As Tisha B'Av draws to a close and we continue thinking of the Beis HaMikdash, an interesting teaching is worth sharing from one of the Kinnos.
In the commentary to Kinnah 25, we read that after the Holocaust, many began to search for an appropriate day to remember what had transpired. They approached certain leading Torah leaders and the response from the Brisker Rav, Rav Yitzhak Zev Soloveitchik, was that the answer lies in this Kinnah.
As it reads:
"Please take your hearts to compose a bitter eulogy
because their massacre is deservant of mourning and rolling in dust
as was the burning of the House of G-d, it's Hall and it's Palace.
However, we cannot add a (new) day of mourning over ruin and conflagration
nor may we mourn any earlier - only later. Instead today, on Tisha B'Av, I will eulogize and wait and weep with a bitter soul
and my groans are heavy from morning until evening."
Hence the message is clear that there are no NEW tragedies for the Jewish people. Everything that has occured since the destruction of our precious Temple is a result of the loss of the Beis HaMikdash. For this reason, any other tragedy that has occured since the destructin of the Beis HaMikdash is ALL remembered and mourned or cried about on Tisha B'Av.
The Kinnah also addresses another major question. Why does exile continue? The answer given is that Jews are comfortable in their new adopted lands and reluctant to return to our precious Land of Israel, concerned for hardships and poverty in Israel. Slowly the Jew has stopped to identify with his true home, but finds comfort and excuses to remain wherever he has been exiled to.
--- Teaching found in the Artscroll version of the Tisha B'Av service
Enough Exile. Enough living without our Beis HaMikdash. Come home Yidden. Come home and together let us find a way to rebuild Eretz Yisrael, all of it. And through our dedication to our precious land may we be deserving of the final Beis HaMikdash in all its glory, bringing peace and blessing to the whole world.
