We now find ourselves during the three weeks between the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av, the period of time during which the holy city of Jerusalem was besieged by our enemies. During this time, we cry for the loss of our Holy Temple and our exile from the holy land. We must therefore ask: What is this sorrow all about? Why must we cry and grieve for the loss of the Bet Hamikdash?

There are indeed several reasons for this. Every Jewish person is obligated to mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of the Jewish nation, for any generation during which the Bet Hamikdash has not been rebuilt, it is considered as though it has been destroyed during that generation. Were the same reasons that caused the Bet Hamikdash to be destroyed so many years ago not present in our days, the Bet…