Lessons from the TEMPLE in Jerusalem

the three weeks is a time of national Mourning it uh on the calendar it falls between the dates of the breaching of the walls of the holy city of Jerusalem on the 17th of tamus and the actual destruction of the of the best migration of the temple on the ninth of of so that's three weeks between those two dates and hola quickly it's a time where we are enjoined to mourn to grief and it is a very sad time but at the same time it's not a contradiction there's another perspective and that is that at the same time that we're grieving for what we lost the Grandeur the Splendor of what once was when the temple stood at the very same time we are looking forward to what will be when as the prophets have promised us the temple will be rebuilt in its place and all of the the Mitzvahs of the offerings will be reinstated and the revelation of God's presence of the of the shrina will return so it's a it's a difficult time to to be Jewish not just during the three weeks but really the past two thousand years because on one hand there's so much loss there's so much to mourn the the loss of on the other hand there's so much to look forward to because good times are coming and whatever it is that was taken away will be replaced by something far greater to the extent that the rambam says in the laws of fasts that these fast days which commemorate the historical dates having to do with the destruction not only will they be uh canceled when Michelle comes but they'll be transformed they'll become days of rejoicing which is kind of an interesting concept if you think about it if these dates coincide with tragic events and therefore their days of national mourning so then once the cause for mourning is removed when mashiach comes and everything we lost will be returned to us so then I would understand that the you would more no longer you would sort of cancel the the morning but the ramam says no actually it's going to be transformed into a days these These Days the very days these very days are going to be transformed into days of rejoicing so how do you understand that what you understand is that it's not just that Hashem gave us something and he took it away and then he gave it back a zero-sum game in which case what was the point of it all but rather it's a process and part of that process is loss but every every event that has occurred even the most painful events are essential and necessary to the process and in the end it all becomes used it's all part of the plan and it couldn't be as great as it's going to be without having gone through the trials and the tribulations that we went through um the only way to really understand this I mean we could have faith but I'm saying to understand it to wrap our heads around it is actually the way that uh Rabbi Akiva understood it when he himself saw the sight of the destroyed Temple maybe Akiva and his cohorts his uh fellow sages were in the location of the destroyed Temple this is after the destruction of the second temple and they saw the Desolation they saw how foxes were walking I think maybe we think of foxes as kind of charming but uh in North America imagine raccoons okay it's not that he wasn't it wasn't Charming it was uh anything but and they saw foxes walking around in the spot the very spot where the high priest used to enter on the holiest day of the year on named Kipper and they were all crying and Ruby kivo was laughing and they said why are you laughing he said why are you crying and he cited for them the verse from mikha which says seeing Zion Jerusalem the temple will be plowed like a field what does that mean anyone who ever studied Shabbos the laws of Sabbath observance knows that there are 39 prohibited malachas malacha means a creative act a productive Act doesn't just mean labor means something that accomplishes something in fact something that's destructive that's killcool is uh is not considered labor on Shabbos one of the 39 forms of Labor is plowing so we saying the place of the base will be plowed like a field what does it mean is it a destructive act or a productive Act depends how you look at it if you look at a snapshot in the moment it's destruction if you understand that as a process then it was plowing and it's a productive act and it was all for the purpose of Greater growth the more you plow the more things grow there's a story about a Jew back in Russia he was in prison he wrote his wife and they would read all of his letters in one of her correspondences to him she says that um the winter is coming to an end and we're running out of potatoes and need to plant potatoes but the ground is still so hard I can't break the ground I can't loosen the soil to plant the potatoes so he writes his wife back and he says don't touch the ground in our yard because that's where I've hidden all of the weapons the next day a wagon full of soldiers pulls up with shovels and axes and they tear apart the entire yard of course they find nothing and they leave she writes them back and she says craziest thing happened soldiers came and they tore apart the yard with shovels and axes he writes her back and says now you can plant the potatoes so if you were to take a snapshot of that moment where the soldiers were ripping up the yard is that destruction or is that uh productive if you if you only knew what the soldiers knew from their perspective is it destructive or is it productive but if you understand the big picture then it wasn't destruction it was plowing and the more you plow the more things grow so yeah this sad time is not just going to be taken away from us and canceled out and nullified as if it never were no to the