And in תשעה באב. But the question is, what is there to understand? It's a simple thing. There's Yeah, it's a simple thing. We all know that תשעה באב is the day that the בית המקדש was destroyed, the day that the גוים put the בית המקדש on fire, and it burnt and destroyed, and that led the יידן into גלות, into exile, and every year, when this day comes around, we again remember the the destruction of the בית המקדש, we again remember that we're in גלות, and that's why we fast on תשעה באב, because it's a very, very sad day, and this is what תשעה באב is all about. So, there is not really much we might think to understand about תשעה באב. But the truth is that everything has two sides, and everything you could look at the positive side. Even though this is definitely a negative thing, תשעה באב is a day when something terrible, negative happened, but nevertheless, there is always a way to look at everything on the bright side. And especially when you come from the perspective of the way חסידות looks at things, קבלה looks at things, they always try to work out in every negative thing, so to speak, to look at it from the bright side, because, generally speaking, this is the whole approach of חסידות, looking trying to look at things more in a bright way rather than in a sad way. We know there is the general difference between the שיטה of מוסר and the שיטה of חסידות, that the דרך, the way, the direction of מוסר and the direction of חסידות. The direction of מוסר is always trying to show a person how terrible it is if you do an עבירה, and what punishments השם will give, and all the terrible things that might happen. And that does awaken a person to become better, because when you realize how terrible things are if you don't act the way you're supposed to, then you want to be better. But חסידות tries to do things differently. They try to show how good it is to be on the good side, and automatically you want to be good. There's a famous משל given, brought down in ספרים, and actually, I think in some secular books they also have this משל, that there was once an argument between the sun and the wind. There was a person walking in the street, wearing a coat, and there was an argument who could make the person take the coat off, how could they get the coat off first. So the wind said, \"I could,\" and the sun said, \"I could better.\" So the wind started blowing, and as he started blowing, the coat started falling off, so what the person did, he buttoned himself up. So he started blowing stronger, and the coat started falling off, so he put on a belt, and it started blowing stronger, so he held his hands, and the wind couldn't get the coat off. Then the sun says to the wind, \"Now watch.\" He came out and started shining, and as he started shining, the person took off the coat all by himself. When you shine, when you show the bright side, then you have an effect much faster. When you show the negative side, the dark side, usually there is a fight between the person trying to fight it, but when you show the bright side, every person likes it, and that automatically has an effect on the person. Therefore, we always try to look at the bright side of things, even though some things are definitely negative and dark, but we try to find the bright part of it. The same applies to תשעה באב. We find in a lot of different things that the the negative things, the dark things, are actually looked upon in a positive way. There are a lot of פסוקים in the תורה that seem to be saying something negative, and many ספרים, and especially חסידישע ספרים, try to show that there could be a positive meaning in the פסוק. And just to use as an example, there's a פסוק that says that the time will come when things will be bad, ואפו עשר נשים לחמכם בתנור אחד, that ten women are going to have to share one oven and bake their bread in one oven, and that's a terrible thing. It's one of the curses that ten women will have to share an oven. So it says in ספרים that there is a another פשט here. עשר נשים, ten women, refers to the ten attributes a person has. Every person, as it says in different ספרים, has within himself ten attributes: three parts of the intellect, seven parts of the emotion. And what the פסוק says that they will all be baked in the oven of אחד. אחד is השם אחד, השם is one. You could have your attributes, and they not not necessarily are connected to השם אחד, or השם, one, that is one. So the פסוק says, even though it seems to be a curse, it's a blessing, it's a blessing in disguise that all your parts, all the ten attributes, will be baked in a תנור, in the oven of אחד. There's a פסוק in איכה. איכה, which is what we read on תשעה באב, the part that describes the destruction of the בית המקדש, so one of the פסוק פסוקים there, it says, גלתה יהודה, that יהודה went to גלות, went to exile. The word גלתה also comes from the word גילוי. גילוי means revelation, and the translation would be גלתה יהודה, there is a revelation of what יהודה stands for. The three weeks when we commemorate the destruction of the בית המקדש and the גלות as a whole is referred to as בין המצרים. It's taken from איכה, the expression בין המצרים, which means between the boundaries. So it also says in ספרים that the word מצר reminds us of another פסוק: מן המצר קראתי קה, ענני במרחב קה, which means we call out to השם from a narrow area, but השם answers us from a wide area, במרחב. So בין המצרים also has a hint to the calling out השם מן המצר and השם answering us במרחב. But anyway, getting back to the point, what I'm trying to say is that we have to look at the bright side of תשעה באב. And someone might ask: How can we say that תשעה באב contains a bright side? The חורבן בית המקדש, the destruction of the בית המקדש, Jews going into גלות, and we say here that there is a bright side to תשעה באב? What could be the bright side of תשעה באב?

