Crying for Moshiach

A story is told of a mother whose life was threatened during childbirth; her unborn child's life was threatened as well.

The Doctor said that he couldn't save both; it will have to be either the Mother or the baby.

The Mother decided that she would give up her life for her baby.

And so it was, the Doctor saved the baby and the Mother passed away. The baby was a boy and years passed and it was the day of his Bar-Mitzvah. His father took him to the Kever of his mother so that he could daven.

It was emotional for his father but the child was unemotional and passive. He didn't cry and he wanted to leave quickly so that he could get on with the Bar-Mitzvah celebrations.

After they left, his father turned to him and said, "How could you not cry, this was your Mother and she gave up her life for you!"

If we don't make an effort to concentrate on the loss of the Bais HaMikdash we are as unemotional as this son!

Hashem destroyed his Bais HaMikdash in order to spare us! He took out His wrath on wood and stone rather than annihilate the Jewish people! How can we not cry over it?

Do we begin to understand what we are crying about? Why we should cry? We need to spend some time, now during the nine days, to think about what we are missing! We are missing that unbelievable clarity and closeness to Hashem that existed during that time! We are so far away, so distant and want to be so close...

So spend some time during the next week thinking about why you want moshiach to come and then daven hard for it...because we need him badly!!