contrary this sad time will become a time of special rejoicing special Joy Greater Joy than the joy that we're going to be constantly having when Michelle comes so like I said this is an awkward time the three weeks but it's been an awkward couple of Millennia for the Jewish people on one hand we are grieving unfathomable loss and at the very same time we are anticipating unfathomably great times so we're gonna do both we're going to do both we're going to mourn the past and we're going to anticipate the future the near future the imminent future if you've ever been driving in a car you know that you have to have a rear view mirror it's not safe if you don't see what's behind you and that's like the Jewish people we never forget we continue to mourn the loss of the basement even though it was two thousand years ago we don't forget our history that's the rear view mirror we always take a peek at it we always take a glance to remember where we've been where we come from but at the same time you probably notice the rear view mirror is up there on the windshield and between the two of them the rear view mirror and the windshield the windshield's a lot bigger than the rearview mirror it's important to look in the rear view mirror get a glance to remember where you came from but the picture that we need to have in mind has to be crystal clear is what's ahead of us where where we're headed to our destination so with that in mind what I want to do tonight is talk about the base of mcdush the Holy Temple hashem's chosen house as the ramen refers to it in Hillcrest the laws of hashem's chosen house and I want to talk about it with this double uh uh tone this this paradoxical approach on one hand we're we're recalling something that was amazing that was taken from us and we're we're in mourning on the other hand we're getting excited because this is what's coming and our hearts are big enough to to contain both so we're gonna talk about the basic English uh specifically what I wanted to do is talk about aspects of the base of English that are described in the rambons um suggested that this is one of the most effective ways that we can participate in the rebuilding of the base of English before it actually happens and that is by studying that Adam it's a section Within mission Toyota and I'm not going to study the text I'm not going to read to you from the text although I do encourage anybody to pick up a mission Torah and uh to check out and to study those laws during during these days but what I want to share with you are our life lessons um spiritual teachings that we can learn from certain aspects of the base of English the just to give a little product placement here the idea for this as I said the rabba encouraged uh study of Health but the idea for this specifically in this format that we're doing it this year it was a partnership that was formed between the meaningful minute organization and soul words and of course the five towns is our gracious host here for this event um what we're doing is during the three weeks we're putting out a mikdash minute a mick dushman as opposed to a meaningful minute um and their their little minute you know how the kids are today they can't watch anything that's longer than a minute long so we're putting out these little minute uh Instagram story length teachings but this is for the this is this is the grown-up version of it so here I'll be able to unpack it a little bit more but the the the original concept was to have these mikdus minute videos with something about the base of mcdosh that you can apply in your life and to be inspired and so that's what I'm doing here but this is the grown-up version of it okay um one of the calim one of the utensils in the basement was the Kia the Kia is a sink and the sink was used for the kahanam for the priests who worked in the base of English to wash their hands and feet to prepare for their uh their work for their Aveda so what's the key here you know that there are calim there are these utensils in the basement each one of them has such uh significance and symbolism you have the in the in the Holy area you have there's the the courtyard and then within the courtyard there's the holy area and then within the holy area there's the holy of holies but in the Holy area you have the menorah which is this uh candelabrum and you have the the shulkhan which is this golden table with the with the showbread Loaves on it and you have the uh miss the golden altar where the incense was burned every day but then you have outside of that you have the Kia and it was a sink so what's the significance of this sink it's like you have to wash your hands from the Kia but then the real Aveda is the the mizbayak so I want to tell you something what's Holier turning off your phone before you go into Schulte Daven or davening when you're in trouble so everyone would would say daviding when you're in trouble but not necessarily it's not necessarily correct maybe turning off your phone or at least putting it on silent before you go into Shoals even holier than the dominant you're going to do in short sometimes the preparation for the Mitzvah is greater than the Mitzvah in a certain way why the Mitzvah is Holy but the preparation for the Mitzvah has to do with the mundane with the worldly with the ordinary with the everyday so the Mitzvah is already holy but the preparation for the Mitzvah is when you have to actually engage with ordinary things and align them with holy things like the Kia washing from the kid they were washing their hands which was symbolic of washing themselves free of their worldly involvements remember kohana didn't stay in the base of English