Bein HaMetzarim – Building your own Bays HaMikdosh

Bein HaMetzarim – Building your own Bays HaMikdosh

In our previous shiur, we learned that the main way we relate to the world is built on yiras shomayim. In a practical way, yiras shomayim means that our avodah is important. In the words of the Nefesh Hachaim, our avodah is a huge responsibility with extreme importance. The nature of an important endeavor is that it necessitates multiple ways of doing the task. There isn’t just one way to daven. Sometimes you need to daven one way, other times, you have to change methods and attack the responsibility from a different angle. It’s not just about doing it better or worse. It is about relating its importance and doing it differently.

We would like to build on this concept and add an element for the Three Weeks and our avodah during this period. There is always a struggle with the required avodah for us in The Three Weeks. The aspect of aveilus is somewhat foreign to us and is difficult for us to act upon properly. There is, however, another approach that can be very practical for us.

There is an intriguing chazal that says, צדיקים ממונם חביב עליהם יותר מגופם – tzadikim cherish their monetary possessions more than their bodies. At the outset, this is hard to understand. Certainly, chazal are not trying to attach the lowly middah of chemdas mamon – the lust for money – to tzadikim. Included in the definition of a tzadik is someone whose priority is avodas Hashem, so the description of ממונם חביב עליהם יותר מגופם must also be connected to their avodah. Understanding that, we must reframe the question: Where is it true that the connections with one’s money is better for his avodas Hashem than the connection to his body?

While this is not a full treatment of the chazal, a partial explanation is as follows: A person can never rely on his body regarding avodas Hashem, because the Borei Olam created the human being as a 50-50 blend of ruchnius and gashmius, ensuring a built in proclivity away from pure ruchnius. A person is a bocher and is always standing in between two choices. A person’s body is a major player in this outer world, and therefore cannot be trusted to guide him towards avodah. 

One’s monetary possessions, however, can be relied upon. Meaning, one can create a world around himself which demands avodah. While there is always bechira in the person, his world doesn’t have bechira. He can input certain ingredients which demand avodah into his surroundings upon which he can rely. 

צדיקים ממונם חביב עליהם יותר מגופם because they use their money to create external circumstances which are machriach – demand – avodas Hashem. 

The Beis Hamikdash was exactly this kind of place. Entering the Beis Hamikdash did not elevate one’s personal bechira. Rather, the whole experience was one that spoke of avodah. The entire place spoke of shaychus to the Borei Olam. One saw only korbanos, avodah, nissim geluyim! It was impossible not to be part of avodas Hashem in the Beis Hamikdash. The experience of being in the Beis Hamikdash was described as שואבים רוח הקודש – drawing from the ruach hakodesh that was extant throughout.

When the visitor to the Beis Hamikdash went home, his surroundings did not speak of kedushah the same way, but when he was in the Beis Hamikdash, he lived in a world which compelled avodas Hashem. We lack the understanding of that kind of world – a world without tumah, a world with nissim geluyim, but we can relate to the general concept that the Beis Hamikdash was a place in which the clear message of the world around us obligated avodas Hashem.

In our own lives, we can work with this idea, and create a place around us which forces us towards avodah. In that way we can “build our own Beis Hamikdash” without the esoteric wanderings of deveikus and spirituality that the thought conjures. We can work on this in a way that is simple, real, and very practical, by creating a world which communicates avodah.

The yiras shomayim we discussed previously found expression in the importance with which we approached our endeavors of avodas Hashem. Here, that importance is manifest in the world we create around us which draws us forcibly toward avodas Hashem.

The Beis Hamikdash we are building in our lives can lead us to all different kinds of avodah. Bein adam l’chaveiro, tefillah, learning, etc. To illustrate how this works in the area of bein adam l’chaveiro, I will give an example from my life. During the Covid lockdown, when everyone in the house seemed to be able to get lost in their own little world with their own pursuits, my wife and I designated 11:30 in the morning to have a coffee together. This daily routine included going through the entire coffee-making production together. We would grind the beans, froth the milk, pour it into specific cups, and then spend time drinking it slowly and enjoying it. We did not do this because we craved the perfect cup of coffee. Rather, it was a way to create a pattern in which the natural order of things was to be together, talk, and share with one another. The routine automatically lent itself to bein adam l’chaveiro. (It would be quite awkward to go through these motions each day without talking!) My world now contains a framework of bein adam l’chaveiro in its very nature.