But the truth is, even if we look into the הלכה of תשעה באב, there's an interesting הלכה. On תשעה באב, we don't say תחנון. תחנון is what we say after שמונה עשרה, when we say אשמנו, בגדנו, this is confession for our sins. And this is a prayer that's only said on regular days. Any day that has any type of holiday, not even a major holiday, even the minor holidays, like חמישה עשר בשבט, it's not a major holiday, since it's a type of holiday, it's a special happy day, we don't say תחנון. On תשעה באב, we don't say תחנון. And the reason, it says, is because תשעה באב is referred to in איכה as a מועד, as a יום טוב. What kind of יום טוב is תשעה באב? What kind of holiday is תשעה באב? תשעה באב is a sad day, it's not a holiday! But we say it's a יום טוב. One of the things it says, why is it a יום טוב, because משיח was born on תשעה באב, which in itself needs explanation, what does that mean? It's taken from a מדרש. Says in מדרש that there was a ייד who lived very far away from ירושלים, so he wasn't aware of what was going on in ירושלים. He had a neighbor, a גוי, ערבי, an Arab, and this Arab understood the language of the animals. So one day, he was standing outside next to the Arab, and his cow made a noise, mooed. So he turns around to his friend the Arab, he says, \"What did the cow say?\" So he says, \"The cow said that your בית המקדש in ירושלים is being burned now.\" Cuz on תשעה באב is when it was burned. And then a moment later, the cow mooed again, and he said to the cow, געה הפרה, the cow של של של ערבי mooed and made noise, so he asked him, \"What did the cow say?\" \"נולד משיחן של ישראל, that the savior of יידן is born now.\" And because we look at it as a day that משיח was born, it's a happy day also, it's a day that we don't say תחנון. There's another reason it says why we don't say תחנון on תשעה באב, because the fact that השם destroyed the בית המקדש, that saved the Jewish nation from being destroyed. השם was angry at us, and therefore He let out His anger. If He wouldn't let out His anger, so to speak, on the building, on destroying the building, He would have let out His anger, חס ושלום, on the Jews. There's a פסוק that says כלה חמתו, He let His anger out, and the חז״ל tell us כלה חמתו על העצים ועל האבנים, He let his anger out on the wood, on the rocks. And that saved us. Just like בגשמיות we always refer to these things as a גשמיותדיק thing, even though השם is not physical, but we use a משל, physical משל. Sometimes a person is angry, so in order to prevent himself from punching someone in the face, he'll go over to the wall and punch the wall so you make sure you don't hurt somebody else. So השם let His anger out on the בית המקדש, and that saved us. And that's a good thing, that's something positive that happened, and that's one of the reasons why it's called a יום טוב. But the truth is it has to be more than that, because then it's not something positive, it's just that it could have been worse. It's definitely negative, something bad that happened, השם destroyed the בית המקדש, but since it could have been worse, He could have destroyed us, and since He didn't, then there is it's not 100% negative. But that's not enough to turn תשעה באב into a יום טוב. And nevertheless, the הלכה says that תשעה באב is a day we don't say תחנון, and it's called a מועד. And for that reason, the second half of the day we don't sit on a low chair. תשעה באב we're supposed to sit on the floor like an אבל, but on the second half of the day we sit on a chair already because it's also a יום טוב. But what is the יום טוב in תשעה באב? That's really what we have to understand. There must be more than just השם could have made it worse and He didn't. There must be more to תשעה באב in a positive vein, looking at it from the bright side.