all day every day they had day jobs they would work in shifts so even the cutting had what to wash off we would want to come to the base of ignition be involved in holy things you'd have to wash off his his involvement with the ordinary day-to-day world you might think that washing that stuff off is just an unavoidable prerequisite preliminary phase to getting to the real important stuff the Avada the real holy stuff that he's going to do but uh there's something very special about getting ourselves ready to do the holy thing we're getting ready to do something holy can even be holier than the thing this holy what were the what was the key are made of as a copper very good and where was the copper taken from donations which donations the women why do the women have copper they were mirrors were told that in mitraim in Egypt during the most crushing days of slavery when the men had lost their will to bring children into the world so the women used to use these mirrors to beautify themselves and attract their husbands so that there would not be a population collapse in fact to the contrary even though they were being brutally oppressed they had a population explosion it was all to the credit of these women who understood what they needed to do and they used these mirrors to uh to make themselves more attractive to their husbands when the women donated these mirrors my children was actually hesitant to accept them because of their origin because of he knew where they came from and what they've been used for he wasn't sure if that was appropriate to incorporate into the basement in other words appreciate the idea of attacks which means Hashem wants a Dwelling Place in the lower realms after all why does Hashem say make me also limit me I make this why doesn't Hashem just make a make dish because the whole point of it should be a physical place in the physical world built by physical labor from physical materials that's the date of Attack Dwelling Place in the lower Realms that's what Hashem desires so make everybody understood that but he figured just the mere fact that this mikdus was being made out of physical materials that's low enough but you don't have to incorporate something that has this questionable past that in other words there's no question what the women did was ultimately for a holy purpose they brought Jewish children into the world but you know sometimes what do you call it the the ends justify the means so maybe the ends are very holy but the the means are you know you got to do what you got to do so that's how Maisha felt about it he said look the ends were very holy they they brought Jewish children into the world but the means how they accomplished it was uh you know it's not necessarily something look I mean telling it like a Bible story but how would you feel if uh you know your mother was in mitzrayim and she was sitting there at the dinner table talking about this and oh you remember when your father would come home from slavery and I would look in the mirror make myself pretty for him so that we could have you it's like okay TMI I don't want to hear about it all right I'm deliberately trying to do some cringe over here so that you can because everybody says oh it's so obvious I was my should have been I would have accepted it no you wouldn't no you would also be a little bit weirded out by it and Hashem told Maisha accept them they are more precious expression Hashem uses they are more precious to me than all of the donations there's many reasons why these mirrors were precious but one Insight that we have why they were so precious is because specifically they weren't used directly for amitsua they were used for the preparation that enables you to get a step closer to a mitzvah and that is what is that's what's precious to Hashem not just the mitzvah Mitzvahs are already Mitzvahs Mitzvahs are already holy but when we can do ordinary stuff everyday stuff like eating drinking procreating things that all humans human beings do and in fact the animals do and we can do those things in a way that is part of the process of getting closer to a Mitzvah so that has a special kavivas that has a special preciousness to Hashem and that identity of those mirrors was retained even when they were turned into a vessel in the basement instead of being something like the media or the shulchanism where they that where the the vessel itself is being used for a Mitzvah no no the key or the sink is the preparation to wash off your connection to the mundane so you can get ready to get closer to doing something that's a mitzvah so that's how we learned that sometimes it could be at least from a certain perspective turning off your phone before you go into shul is more holy than what you do when you dive in when you're in trouble okay um and can you believe that I said that same concept in 57 seconds I did but this version was better of course I have to say that because otherwise you're saying why did he if he could have done it in 57 seconds why did he do it in five minutes okay yeah you should see it's it's really remarkable how we squish these ideas down compression yeah I didn't explain all when I did in the 57 second version for the mikdus minute I didn't explain all this stuff I'm just hoping people will put two and two together and they'll extrapolate but over here I told you this is like the the adult version this is the this is like the uh the mature version of the big Dutch minute okay fine all right here's another one I got more for you all right the monado we mentioned the banana minera is a candelabrum I know everyone thinks about the winner of the Hanukkah menu the hanuka what do you think it's