We are the tefillin of Hashem.
One of the reasons for churban was bitul Torah. Learning Torah is a precursor to geula. Moshe rabeinu will not allow moshiach come to a bunch of am ha’aratzim. Geula will come when we re all oseik bTorah.
Devorah ha neviah was shown how the geula will look - people will learn Torah every day - either in beis medrash or beis kenneset. Sitting together larning Torah will bring the geula!
taz was son in law of bach.
bach prmised him meat every week, he was poor and he could only affrd lungs.
taz took him to a din torah - he’s not sure if lungs = meat. Bais din paskined yes.
why did he takehim to a din torah?
he knew his torah was suffering compared to his eating read red meat ion the tiniest fashion. He wanted to make sure there would be no t’via on his father in law in shamayim for that bitul Torah.
R’ Elya Lopia said in name of Alter - it’s kedai the entire briya that one person one time should say baruc hoo uvaruch shemo. And 1000 bhub’s isn’t worth one amen. And 1000 amens isn’t worth one yeheio shmei rabbah. And 1000 ys’r isn’t worth one word of Torah.
menashe was the politician, efraim was the scholar. We bless our children - be like efraim and menashe - we bless they should be full of Torah first.
They lo barchu baTorah techilla. They blessed children with gashmius first. We don’t have to make a new bracha every time we learn - just once a day, because we’re always involved in Torah - even when we step away from oiur books.
they had a hesech hdaas between learning with inyanei olam hazeh. Learning like that requires a brocho each time.
Learning when it’s hard makes it worth much more.
Government only had a zechus because they supported Torah learning. moshe Dayan was in support of yeshiva bachurim NOT being drafted. He said whe i was a boy i read poetry of bialik of yeshiva bochurim that the masmid is the strongest rock of klal yisroel. And i don’t want to push away that strong rock for klal yisroel,
when you aren’t machshiv torah you can be frum but cause churban. When you are machshiv torah you can be an apikores but still build klal yisroel.
limud hatorah is the koach of klal yisroel.
bayis shaini had apikorsim. The kapparah for that is esek batorah.
If you learn torah lishma you’ll have no problem quoting the source and saying bsheim omro. And that brings geula l’olam.
And learning has to be learning the pnimiyos of Torah - not just a mitzvah here, a mitzvah there.
Story of professor bertrand russel who taught ethics but was unethical. I’m not a triangle and i can still teach geometry. I don’t have to be what i teach, i just have to teach it. Character does not detract from chachma, that’s chachma. Not Torah.
if it doesn’t make a impession on you - it’s just stage fire, you’re not learning Torah.
you can listen l’kol Hashem without listening to b’kol Hashem.
you have to listen into the mitzvos.
shabbos is supposed to teach me about the way the world works and the ratzon of Hashem.

Story of rav shraga feivel mendlowitz who came home with a baal habas friday night and the house wasnt in order and the challah was uncovered.
Don’t you know you have to cover the challah?!
Most absurd - one of the reasons to cover the challah is to not ‘embarrass’ the challah.
He got the halacha down right - but he was missing the penimiyos hadavar. He didn’t get the point.
There’s another braisa - elu devarim shadam neenash aleheim baolam hazeh v keren kayemes lola haba - a’z g’a sh’d and loshon hara kenegged kulam,
talmid torah and loshon hara are at two ends of the spectrum.
Chaburah of kenayim who would learn to fill the void when the movie-house in geula would show the feature shows.
we need more kanayim like that.
Rav shach - how can i eat breakfast with an appetitte when there are a milliom yiddeshe kinderlach in eretz yisroel being picked up at this hour to go to learn kefira.
There’s no shortcuts. If you look for segulas and shortcuts - you’re not really machshiv Torah.(guess we hjave to do the 4th and 5th perakim after all). But if you are machshiv torah you will bring the geula.
Yaakov avinu fought with the yetzer hara who saw bacharis hayamim he would not be able to defeat those who learn tora bhasmada. So he hit him in thethigh - the place of support - the tomcheio Torah.
In order for tzedkah to bring geula it has to be money gotten bmishpat.
The government is losing its zechus kiyum - moshiach is going to come either in the zechus of those who are still learning bdocheik or in zechus of the tomche Torah.

