Dvar Torah for The Three Weeks

Based on Likutey Moharan II, Lesson #67

"Now that God is looking forward to return to us, it behooves to not prevent the building of the Holy Temple. Rather, we should put our efforts into building it. Therefore, one should make the effort to awake at midnight and lament the temple's destruction. Perhaps in his first incarnation he was the cause of its destruction. Even if not, perhaps he is now preventing its being built, which is tantamount to causing its destruction."

Even if you can't awake at midnight to express some sorrow for the absence of God's palace, you should at least set a time to reflect on the effects of God's seeming absence: war, poverty and disease, on a global scale, strife, want and dis-ease on a smaller scale. Since, as Rebbe Nachman says, He is waiting to return to us, we should be getting things ready.

This is in general Rebbe Nachman's approach to Judaism: be pro-active.
Don't just wait and anticipate Mashiach's arrival; do something to make it happen.

The essential cause of the destruction of the second Temple was baseless hatred. Are we still guilty of that? Is there any real reason to view the person next to us in the synagogue as a competitor rather than as a confederate? At the end of the day, he's a fellow Jew and your fate is inextricably bound with his. Let's make it peaceful and pleasant.

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!