based on it's based on the midnight in the base of English we all know the story when the Greeks defiled the temple and The Maccabees came into the temple and they found only enough oil to last for one day and miraculously it lasted the eight days it took to make new oil so why why were they lighting oil what was what was going on they were lighting oil because that's something that you do every single day in the base of English there was this big candle labrum there was this big what's a normal word for a candelabra candelabra I'm an Ida there's this big Monitor and it was made out of gold it had seven cups you say hold on I thought a minute has eight cups here the conical one has eight cups but the one that basically had seven cups and they would light it every day okay it's interesting that in the building specs that Hashem gives Maisha and then Moshe gives to basala who was the architect who made the mishkan the mishkan was the version that they had when they were wandering in the desert for 40 years then the mikdush is the the permanent structure that was first built by schlem King Solomon at any rate the way that it's described there in the building specs is there's certain ornaments there there's like a building code you have to have certain types of uh ornaments and non-functional uh details there were these ornamental flowers and orbs and also cups ornamental cups as opposed to the functional cups on the top there were functional cups where they put the oil they were also ornamental cups along the arms of the Monada what's fascinating is we have a sketch that the ramam himself Drew and in that sketch the cups are upside down how do you know they're upside down um you know how a goblet looks like actually here hold on a second this is gonna help me okay all right this is not so exaggerated the difference between the but here you see the bottom is narrow and the top is wide okay I mean relatively it's not flared that much but the bottom is narrower than the top so this would be a right side up cup so the way that I'm draws it is with the wide part down facing down like this he draws them as triangles okay so the question is was that I'm a being sloppy I doubt that's the case Okay so if you meant it if you did it on purpose then what's up with that why are the goblets the ornamental goblets and the on the monitor upside down so the number says we could actually decode this based on another feature of the base of English and that is that the building that schlemn Malik built had windows that would never pass an energy audit they were called yes they were famous means they were flared outward in the olden days remember they didn't have central air and Heating so uh what they would do is they would try to maximize on the natural light and warmth of the Sun so Windows generally were flared inward sort of to uh to cause the light from outside to to be maximized on the inside and in the basement they were built the exact opposite they were narrow on the inside and wide on the outside so that they would be like dispersed outward which is a little bit funny because outside is where the light is and yet it's explained that those windows were testimony to the fact that the balsamic dush was not a regular building it wasn't built with windows that are meant to draw in light it was built with windows that allow light to escape and to go out physically we're talking about the light of the monitor but also we're saying spiritually the spiritual light of the base of mcdush was meant to be diffused to the entire world the base of English was not just a uh a symbol of the Jewish people it was a source of spirituality for the entire world in fact our sages tell us that if the non-jewish nations would have understood what the base of English did for them they would instead of sending their Legions to destroy it they would have sent all of their armies to surround it and to protect it because of the benefit that the having the base did for the entire world so we understand the windows in the base of English are flared outward because the base of English is all about giving out light not bringing it in same idea with the cups is that what is a right side up cup well functionality all you know depends on on purpose if the purpose of the cup is to hold a drink then this is right side up but if the purpose of the cup is to dispense the drink then this is right side up in fact this is upside down because this doesn't not very good dispensing this is holding it not dispensing it and since the base of English is all about dispensing so therefore the archetypical cups the symbol of Cups these ornamental cups were like this with the wide part facing down it's a lesson to all of us that what is holiness Holiness is being a giver it's finding opportunities to share our our gifts and our resources and our talents and uh everything we have is only that we can share it with others material and and spiritually one of the secrets that ever taught us was that when it comes to our Yiddish kite our Jewish observance and our families Jewish observance the only Yiddish kite that ultimately we really have and hold on to is whatever Yiddish kite we're actively giving away to others so if we're keeping it to ourselves and just living in insular life um you know that lasts as long as it lasts but if we're emissaries and we're going out and spreading the light then uh it has that has something that has an enduring power okay um let's talk about another one of the Caleb the orange the ark didn't they just come out with a Indiana Jones sequel yeah sure you know I was I was going to pretend they don't even know about it if I know about it you