Most fast days are for crying out and selichos. Today we only have selichos.
Today is the beginning thefoundation of teshuva. Hakaras hacheit. That’s the yesod of aveilos. I can’t go on business as usual i have to stop and think and recognize what I’m missing. On 9 Bav aveilos is backwards. Normally shiva starts intensely, by the end is a little less, then 30 then 12. We should have started ,ourning on 9 av and then had nine days and then bein hametzarim. Why is it inverted? Because regular aveilus hits someone like a ton of bricks, and chaza wanted people to be able to ease back into life again. Here it’s impossible to arrive at 9 bav andfeel like meiso mutal lifanav without extreme preparation.
rambam - the difference between now and yemos hamoshiach is only shibud hamalchios. Also he says they’ll be no sickness no hatred no suffering no poverty - sound supernatural. Rambam means that we’re used to a handicapped world and the natural world as it’s supposed to be seems to be supernatural.
motions create emotions.
first stop dancing listening to music harcuts shaving, then no meat no wine bathing clothes… Erev tisha bav - finally now you have a CHANCE to maybe feel that something’s missing.
zoche vroeh bbinyan yerushalayim. Roeh doesnt necessarily meam to see with your eyes. Roeh ani as divrei.... It means to understand. Kol hamisabel al yerushalyim will be zoche tp understand and see what’s missing and what the simcha could be in the future. And that’ the moed of 9 bav. Kinnos = kiton - a flask. Full of tears. Crying like a tinnok - he knows he’s missing something (cold wet tired) - he can’t articulate the issue but he knows that if he cries loud enough, someone who cares will come and know what the problem is and fix it.
Through aveilos we become more spiritual. Rashba - part of aveilus is to feel the tzaar of the neshama being pulled away from the gashmius of this world.
First three days the neshama is bewildered - goes from house to kever back ad forth. Next four days less confused. Next 30 less. Next 12 finally gets settled. So the aveilim also discomfort themselves in the same order to be able to feel the tzaar of the neshama. We remove our connection to some extent from the gashmius of this world.
There’s currently a real beis haikdash - lemaala. If you can connect to that - become senstivie to the spritual world - by not being involved in olam haze. Just like an aveil is sensitive to the neshama we can become sensitive to the tzaar of the neshama of the olam - the ribono shel olam. How hated are we in this world. And yet we should be emissaries of Hashem. How much pain it must cause Him to see how we are treated.
Mishna in taanis says never made a full day taanis on sunday because it’s pikuach nefesh to go from shabbos straight into a full day taanis. That was referring to zman hamikdash. Shabos was like mamesh mein olam haba. To go from that to a taanis would be a sakana. But our kind of shabbos… No problem.
Mabit says we used to only had one day of fast - yom kippur. It inspires you to do teshuva. It’s like a day in gan eden. No eating - you’re full from yesterday. - you’re separate from this world - and you enter like a angel in white into olam haba for a day. Everyone is friendly there’s achdus - you feel pure you understand what a completee world is like. When you go through that - you have an incentive to do teshuva the rest of the year - to get back to that point. You felt that whe there was a beis haikdash. After the churban shabbos is diminished shabbos shabbason too. It’s a shadow of what yk once was. It was a room of dazzling light. 
After churban, yk is no longer dazzling. So in order to be dazzled, you need to first go into a pitch black cellar for a few hours. First go spend a day in gehinom. No torah no shalom. 21 days (3*7) chazakah of a full unit of time to get ready - now another 21 days to prepare for elul. Elul starts the process of preparing for yk.
sain kinnos today is a preparation tha our yk can really be a day of teshuva.
Further - When you really recognize what’s missing - you beegin to really want to replace them,
and Hashem doesnt do until we’ve done our best. You have to show Hashem you want Geula. And there are mitzvos that are mekareiv the geula. We’ll speak about nine of them. Just making up your mind to do them is like you’ve done them.

Vhaareinu bvinyana. Enlighten us to understand what we can do that will lead to binyan beis hamikdash. The keitz is very close - we only need a little bit of avodah. - chofetz chaim

Roui lchol yirei samayim lhisabel al beis haikdash. Says chidushei haRim - because if you’re not a yirei shamayim you need to first mourn the personal churban you have of nwing empty.

Every tzara is a result of the churban. If we had a bm we wouldn’t see this world as normal. There’s hatred, sickness, early death, horrific accidents, jewish soldiers wounded and killed, parents of gilad, held by animals - worse than animals.
that’s churban. It’s very personal. It’s even the little things - that’s chuban.
(when your cients don’t pay - when your renters don’t leave - that’s churban)
this is a shabbos - a shavas from simcha - a chance to see whats really missing.

Yaeli Learns about Teshuva, and has two important questions?

Yaeli: So Hashem takes my Aveiros and throws them in the garbage?
Abba: Yes.
Y: How does he know what my Averios are?
A: Hashem can see everything.
Y: Everything? (eyes widen) Even what’s in my pockets?!

I don’t know what she’s hiding, but at least now I know where she’s hiding it!

So today we made a siyum.
Finished Mesechta Gittin, my chavrusah and I, yup.
We’ve been learning almost a year now.
So we had a BBQ at our house, and invited a bunch of friends.
You’re invited next time

Binyamin loved it - just take a gander at these pics :