I remember my father, Reb Moshe Yael Shlita, my father sitting there, mamash learning Gemara, because he knew that maybe in a few minutes he wouldn't be able to learn Al Zeh Avah, and he was mamash crying and learning Gemara, and all my relatives were going pacing back and forth, and the nurse came out saying she's not doing great. She's an old woman. And I guess she knew something during the surgery that my grandmother was having that she didn't tell us yet. So, we were pacing and every few minutes, every few minutes we kept asking when she came out, "How is she? How is she?" And obviously, Nebuchadnezzar was in Terrace. But this is what I was thinking. I said, "This is how we should be pacing. This is how we should be pacing. What's going to be in a few hours Messiah doesn't come? The base of means is not rebuilt. Now, yes, guys should be and guys should be happy and we should we should, you know, find joy in our lives. But when you didn't get what you were looking for, when you didn't get what you asked for, what you did when you didn't get what you cried for, where is the hammer? Where is your comfort in that? Think about it. Where is your comfort? Everybody, you know, people are going up Shabbos. They're having great times. I love it. Beautiful. Have a great time. But you didn't get what you wanted. You didn't get what you wanted at the end of the day. You know, I do remember a few months ago one of my children was coming back from Israel. And you know, with the problem with the tickets getting on getting on to get home for Pesach. People went hours, even nights before they were waiting in the airport. My son, also everyone has a miraculous story how he got home. But my son was at the airport. He got there very early in the morning till we got him a ticket. And there were hundreds of people with their passports literally giving it to people in the front. They I me me me me. Yearning to go home. Yearning to go home. We need to yearn. We need to yearn to go home. Imagine you were told you didn't get on that flight and you're not going home. But you're going to be happy. How can you be happy when you didn't get what you wanted? So it's a very important inside over here that we need to understand. Yeah, in a few hours we're going to be eating, we're going to be enjoying whatever, hopefully great food, but you didn't get what you wanted. You didn't get what for thousands of years people have been crying for. Where is the Nachama? Shabbos Nachamu, Nachamu, Nachamu Ami, where is there Nachama? When you didn't get what you wanted. So and the Navi says that we say Nach Ami, Nachamu, Nachamu Ami, where is the comfort? So I want to be Mazbiach to you. There's two types of Mikdash's that a person can build. He can build we can do our mitzvah and tefillin and our actions we can build a Mikdash that's real, that's physical. But we can also build a Mikdash in yourself. The point of a Mikdash is the Shachanti Besoicham. That I could rest in you, Hashem says. Build it there, so then you can internalize it here. So what is a Nachama? Nachama is that we yearned for the hopefully we yearned and cried for 3 weeks. But we didn't get physically what we wanted, but we got a different Nachama. We got the Vayikash Bashem. We got it we built in ourselves a love and a connection to Hakadosh Baruchu and that can't be taken away. And that you don't have to wait for someone to build it or bring it down. That is built within yourself. Think about it. In a few hours we didn't get what we wanted. Hopefully it still comes. The answer is you did. You got closeness to Hashem. The Vayikash Bashem is the ultimate greatness why we want the Mikdash. So we can have a Nachama. The fact that we didn't get something but we got something I don't want to say greater, but great in itself. And that is the Shekhinah to be so come. That is the comfort that a person could have. But I want to mention two things before I finish. I know time is of essence because of the lateness of all the speakers, special speakers. Now, there's a Gemara and I said this Gemara a few times on Torah anytime and I want to mention it again. The Gemara in Berachot that says like this. Gemara Berachot daf gimmel amud aleph there's amar Rabbi Yitzchak bar Shmuel. Rabbi Yitzchak bar Shmuel says, mishmei d'Rav, in the name of Rav, gimmel mishmarot have a halayla. Every single night of the year, every single night, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, probably not Shabbat, I'm sure not Friday night, but three times that there's the night broken up into three watches. V'al kol mishmar u'mishmar, and every single watch yoshev Hakadosh Baruch Hu b'shaya'ah kamri, Hashem sits in mourning and he cries out like a lion, he roars. V'omer, and he says, "Oy li al banai, woe unto my children, sheb'avoneihem, he's saying, because of their sins. Hichravti es beisi, I destroyed my beisi, v'saraf'ti es heichali, and I burnt my heichal. V'higleisam l'vein ha'umos ha'olam, and he I had to spread them across the universe. Three times a night the Eibershter sits and cries like a lion, roars on his children. That means 11:00 at night, 12:00 at night, he already sat one time. Yeah, you want to go and have a good time, have a good time. You want to go to a wedding, simcha, swimming, whatever you do, know that the Eibershter by 11:00, 12:00 at night sat at least one time already, crying for you. Every single night of the year. That should awaken us in understanding what it means that a father cannot bring his children home. That a father cannot bring his children home. We need to understand this. Yes, sin is sin, Ave sin, it's important. Of course it's important. Very important. One of the second base of mitzvahs destroyed. But what do we bring out for ourselves now from this day? We need to understand that it's not a perfect situation. Yes, Hashem has definitely reached out to us and he cries for us. But I'm telling you I need you to think about this every single night of the year when you're