guys know about it come on I was just happy Harrison Ford was still alive I assume so I don't know anyways Raiders of the Lost Ark right they were looking for the orange right isn't that what it was yeah okay and uh so the art we talked about the Monada which was in the kadish the holy area and I mentioned in passing the golden Altar and the shulch on the table which are also in the Holy area but then there was the holy of holies the holy of holies and that's a special place where the only the high priest went and he only went there on the holiest day of the year on the day of atonement on Yom Kippur and inside of there there was the order in the The Ark so uh where is the ark wasn't that the whole premise of that movie from the 80s that they were looking for the ark isn't that what does it mean the Raiders of the law stock it was lost they were trying to find out where it was okay thought like having Mandela effect like maybe it never existed I know it existed I know there was such a thing okay at any rate so where is the ark I never thought about that ah okay I'm asking you now where is the ark what so people don't know that when shlema malach Kings Island built the temple he built catacombs you know what catacombs are like caves labyrinths underneath the base of English why did he do it because he knew there would come a time when the temple he built would be destroyed so precisely the Aaron the ark is in its spot just straight down now you can't get there by going straight down because it's a convoluted that's what a catacomb is by definition it's convoluted and I wouldn't recommend trying to go there and even if you don't have issues of tumavatado because you'll end up like that nutty putty cave guy if you try to do it you got it we didn't laugh it was a dark joke and you didn't laugh what you did okay you held it in okay so do not try you know the reference you Google it afterwards you wish you did it yeah yeah do not attempt to navigate the catacombs you end up like The Nutty put a cave guy funny at the second time okay I'm gonna edit this out okay it's very dark very dark humor okay this crowd didn't know one of the biggest Hollywood Blockbusters of the 80s now I'm expecting to know an obscure reference to a spelunking tragedy okay at any rate this is ultimately at the ends just for my amusement so yeah was it Sandman Sims was that what you're doing taking me off oh I think they're like okay all right so the audit is exactly in its spot but it's in those catacombs the king Salomon built what's the lesson to us the lesson is you look at the base of English it's it's in a desolate State it's destroyed and yet the audit is still there I don't see it it's there where is it it's in there it's down exactly in its spot it's down there you got it you got to look for it it's there you got to know it's there so you look at a Jew each one of us is a basement and he looks desolate he looks completely removed from his Yiddish kite who is this guy and you have to know that within him is an Aran kadish a holy Ark and it's there it's there it's just it's covered up but it's it's buried but it's there and specifically the or in the orange what was the contents what were the contents of the Aaron well the tablets the two tablets that Moshe brought from Sinai the embodiment of the law the embodiment of the total so the orange with the luchis the tablets the the ark with the tablets that is our connection to Torah so you see a Jew who looks like a desolate destroyed basamikdash but in that Jew there is intact a connection to Torah and we only need to access it tap into it and reveal it it's there that's why I never hesitate to share a word of Torah even with someone you think has no interest in those types of things you'll be shocked what types of uh subconscious responses you trigger inadvertently just by sharing a word of Torah okay um let's talk a little bit about the structure of the base of mcdush was built on a mountain a hill hilly Mountain I know it's called har habayas har means a mountain it's not much of it it's not like uh a mountain mountain more like a hill but uh it's built on uh on High Ground could have been built the foot of the Hill it's built not on the tippy top of the hill it's built actually it's called the shoulder anatomically if you imagine like uh an ox is the way our sages describe it so there's the head of the oxygen there's the axis shoulder so that's like almost to the peak but not quite that's where the the base I make dish was built and harabayas how to bias means the Temple mount is it called the Temple Mount this is not actually an attempt to be funny you know like who's buried in Grant's Tomb right the question is it called the Temple Mount because the temple was built on it or was the temple built on it because it's Temple mount so before it was the base it was haramario was the site of The Binding of Yitzhak yeah and even before that yeah visited yeah well that was after of ramen Year talk but even before that was the place of the creation of other mauritian it's the epicenter of the world it's the eye of the universe so the answer to the question is is it how to bias because hashem's chosen house is built there or is hashem's chosen house built there because it is what it is and the answer is it is what it is it's actually the entire world was built from that spot you mentioned Evan should see a the foundation stone so it's called evanishasia because mimena from that from that stone the entire world was uh was created so the basement dishes on a hill what's the point of that so a lot of us tend to think about our Judaism it's a religion after all so it's a really relationship with