There's another thing: חז״ל tell us that when משיח will come, תשעה באב will be the biggest יום טוב of the year. And when we stop to think, we have to understand why. Why will תשעה באב be a יום טוב? What's so special about תשעה באב? If we say that when משיח will come and will rebuild the בית המקדש, תשעה באב will not be a fast day anymore, it won't be a sad day anymore, that makes sense, because there will be nothing to be sad about. We'll have the בית המקדש back, we'll even have a better בית המקדש, so it'll be fine. But why will תשעה באב be a יום טוב? What's so special about תשעה באב that it'll turn into a holiday, into a happy day? Why will it be a happy day? What's there in תשעה באב that it should be a happy day? But the explanation is as follows. Number one, just on a simple way of looking at it: All punishments that the תורה tells us that השם gives to a person are all for a good reason. In other words, we know that the תורה is called תורת חסד, the תורה of kindness. השם is, the expression in ספרים is, טבע הטוב להיטיב, השם is only good. There's nothing negative, nothing bad that could come from השם. And therefore, even when השם punishes somebody, it is definitely not because He wants to punish him, but it's for the benefit of the one that's being punished, it's good for the person. In which way is it good? Because when a person does something wrong, there is a blemish on the person's נשמה. When you do something against the will of השם, there is a מום, a stain, a blemish in the נשמה of the person. And that has to be cleaned. And in order to clean it, השם has to do certain things that might hurt, but that's the only way to clean it. Sometimes when a baby gets dirty, and you have to clean the baby, and the only way you could clean the baby is by taking hot water when the dirt is very hard and you can't get it off, you have to take hot water and wipe it off, and hot water burns, and the baby is screaming. And a mother who loves the child will still do it. Why? Because this is for the benefit of the child, for the child to be cleansed, for to be clean. So any punishment השם gives for to a איד is not for the sake of punishment, but for the sake of helping the person, cleaning the person. And therefore, looking at it that way, תשעה באב, even though it's a punishment for our sins, and השם destroyed the בית המקדש as we say in our prayers, מפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו, because of our sins we were chased out of our land, and the בית המקדש was destroyed, so it's because of our sins, and therefore השם has to clean it. So through punishing us, השם cleans the stain, cleans the blemish, and therefore it is not in essence something negative, but it is something positive. But still, wouldn't it be better if it wouldn't come to it? It's only positive because of something that we did wrong, and we have to get rid of it. If the child wouldn't get dirty to begin with, there is no need to put hot water on the child. So obviously it's not really 100% positive. It's only because there was something negative in the person, he needs something positive. But the truth is, let's go a step further. There is something positive in what took place on תשעה באב and what took place on in the גלות and the חורבן generally. What is positive? Sometimes we find an ענין called that we need a ירידה צורך עליה. Sometimes in order to go higher, you have to first descend and go lower. It happens sometimes. In order for us to be able to merit the rebuilding of the third בית המקדש, the only way it could be done is if the first, the second בית המקדש, first the first and the second would be destroyed, we'd all go to גלות, and after our being in גלות, that's the only way we are able to reach the level of having what the third בית המקדש and the coming of משיח holds with it. We find a similar thing concerning מצרים, where the Jews went to exile in Egypt. You might ask a question: Why did השם send the Jews to exile? What did they do? Why did they deserve to go to גלות? Now, there are some opinions that say it was a punishment for אברהם אבינו. Why? אברהם אבינו left, when השם told him, לך לך מארצך, leave your land and go to ארץ כנען, and he came there, ויהי רעב בארץ, there was a hunger, and אברהם אבינו left and went to מצרים. So השם said, \"Well, you left to מצרים when I told you to go to ארץ כנען. Because of that, I'll punish you that your children will have to go to מצרים and be slaves in מצרים.