It’s Tisha B’Av and we’re not learning just any Torah today – but we have a special Tuesday TorahTutors tidbit in the spirit of the day. Real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions.
It’s hard to mourn the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash without learning about it. What is it that we’re missing?
A TorahTutors student learned various mitzvot related to what is sometimes called the Beit Habechira, translated by some as “the Select House” or “the Choice House” because of how it’s described in the Torah: “Be careful not to offer your offerings in any place you see; rather, in the place that God will choose…there you shall offer your offerings…” (Devarim 12:13-14).
The Sefer Hachinuch notes that these lines include both a negative and a positive commandment: don’t bring sacrifices anywhere other than the place God chooses (mitzvah #439); do bring sacrifices in the place He chooses (mitzvah #440).
Which means that however we understand the meaning of the sacrificial service, perhaps as a show of devotion or as a demonstration of committing our full bodies (represented by the body of the animal) to serving God, it is something God commanded that we are currently unable to do.
This is just one of many reasons to mourn on Tisha B’Av: we are missing the opportunity to do all the mitzvos that can only be done in the Beit Hamikdash, in the place that God chose. While we might say we are doing a fine job of observing the negative commandment, as we do not perform the sacrificial service outside the Temple that we don’t have – we feel the pain of being unable to observe the positive side.
Of course, as we mourn what we are missing, we also begin to move to thinking about what we still have. Can we find ways to achieve similar goals while we await Mashiach and the restoration of the Temple?
How do we exhibit devotion to God, to mitzvot, to our Jewish brothers and sisters, in daily life even today?
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We at TorahTutors.org wish all our students, teachers, and friends a safe and meaningful Tisha B’av and a renewed commitment to Jewish life, study, and connection with whatever means are available to us today.
And we pray for a speedy resolution to our current conflicts that will provide the safety and security to pursue those goals in peace.