Hashem so we think about it as something that's personal and I'm not saying in the most Brute uh expression of this the most crass expression of this where certain modernizing uh idea ideologues used to say be a Jew in your house and a man a man in the street I'm not even saying to that extent I'm saying even there could be an observant Jew and he's not hiding that he's Jewish but at the same time he's not going to flaunt his Mitzvah observance you know it's like uh we don't have to rub it in their faces we're in gullus you know why do we have to make a show of it why do we have to be so public about it there is such an attitude if you look at the basement it's on a Temple Mount it's up it's it's prominent it's on High Ground this is the message that when you have something holy it's good show the world it's only something to be ashamed of if you yourself misunderstand what the purpose of the basement dish is and what and if you misunderstand what the purpose of your Jewish chosenness is if you actually think that it's some license to uh use and abuse the world then yeah I guess you should be afraid of it but when you realize like like I said Earl earlier that if the world knew what the base of English was doing for them they would send their armies to protect the base of English and we have to know that we have to know that when mashiach comes it's good for the world most religions if you're not a follower of their belief then when their end of the world scenario unfolds you're in trouble and we don't say that we say that mashiach comes is going to be good for everybody the base of English will be rebuilt it'll be good for everyone be peace and prosperity for everybody the only people are going to lose out are people who willingly fight it but everyone will benefit not just the Jewish people not just the Jewish people everyone will benefit from it so once once you understand that what the base of English symbolizes is this benevolence for the entire world then why would you ever hide a good thing why would you put it under wraps so be proud of your Judaism be open about it um especially when you're out and about and you're in the secular world and you're dealing with business and you're dealing with with non-jews so uh be be open about your observance and be proud of it put it on display and show and show everybody that the more observant you are as a Jew the better it is for the world because that's true that's ultimately what it is uh let's talk about one of the areas in the basement there were different chambers a chamber was called Alishka and one of these Chambers was called lishkosha Eights actually it's confusing because there was a listim was actually a storage shed for wood you know why they needed wood in the temple fire they're a lot of fire you know what the fire was for yeah the cooking the carbonics they had he sacrifices they had to be burned so a lot of wood yeah you can just uh you know turn a knob and make a gas flame or uh propane or whatever and it had to burn wood but then there was a list of eights is as opposed to let's go say eight was made from wood and you're gonna ask well how could it be made from wood that I'm also says you're not allowed to have protruding wood and the the structure the best maybe that's true so it was it wasn't protruding in fact some say it was even covered it was behind a veneer you couldn't behind a facade you couldn't see it but at any rate it was made from wood and this structure was where the kind goddel was capped the high priest for seven days before Yom Kippur that's where he would prepare for his big day for opening night and uh in the latter part of the second temple period they began to refer to that chamber is the lishkas par Hedren parhadrin is a Greek word which means the king's officers and the commentaries explained that the reason why they referred to this chamber remember the chamber was where the high priest would spend seven days prepping for Yom Kippur why would they refer to that chamber as the lishkas parhadem and why didn't they ever call it that before why was that something they started using that expression in the the latter part of the second temple period part hadron means the king's offices Kings officers in that day were replaced yearly there were annual appointments one-year appointments in the latter part of the second base of mcdosh there were unscrupulous people who were not fitting for the office of high priest they bribed their way into the position and when they would enter the holy of holies they would die either on the spot or within the year like Aaron's two sons they entered the holy of holies and they were not fitting and the they died so this is this is something that happened they enter the base of the the holy of holies and it's not well you saw Raiders of Lost Ark you know what happened to the guy so okay I'm hoping somebody on YouTube will see this and laugh okay because I'm not getting anything over here okay all right so I'm going to give you nightmare fuel you're gonna you're gonna google naughty party cave incident and the melting face nutty party cave incident and you remember any pretty cave no no a little melting face from Raiders okay he's Googling it right now oh don't you're gonna nightmare fuel it's nightmare fuel what it was a Nazi though so that okay okay all right remember they found ETL gray in a ditch oh man I gotta stop okay [Laughter] dying up here okay what you saw the theater it was 83 they had an Atari game the ETA Target made no sense it was outrageous okay Atari 2600. okay at any rate what we were talking about um the don't tell me don't tell me don't tell me hold on don't do it