Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Mourning the Bais HaMikdash

I saw a mashal in "Achas Sha'alti" this morning that left me shaking.  Imagine an older couple who, after years of trying, are now expecting their first child.  Just before the child is due, the doctor comes to the parents with devastating news, "The child is in distress and is putting the mother's life at risk.  I can save one or the other, but not both."  The father doesn't know what to say, but the mother does.  "I have lived my life to produce this child and you must save him.  That will give my life meaning, and also my son will grow up to learn torah in my z'chus and say kaddish for me."  The child is born with medical issues, but alive.  The mother, as predicted, does not survive.  The father has to send the boy away to be raised in a proper environment while he works day and night to pay for the ongoing medical bills and care.  As the boy grows, he remains in poor health and even engages in behaviors that worsen his condition and increase the burden on his father.  The boy is not so interested in learning or davening.  He gets to shul late, davens as fast as possible, and on the mother's yahrtzeit mumbles his way through kaddish and then rushes out to play with his friends.  When the boy's caregiver (a close friend of the father) says something, the boy gets indignant.  "I know nothing of this mother you talk about!  Where has she been all my life?  Dead!  How am I supposed to care about a woman I never met?  And my father?  I barely know him and I don't really care that much.  I have my own life and concerns, they should be happy I remember her once a year at all."

"Ko amar HaShem: B'ni b'chori yisrael" -- Thus says HaShem, Yisrael is My precious only son. (Shmos 4:23, see Rashi there).  Because of our sins, the Bais HaMikdash was destroyed and the Sh'china was banished so that we could live.  Her yahrtzeit is coming.
Labels:

Comments

Binyomin Adler said…
powerful!
6:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more