I sobbed tonight

Sitting on the hard, cold floor of my shul tonight, I cried. Reading the lamentations of Yirmeyahu and thinking about the words, thinking about the painful events in my own life, and thinking about everything that we have suffered and all the problems we face today as a human race and as a Jewish People really impacted me.

Thinking about the kedoshim who perished in Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen Belsen, my own ancestors (who suffered famine and enslavement at the hands of the British, expulsion at the hands of Italian viceroys, and who were tortured by the Spanish monarchy, the Catholic Church, and faced pogroms at the hands of Arab Muslims), victims of Arab terror in Israel, all the Jews who were assaulted and insulted and attacked merely for being Jews, and thinking about the fragmented, evil, and corrupt nature of mankind in a world without Redemption (racism, murders, hunger, poverty, lack of opportunity, disease, corruption, broken hearted people, betrayed people, people being hurt by others, etc.) just increases my resolve to strengthen myself in those areas where I’ve been lacking (being kind and respectful to those whose views I disagree with, treating my parents with more respect, not speaking lashon hara, etc.)

May those of us who mourn the loss of Yerushalayim (which is the epitome and embodiment of perfection, wholeness, and shalom) and lament the fractured nature of our world merit the rebuilding of G-d’s Holy City, the reconciliation of all to G-d’s will, and a world without pain, hatred, and our many forms of idolatry.