There was a summer camp that embarked on a special project with its campers.
From the first day of the season, the campers began building a detailed model of the Bais HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, which stood in Jerusalem.
Each bunk was given a particular job and as the weeks passed the edifice began to take shape. The campers were deeply invested in the project and took great pride in its construction.
Every day they saw it coming together.
Then, it was finally complete.
The campers stood in a circle around their model of the Temple.
They were so proud of every detail and oohed and aahed over the magnificent artistry.
The camp administrator had the whole piece brought to the pool and everyone stood around as the beautiful structure was mirrored in the water around it.
All of a sudden someone yelled
“Fire”.
Unbeknownst to them, the model had been set alight. And before their very eyes, the outcome of their efforts, the work they had done so laboriously, all went up in smoke.
The campers cried some bitter tears.
The day
Tisha BAv

This coming Monday night and Tuesday we are commemorating Tisha BAv, the ninth day of the month of Av, the day when both of the Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed.
Five hundred years apart.
But they both burned on the same day.
It’s hard to relate to something that happened so long ago.
To help us attain the proper somber mood, we curtail our activity during that time period. The custom is to fast, to refrain from eating and drinking and from pampering ourselves. We don’t wear leather shoes. And from the evening until midday on Tuesday we sit on low chairs as mourners do, because we are in mourning for a lost world. There is a legend that Napoleon Bonaparte was walking through a Jewish neighborhood in France. It was the night of Tisha BAv. He heard crying and wailing as he passed a synagogue. He noticed the people sitting on the floor and crying. He asked his Lieutenant to explain the scene. His adjutant shared that the Jews were lamenting the destruction of their Temple. Napoleon was aghast. He wanted to know how the Jewish Temple was destroyed on his watch. The Lieutenant quickly explained that this Temple had been destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, some 2000 years prior.
Napoleon was in shock.
He purportedly said
A nation that can mourn Jerusalem so long will have it restored to them.
In these days it is not hard for us to conjure up visions of death and destruction.
October 7 has many of the components that accompanied the pillage of Jerusalem.
Murder, rape, torture, abject destruction of humans, homes and communities.
We are still in shock. We still wail over the destruction.
But there has been so much written since then about breathtaking bravery, heart stopping courage, endless kindness and love which has sprouted in so many ways.
In every generation that the Temple lies in ruins we are complicit in its destruction.
The only way to rebuild it is to reverse the trend that initiated the tragedy.
We were complicit in baseless hatred of one another.
Now, all we can do is to keep living, supporting, uplifting and seeing one another.
That will bring redemption.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe would paint the picture of the destruction of the Temple. And then he would say if we were standing nearby and watching it burn, we would “overturn worlds” we would do anything in our power to stop it.
That is therefore our call to action.
When those campers saw the model they worked in go up in flames, for the first time they were able to personally relate to the tragedy.
For us, October 7 is destruction in real time.
And the antidote, the love and bravery we have been witness to, that the world has been exposed to when we hear of an Ethiopian soldier running 8 miles to the battlefield to help save his brethren.
We must find our own battlefields and prevail with kindness and compassion.
It can happen.
In the blink of an eye.
There is a custom not to buy the books of lamentations used in the service of Tisha BAv much in advance.
We hope against hope we won’t need them this year after all.
We are a people of eternal hope.
May this Tisha BAv be a day of redemption and celebration.
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!