17 Tammuz / Balak - Building the Third Temple

At the end of parshas Balak the Moabite women physically seduce the Israelite men for the purpose of inducing them to serve idolatry. The scheme is to use this as a vehicle to bringing him to worship the Moabite idol, Baal-peor. The plan has a degree of success including a spectacular one with Zimri, a prince of the tribe of Shimon, accepting the offer of Cozbi, a Midianite princess. Zimri is particularly brazen and publicly flaunts the girl in the presence of Moshe and Aharon. In the end he is impaled by a religious zealot. HaKadosh Baruch Hu kills 24,000 Israelites in a plague and also requires Israel to annihilate Midian.

The Gemara in tractate Yoma 9b discusses the destruction of the first and second Temples. It reckons gratuitous hatred as cause of the destruction of the second temple. The first temple was destroyed because of idol worship, forbidden sexual relations and bloodshed. Bloodshed is considered a variant of arrogance. These are the characteristics seen in the incident with the Midianite women, particularly with Zimri. This is the seed of the destruction of the Temple.

The Mishna in Ta’anit 4:6 states, five [calamitous] events happened to our ancestors on the 17th of Tamuz, and five on the 9th of Ab. On the 17th of Tamuz, the tablets, on which the Ten Commandments were written, were broken; the daily sacrifice was stopped; the walls of Jerusalem were breached; Opostamos burnt a sefer Torah; and an idol was set up in the in the Holy Temple. On the 9th of Ab, it was decreed that our ancestors would not enter the Holy Land; the first and second Temples were destroyed; the city of Bethar was vanquished; and Jerusalem was levelled.

The prophet Haggai deals with the construction of the second temple. He lived during the reign of Darius the king of Persia. At that time the Jews had returned to the holy land. They had started to rebuild the Temple but the work often was stalled. The word of Hashem was with the prophet to say, Is now the time to sit in your tranquil homes, and this house is in ruins. HaKadosh Baruch Hu continues that the people work hard but achieve little. Even the work they do on the temple, he scorns. This is because while His house is in ruins, everybody is running to their own house (see Haggai 1:3-4). This hints at making a fetish of their own home, exaggerating the importance of a man's own domain, and chasing after lust. In addition religion is a low priority. In other words there is a residual amount remaining of the lust, arrogance, and idolatry of Zimri and Cozbi and a little bit of the scorn of Hashem of the spies. Nevertheless the generation of Ezra is a good one and they do build the second temple.

The destruction of the Temple is associated with all of the suffering of Israel. For this reason the ninth of Av is a day of mourning for all of the tragedies that have fallen on the Jewish people stretching from ancient times to the present day. The Jerusalem Talmud (see Brachot 2:4) says that the Messiah will be born on the Ninth of Av. Therefore the day has aspects of a festival and is associated with the building of the third temple. And construction of the third Temple is associated with a rectification of all of the problems in Israel and the beginning of a new era of peace on earth and good will to man.

לע"נ  האמא מלכה בת חיים ז"ל נלב"ע טז ניסן תשנ"ח

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