From Destruction to Connection: Rebuilding the Temple Within

Every breaking is a preparation for correction. There is no destruction in the world that does not give rise to the condition for a renewed and higher construction. All suffering, exiles, and losses are a call to the soul to reach an understanding, a request, and to draw nearer to life’s ultimate source.

Tisha B’Av, with all its intense sorrow, is the very day the Messiah is born, because from the feeling of having nothing—no connection, no taste in Torah and commandments, and no heart—there begins the search, the discovery of our true lack: the absence of connection with one another, the absence of a mutual heart that can host the spiritual quality of love, bestowal, and connection.

The Temple was destroyed because of unfounded hatred, and it will be rebuilt only through collective love. As long as we do not feel the depth of the shattering, we are not truly ready for correction. However, when we discover the separation, within us, between us, and between us and force of love and bestowal that we call “Nature,” “the Creator,” and “God,” then that is where the key lies.

We only need to understand what unity is, what we lack, and how to make a request that is not for ourselves, but for completing the missing connection between us. That is a complete prayer. When we ask for connection above the separation, there we discover the absolute loving, bestowing, and caring force of the Creator.

We are ready for this ascent. We have been through several destructions, and now we only need to want the end, the redemption, not for ourselves, but for the mutual collective connection of everyone together.

We need to recognize that all pain, chaos, and indifference in the world stem from the same destruction of connection between us, and from here, we should invite the construction: to ask for the loving, bestowing, and harmonious force of connection to emerge in our connections. By so doing, we will build the Third Temple in the connection of our hearts.