driving home from somewhere, you had a good time. Hashem one, two, three times that night is sitting and crying for you. Very, very powerful and I'm going to end with just a little mashal. You know, we know that everybody asked this question, how can you mourn over something you never saw? You never witnessed it. You have no idea what the what the world was like when base of mitzvahs built, the kadosha. People that sinned brought carbonas. I would have to own a farm probably. I'm serious. People brought carbonas. You know what that means? All day long for every sin they have to bring carbonas. People didn't sin. People didn't sin. It's incredible. A generation didn't sin. So we have no idea what that world is, but but what can we take out of it? What can we take out of it? So the rabbonim tell us that when a person has a personal destruction in his life, personal suffering, he should view it like this is all because there's no base of mitzvahs. All this is because there is no base of mitzvahs. Because if there was a base of mitzvahs, somehow A, you wouldn't feel the pain so much. B, the situation wouldn't happen. So we could paint a picture of our own personal golis through the base of migdal personal suffering comes about because there is no base of migdal today. But I want to leave you with a beautiful martial. It's actually not from a Jewish person, but it's tremendous martial and I think we could all glean something to take home with us. Um something for at least not just shabbat nachamu for the rest of the year. It was once a grandson went to visit his his grandparents. This goes back I don't know the story goes back 50 60 years ago. There was no video games. There was no staying in your home. People had simple things in life. I remember if you had a bike and a punch ball a blue ball you were king. You were king. You had it all. Punch ball a base a wooden stick for a baseball bat you had it all. So I remember when growing up you know in the bungalow colonies if it rained we would collect salamanders. We collected these red salamanders and we felt like we had a pet. Wow we had a pet. Couldn't feed it. Didn't know how to take care of it. Never I don't want to say what happened to it day later. But we we had a pet and we would put it in in glasses and put rocks around the never we stoned it probably with all the rocks and we put trees in it and we thought wow we got a pet. There was a grandson who went to his grandparents for the summer and on the way home the grandfather tells the grandson I have a gift for you. And he gives him a jar. Gives him a jar and in that jar was a caterpillar. There was a tree. There was a stone. There was a little bit of water. And he gave him a caterpillar and he said to him whatever you do do not open the lid of this jar. Don't open it until I tell you. Just don't. Uh grandfather of course no problem. And he takes the jar goes home and puts it on his shelf you know in his in his room. Few days later he notices that this caterpillar was building I think it's called a chrysalis. I think it's called like a cocoon. And he was building this little chrysalis like a shell, on a on the branch. He's going, "Wow, this is amazing. I want to open the jar and touch it." But he remembers, "My grandfather told me not to open the lid, so I'm not opening it." A few days after that, he notices that this caterpillar is completely surrounded by this shell. And he's thinking, "Oh my gosh, it's not breathing." But he sees it beating. He says, "Oh, I can't open the lid. My grandfather told me." A few days after that, he notices that the head of this caterpillar is coming out of this shell, and it has It's becoming a butterfly. So, he's watching the process for a few days. Then towards the end of this situation, the caterp- the butterfly is trying desperately to get out. Desperately, it's it's squeezing, and it's trying so hard. And he's looking at this butterfly, and he's saying, "Rachmanus, I have to have mercy on this. I'm sure my grandfather would have no problems if I opened the lid and I and I took off the last pieces of the shell and I let it out." He's debating. He says, "No, I know my grandfather would want me to do this." And he opens the lid, and he starts pulling apart the shell. And the butterfly is free now. Wow, he's so excited. He leaves the jar open, but the butterfly is not going anywhere. So, he picks it up, and he throws it into the air. Wow, and it falls to the ground. What happened? Butterflies supposed to fly. Anyway, he takes it home, and he starts flapping its wings. He starts trying everything. Within a day, the butterfly dies. And he calls his grandfather. And he says, "Grandfather, what happened? The butterfly died." And the grandfather says, "Did you open the lid?" He goes, "Yes, but you have to understand, it was in pain." But I told you not to open the lid, right? He says, but I had to. I'm sure you would have wanted me. He said, no. You don't understand. When this butterfly was trying desperately to get out of this shell, it was building the strength in its wings in order to fly. It needed that strength It needed that suffering, that struggling in order to be able to fly. We need to understand the intergolas we live in. That when we go through difficult times in our lives, and we do. And everybody on his own has been his own level what he calls difficult. We're given strenuous tasks. We're given difficulties that seem impossible. But we must understand these are strengths that Hashem gives us and our wings that we can fly higher. We can go further than we ever thought we can go spiritually. So yes, we don't have the Migdash. Maybe in a few hours, I can't say not. But in case Has V'shalom it doesn't happen and we go back to the mundane and we go back to the difficulties in our lives sometimes. Know that these are powers that Hashem gives us, our difficulties and our falls, so that we can use them to strengthen our wings to be able to fly higher. Thank you all for listening.