9 Days, 9 Thoughts: Day 4

I think all of us struggle a bit with mourning  the loss of the Beit Hamikdash. What does it   mean? How do we relate to it? The building we  never saw. Our Chazal side that when Hashem   asked us to build him a Beit Hamikdash, it  was like an in-law apartment. Hashem said,   "I want to live with you. You're my people.  You're my children on earth. And I want to   make my home with you. I want to be near you. I  want to be associated with you." And losing that   means that to some degree that God is less ready  to be associated with us. We're less deserving,   in some sense, of his pride. And in this  extremely difficult time for the Jewish people,   when so many unreasonably and falsely accuse  the Jewish people of all kinds of things,   it's especially painful that we somehow lack  that ability to say, "Hey, you see, G-d is   proud to live with us. G-d is proud to be with  the Jewish people." We mourn that we're missing   that and wait for the day when G-d willing soon  we will have it back. Yisrael asher becha etpaer.