Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When Jews were living in land of Israel, we had our first temple. It was destroyed by the Babylonians. And then the second temple was built in the same place in Jerusalem. And the second temple was destroyed by the Romans. And the history of the destruction of the second temple is quite long because first Romans invaded the land of Israel and they were fine with letting Jews do what they want to do. As a matter of fact, Alexander the Great, when he conquered the land of Israel, he was very impressed with Jews and Judaism. He was insisting of every country that he conquered, adopting their culture and Greek philosophy and their pagan worship cultures. But when he got to know the Jews, he said, hey, these guys are pretty cool, I am going to leave them alone. And he let the Jews practice as they did. But then Alexander the Great passed away. You know, he didn't live very long. He was less than 40 years old when he died. He was partying too hard. And he was a person of many addictions, put it this way. And he passed away quite young. And then it says he was drinking maybe, maybe there were drugs also, we don't know. But also he had issues with women and many other things. So he passed away. And as the new emperors were coming to power, the screws were tightening as far as Jewish observance is concerned. And it came to a point where Jews had a very hard time with practicing Judaism and Jewish during that period of time. We had the whole story of Hanukkah and we had many other times when Jews were trying to fight off the non Jews that were trying to control us. And then came time when the Roman emperor was trying to conquer completely the land of Israel and destroy the temple. And on the 17th of Tammuz, which in our calendar he laid siege. And Jews were held up there for a while and the siege was breached, the walls were breached on the 17th of Tammuz. So I need to just make sure.
[00:02:29] The Roman emperor laid the siege of Jerusalem and was there for a while. And then on 17th of Tammuz the walls were breached and for three weeks there were battles inside of Jerusalem, what's called today the Old City. And Jews were trying to defend the Temple. And the temple was completely destroyed and burned down to the ground on the 9th of Av, the Hebrew month of Av, which is starting just in a few days. And this is the day when the Temple was destroyed. This is the history of the second Temple. Interesting enough that the first temple was also destroyed on the same day. In Hebrew calendar it was according to non Jewish calendar, it was different day. So non Jews didn't even connect the two events. But in the Jewish calendar, it was the same day, 9th of AV. So 9th of AV is the day that we are commemorating the destruction of two temples, the first one and the second one. And it's a fast day and it's a day of mourning. And as a matter of fact, we try not to do anything dangerous during these days because it says that this is not a good time. This time is not so favorable to us Jews. It says in the Jewish law, if you have a court case with someone, it is better when it's scheduled for the month of Adar, because month of Adar is the month of Mazal, of good fortune to the Jews. And it is better not to have it on the month of Av, which is the month of not good fortune.
[00:04:13] During that month, the temple was destroyed and many other not good things happened. For example, when we read in the Torah about the spies that went to check out land of Israel and they came back with negative reports and Jews were because of that, left in desert for 40 years. This also happened on 9th of AV on the same day. Jews that were in desert were destined to die in desert, and they were wandering there for 40 years. And all the people who were 20 years old and above at the time when the spice came back with this negative report were destined to die in the desert. And it says that people were not dying every day randomly, like they do today. On the day when this decree was given to the Jews, which is 9th of AV, this is when people who were destined to die that year would die. So in other words, 9th of AV was the day also when Jews in desert would die every single year. So this was a sad day throughout our history, even before the Temple and in our history since that, we know that many not good things have happened also that day. So 9th of AV is that sad day. So the question is, what's now?
[00:05:37] They say that Napoleon was once traveling somewhere in the lands that he has conquered. And he came to a new town. He didn't know what's going on in this town. And he saw the people in this town are sad and they're weeping, they're wearing mourning clothing. So he asked one of his assistants, what's going on over here? Who are these people? Why are they so sad? And the assistant said, I don't know, I'll go check it out. His assistant ran out and came back and said, oh, this is a Jewish town. And today is 9th of AV, the day of destruction of their temple. And they're mourning for the Temple. Napoleon was an educated person, but he didn't have much to do with Jews ever in his life till then. He knew about the Temple from his Biblical studies, but he did not know much about Jewish communal life and Jewish customs. So he right away said, the nation that remembers its temple for 2000 years is going to be an eternal nation. That's what Napoleon said back then. So we see that even non Jews were recognizing that the very fact that we are still mourning for the Temple is something positive. So it says. The Talmud says, interesting thing that we are now waiting for the building of the third Temple, right? That's what we are waiting for, when Sheikh Hakan will go all back to Israel. And that's when we're going to have our Jewish life just like it was in times of King Solomon. And even better. It says that when Mashiach will come, 9th of AV is going to be a day of great celebration. Why? If it's a day when so many bad things happen and the day when the temple was destroyed, why will it be a day of great celebration? Because when Mashiach will come, we will understand how the destruction of the first and second Temples was a pathway to building the third Temple. In other words, whenever you are working on things, you always have many setbacks. Sometimes these are very, very bad setbacks. They're very painful. And at the time when you are working on it, you see them as terrible things. And they are objectively terrible things. But then when you finish your project and you look back, you realize, oh, as a matter of fact, if not for these setbacks, chances are I wouldn't get to where I'm now. So you celebrate all these setbacks. As you know, very often in our lives, we, you know, they say Hindsight is always 2020. This is when it comes to things that we think we should have done. But then it also has another meaning, that the hindsight is always 20 20. Because in hindsight, we see very often how God has been leading us through our lives. And there are things which are very bad, very sad, and not only subjectively. From our perspective, they're sad. Even according to the Torah, they're sad. Destruction of a temple is a sad thing. According to the Torah, if somebody is going to be now celebrating the destruction of the Temple, you'll say, the guy is nuts. It'll be against the Torah to be happy on 9th of all because the temple was destroyed. But that's only now. We are supposed to mourn now, but when Mashiach will come, we will recognize it as something positive. And it says, when Mashiach will come, we will thank God for all of our sufferings.
[00:09:04] It says, I'll thank God for making me suffer. You'll think, how is it even possible? It's suffering. Well, today we cannot understand how we can possibly thank God for making us suffer. But when we will be looking at everything in retrospect, we will see how, if not for these setbacks, not for the suffering, we will not get to where we are. And this is why when Mashiach will come, 9th of AV is going to be a day of celebration. It's going to be a day of joy. And when Mashiach will come, says, generally, we will look back and you will see all the negative things that happened to our lives. We will recognize how actually these were all positive things. So this is why we just need to hold tight. Sad things are sad. Nobody's arguing with that. Sad things are really sad and painful things are really painful. And we are not allowed to celebrate these painful things. And we have to ask God not to give us painful things. But if they do happen, we have to just know that in long term, we're going to realize these are all good things. That's called faith. You have to have faith that all these things going to turn out to be good. Faith is one of the greatest challenges that everybody has. Religious, non religious believers, non believers, Orthodox, non orthodox, whatever it is. Faith is the greatest challenge for everyone. Why? Because we all want to live in a world of certainty. And my two video blogs, which I'm sure you watched, were specifically about faith and about what it requires to have faith. Faith is a great challenge and we need to work on it all the time and helps us in our lives.
