Rabbi Chanan Gordon - 2025 Inspirational Tisha B'av Experience

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Chanan Gordon’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

you who were around 2,000 years ago. But for most of us it's very difficult to relate to not only the loss of the temple that stood in Jerusalem. But more importantly and what I would like to discuss to you guys today, what the symbolism and what the meaning of the loss of the temple really is. Because what I'm going to suggest is one of the main feelings, one of the points of suffering after the of the points of suffering after the loss of the temple we feel today in a very different way which can help us understand and really empathize with the magnitude of the loss. So if we think of trying to mourn a huge edifice, a huge building, it's very difficult to really it comes to terms of this being the saddest day of the the Jewish Canada. But what if I were to Jewish Canada. But what if I were to tell you that what we really are mourning is the loss of purpose and the loss of direction that the Jewish people had at the time. Allow me to explain. So at the time that the temple stood in Jerusalem, we had prophets. If anyone wanted to figure out whether they should go left and right, whether they should date this person or that person, pursue this vocation or another, they would simply go to a prophet who they would simply go to a prophet who was a divine GPS and they would direct you in the best possible next steps of your life. Tragically, when we lost the temple, prophecy ceased. People felt a sense of loss of direction. And the temple was a spiritual anchor. It was a reminder that we're in this world for a meaning, that there's a purpose. As Dr. Victor Frankl once said,

Jump to a moment

1. 0:31you who were around 2,000 years ago. But for most of us it's very difficult to…
2. 2:06they would simply go to a prophet who was a divine GPS and they would direct…
3. 4:41form of depression. Teenage suicides are spiking. And if you drill down and if you really…
4. 6:17greatest gift that any human being can be given. The biggest gift that God can bestow…
5. 8:22in the rough, the chosen people. You, my friend, as a Jew, a Jews listening to…
6. 9:56our exercise today. Look at people who are going through tough times. We all have around…
7. 11:57broken families. How incredible it is to have a nuclear family and to aspire to find…
8. 13:32It's caused every single excuse for people to live like automatons. If you take a Torah…
9. 15:38Very different to what we hear the pop culture streams spewing. It's not coming to us.…
10. 17:10Social media has caused nihilism caused millions of people to live lives of quiet desperation. I…

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