\" But that's only one opinion. רש״י doesn't say that. רש״י says that when אברהם אבינו went to מצרים, השם said to him: לך, כבוש את הדרך לבניך. to go and pave the way for your children. But this was not השם told him to go. רש״י says in a few places השם, when he came to כנען and there was a hunger, השם told him to go, so it wasn't a punishment for אברהם. So why did the Jews go to מצרים? What did they do to deserve to have to go to מצרים and be slaves for 210 years? The answer that's given in קבלה and in חסידות is that because they were going to receive the תורה, and the revelation of the giving of the תורה is so great that they couldn't get to it unless they first go through the process of a ירידה, of having hardships, and that's the only way they would, the way it says, would be purified in order to receive this great גילוי, this great revelation. So the reason was not as a punishment. The reason was because sometimes, in order to reach the higher level, you can't go in a normal order because it is so far beyond that there has to be some kind of break in between. There's an expression that says יש מיש, עין ואפס, when something has to come from something and there is no connection between the two, you have to go through a process of nothing in between. There has to be something that seems to be going down. Just like sometimes, if you want to jump over and go high, you have to go back. If you want to reach a certain point, sometimes you have to go back further away, and then you're able to jump and go further. So here, too, in order to be able to receive the תורה, which was something very special, the Jews had to go through the process of being in מצרים. And they were in מצרים in גלות, that's when they were able to later on receive the תורה. There is a משל given to this, a משל of a רב and a תלמיד, of a teacher and a student. When the teacher teaches a student and gives him over all kinds of ideas, the student feels so great, so special, so close. He feels that he has... The greatest thing a person could imagine is, if you're a scholar, when you hear ideas, new ideas, scholarly ideas. So when the teacher is teaching his student and constantly giving him over more ideas and more ideas, the student sitting there and he feels that he's in גן עדן, the best that he could imagine. What happens that if sometimes, while the teacher is teaching, a new thought, a new idea comes into his mind, a deeper interpretation in what he was teaching him, but he doesn't have it clear yet. So what does he do? He tells the student, \"Wait a minute, I have to sit down and I have to think about it.\" And it takes time. He thinks about it, develops it in his mind, and then he's able to come back to the student and tell him, give him over this idea, which is much deeper than what he had taught him before. Now, if we look at it from the perspective of the student, when the teacher is teaching, he feels great. When the teacher stops teaching, he feels he's in גלות. He's in exile. Now he's dark. Before, when the teacher was teaching him, there was light. He was giving him of ideas, and he was very, very happy. Now, the teacher removed himself from the student, sitting and thinking great ideas in his own mind, and the student is sitting all alone, feeling lost! He's in גלות! And then, after a while, when the teacher develops it in his mind, comes back to the student and gives him over this new idea, he realizes that it was all worth it. Even though it was in גלות, but at the time he felt that this was גלות and he didn't have the attention of his teacher, but it was all worth it because the only way he was able to reach the higher level of now receiving these greater ideas was only through this fact that he had to remove himself from the student, and the student feeling lost, but that's the only way he could get it, and it's worth it. And the same is here, also, that in truth, in order for us to receive the great revelation that will take place when משיח will come, it could only happen if there is a גלות that comes before. Just like by מצרים, in order to receive the תורה, they had to go through the גלות מצרים. So after they received the תורה, and they look back at the גלות, even though the time it was a גלות, but looking back, it was all only a stepping stone, a means to be able to reach a higher level of receiving the תורה. The same is with us. When השם destroyed the בית המקדש, He sent us to גלות. Even though at the time it was because of our עבירות, but the real, real deeper reason for it was because השם wants to give us this great revelation that will take place when משיח will come. And in order for that to happen, we have to go through the process of גלות, and then we're able to receive the revelation of משיח. The revelation of משיח will be much greater, much greater than what took place at the time of מתן תורה, when השם gave, at הר סיני gave us the תורה. What took place at הר סיני, it says in ספרים, is only a מעין, in a miniature form of what we were going, we are going to experience after משיח will come. So then, 210 years were enough that that should be enough גלות to be a כלי to receive the revelation of מתן תורה. The revelation that will take place when משיח will come, 200 210 years are not enough, that's why we have a גלות of over 1900 years, because, but it's all in order to be able to receive the תורה. So if we look at it from that perspective, even