It is important to distinguish this from the more shallow concept known as “quality time.” When people think of quality time, an artificial setting comes to mind. They expect to close the curtains, turn off the phone, perhaps light some candles, and with that backdrop, spend time together. In essence, they are not bringing bein adam l’chaveiro into their actual world, instead they are escaping the real world for a cocoon that avoids reality. We need to be careful that it is our real world, the environment in which we live, that directs us toward avodas Hashem. In the example above, the phones are on and life is normal, but added to that normalcy is a direct flow of movement towards the endeavor of bein adam l’chaveiro. 

We need to make sure that we do not see the world merely as an “opportunity” for avodas Hashem. Viewing it that way means that avodah is subjective to your taking advantage of the opportunities. When the opportunity is there, you may do it, when it isn’t, you won’t. That isn’t yiras shomayim. That isn’t an endeavor of great importance. Building in the time for the coffee, for example, is not an opportunity to talk together, of which we might take advantage. Rather it is the creation of a part of our world that simply enforces bein adam l’chaveiro in our life. So much so, that it is unnatural not to talk and connect at that time!

Comparing this to the Beis Hamikdash is helpful. When one goes into the Beis Hamikdash, there is no choice but to think about, or bring korbanos. One cannot have the wrong machshavos there, and upon hearing the Shem Hashem, there is no room for anything other than being mishtachaveh! The Beis Hamikdash is a reality that does not rely on your decision. When the Beis Hamikdash you build in your life points you to bein adam l’chaveiro, that pursuit is no longer dependent on your choice. It is not waiting for you to remember the other one and decide to engage with them. Your world in its natural state demands this avodah! 

We can apply this to tefilla as well. Davening shemoneh esrei is extremely challenging. It requires standing in front of the Borei Olam, while forcing ourselves to concentrate on every word we say. We try to force kavanah, but the olam hamaaseh in shemoneh esrei seems to be entirely disconnected from our avodah!

We’ve previously discussed a method of davening in which you point to the words in the siddur, and let that guide your speech. However strange it sounds, if you do this, you will discover that it is practically impossible for your mind to wander the way it so often does. This isn’t an easy task, and it makes sense to start with just the first beracha before attempting the entire shemoneh esrei, but the simple act of pointing to the words before uttering any of them will be machriach your kavanah!

In contrast to seeing the world as an opportunity for avodah, you have created a Beis Hamikdash in your own world in which kavanah is the most obvious and natural result. Take for example, the person who likes to daven, and davens a long shemoneh esrei but always misses kedushah. He is disconnected from the tzibbur he is trying to daven with. Or we can look at the person who enjoys learning. He finishes his shemoneh esrei on time but gets involved in a sefer and misses out on the tefilla going on around him. These are people who look for opportunities, not for hechrech. They go for their own satisfaction in avodah, not for what is actually demanded of them. When we observe a person putting on tefillin, and right after wrapping the retzuos on his arm, he counts to make sure it was indeed seven rotations, we know that tefillin isn’t seen as an important function for him. Anything that is truly taken seriously will be done with intent and focus the first time!

When we apply this to learning, we find that there is a clear difference between learning in a way that focuses on our geshmak, and setting ourselves up to learn in a way that demands our work. It might be geshmak to sit back and comfortably listen to a shiur from an adam gadol with a recorder capturing each word, but there is no demand for your relentless concentration and hard work. The serious and important endeavor of learning must demand our attention and effort, and we can create a world in which this is the unceasing reality. 

We see that in all areas of avodas Hashem, we can and must build our own Beis Hamikdash that is machriach greater and more elevated avodah. There are endless areas for us to do this. It can be bein adam l’chaveiro, it can be in davening, it can be in learning, tefillin, kaddish, etc.! This is of particular significance in these Three Weeks, where our avodah is to connect to the Beis Hamikdash that once was. The Beis Hamikdash that we lost was an absolute and all-encompassing expression of kedusha and avodas Hashem. We might not be able to replicate that, but we can begin to build our own Beis Hamikdash in which we experience the reality of natural and absolute avodah in our own lives.

Prepared for publication by Rabbi Moshe Sonnenschein