delicious yes these were unworthy people they did not deserve to be high priests and they bribed their way in and they would go into the holy of holies and they didn't belong there they would die within the year okay interesting why would these guys do that why would they get themselves killed so that ABBA says from this you can learn something about the unbreakable bond between the Jewish soul and Hashem here you have a guy who's totally unfit for the office has no business entering the holy holies and he's willing to bribe himself into the situation you're telling us who this applies to don't say any names of recording over here so he's willing to bribe his way into this position knowing it's going to kill him just so he can experience a little Godly revelation so there you go even somebody who you're writing them off a Jew is a Jew is a Jew and deep down we mentioned the Oren the holy Ark is buried deep sometimes but it's always there it's always there and it comes out in weird ways and this is one of the examples where it came out these corrupt High priests the end of the day what do they want they wanted a little Godly revelation okay um regarding the temple one one of the things we're told is they had guards they had guards around the temple um it's actually a Mitzvah to Revere the base of mcdush and one of the ways that that is carried out is by placing guards around the base of English and the ramam explains that the guards are not because they're afraid of Invaders and they're afraid people are gonna break into the basement but rather for Honor that there's no comparison that amam says between a palace with guards and a palace without guards you go to Buckingham Palace and you see the the guard ceremony The Changing of the Guard and it's about honor it's about showing that something is precious you put a put a guard out front it's not a practical thing it's not like you're you're really expecting somebody's gonna Marauders are coming you have to fight them off it's a it's a form of respect okay so what does that have to do with us each of us has a basement that means the parts of our lives and our days that we dedicate to our very that's the service of Hashem and we need to cherish that we need to put a guard around it not because we're afraid of anti-Semitism somebody's going to come and tell us you're not allowed to learn Torah you're not allowed to lead a Jewish life we're guarding it not from hostility we're guarding it to show respect for it so for instance if you have a time that's set up for learning you have a a class and you meet a certain time a certain day you put guards around that in other words whatever you do to make sure you don't miss a flight out of JFK you take the same precautions to make sure you're on time for that Torah class why because putting a guard around it so to speak shows that you cherish it shows that it means something to you okay and I'll share with you one one last concept here and that is the ramam tells us that it is forbidden to damage even one stone of the basement dish it's actually based on a verse which says that when the Jewish people were entering the land they should destroy the Canaanite idolatrous altars but do not do the same to the place of the Lord your God meaning we are to destroy the idolatrous altars but do not destroy hashem's house and the ram of says somebody who destroys even one stone of the base of mcdush is transgressing this prohibition well we have a we have a principle of Magi Devore Yankovic Hashem gives his Mitzvahs over to the Jewish people meaning his mitzers the mitzers that he keeps how can Hashem tell us it's a Mitzvah not to destroy the temple when he himself destroyed the temple he tells us not to destroy even one stone he destroyed the whole thing twice so you have to look at a little bit more deeply then Adam says he uses a phrase which translated would mean in a destructive manner or with destructive intent what does that mean he doesn't spell it out clearly but you could actually learn this from something else that Adam says but uh in the laws of a shul you're not allowed to even knock down a Shore let alone the base of big dish but you're not even allowed to knock down ashore except when you're allowed to knock down a show when you're doing renovation sometimes demolition is part of renovation means to destroy and the intent is to destroy but if you're doing renovation and you do a little demo in order to make something better so then it's not destructive at all so what do we understand from this the only reason Hashem was permitted so to speak to destroy his Temple was for the purpose of rebuilding a greater one in its place by the way the second temple was bigger and stood longer than the first and the third will be greater than all of them and it'll be eternal and this is also what we said at the very beginning about plowing that this is all a growth process and that when Sheikh comes it's not just going to remove our pain take away all of our suffering but it's actually going to transform it and we're going to see how everything Hashem did was just shifting things around to make it better than we could ever possibly dream it was all productive was all purposeful and during these three weeks we should yes yes we should remember the pain of the destructive phase the phase that feels destructive but we should you know that's the rear view mirror we should also look at the the windshield and remember that the real point of it all was was never destruction to begin with the real point of it all was always to bring us something greater and we should be focused on that because that's where we're heading may it be immediately