though the destruction of the בית המקדש is a destruction, it's a חורבן, and it's definitely negative, but at the same hand we realize that this is all in order for us to be able to receive what will happen when משיח will come, to have the third בית המקדש, which will be much greater than the first and the second בתי מקדש, and therefore we have to go through the גלות. If we look at it that way, it's not only negative, it has the positive, the bright part to it also. And even looking at it from a simple sense, in order for us to have a third בית המקדש, השם had to destroy the second. So destroying the second בית המקדש is really only a beginning of the building of the third. The best משל for that is if someone wants to build himself a mansion. So he goes out and finds himself a beautiful lot, and he's going to build a mansion, but on that lot there is a house built. What do you do? So the process is you break that house, bring in a company, they demolish the house, and then you're able to build a big mansion on it. Now, when we look at it, you could look at it in two ways. Breaking that house could be looked at as destruction. You broke the house, you destroyed it. But if you look at it in the broader sense, what really happened is this was the build- beginning of the building of the mansion. You couldn't build the mansion unless you destroy first this house. So if you look at it in the broader sense, all around, you could I'd ask the person, \"When did your process of building the mansion start?\" He will say, \"The day that the bulldozer came and knocked down this house, that's the day that the building of the mansion started.\" And the same is with the בית המקדש. השם wants to give us a third בית המקדש, and that בית המקדש will be completely different, greater, and higher, and holier than the first and the second. The פסוק says, גדול יהיה כבוד הבית הזה האחרון מן הראשון, that this last one will be greater than the first. In the גמרא, it says it refers to the second being greater than the first, but in the זוהר, it says it refers to the third being much greater than the first and the second. So in order for us to be able to have the third בית המקדש, if השם would not destroy the first and the second, there would stay the second בית המקדש. What would happen? We would stay with the second בית המקדש, and we would never be able to have the third. So השם destroyed the second, first the first, and then in order this is a process, and the second, and then now he's able to give us the third. Which, by the way, answers an interesting question in הלכה. There's a הלכה question. There is a דין, הלכה, that we are not allowed to destroy any part of a שול, certainly not the בית המקדש. There's a פסוק that says, and I'll quote the פסוק, it says, ונתצתם את מזבחותם, and the פסוק says when you come to ארץ ישראל, השם says to the Jews, \"When you enter the land of Israel, you shall destroy all the idols. You shall destroy all their their houses of worship, etc., etc.\" Then the פסוק continues, לא תעשון כן לה' אלקיכם, \"Don't do this to השם,\" which means that this is a negative commandment, that we are not allowed to destroy any house of worship to השם. And therefore, if a person would destroy a שול, you are עובר a לאו, you transgress a negative commandment. Certainly, the גמרא says, anybody who would break a chip off the wall of the בית המקדש is עובר an עבירה, has an עבירה of לא תעשון כן, you're not allowed to do it. We know that השם keeps all the מצות that he commanded us to do. So how did השם destroy the בית המקדש? And it was השם who destroyed it, not נבוכדנצר who destroyed it. Physically, it is נבוכדנצר, but the פסוק says, השם said, הנני שולח את עבדי נבוכדנצר, השם, \"I'm sending נבוכדנצר to destroy the בית המקדש.\" So it's really השם destroying the בית המקדש. השם did an עבירה! You're not allowed to destroy the בית המקדש, so how did השם do it? But there is a הלכה that if the reason you destroy the שול or the בית המקדש is in order to rebuild a better one, then there is no עבירה. Actually, there was a time when they actually broke the בית המקדש to rebuild it and make it better in the time of הורדוס, and there was no עבירה. There's nothing wrong with that because that's not called breaking in הלכה. That's not called breaking, that's called fixing. If you break something in order to make it even better, that's not called breaking. Even the הלכה of שבת, the דין by שבת, I don't want to get into the הלכה, it's going to make us off a off track, that כל המקלקלין פטורין, it says, anything that you do on שבת, any one of the thirty- nine types of work you're not allowed to do, but you do it in the form of destruction, you are פטור, you're not it's not considered being מחלל שבת. So then one of the questions asked is, how come erasing is one of the מלאכות? When you erase, you're destroying rather than you're doing something positive. So the הלכה is, when are you חייב for erasing? If it's מוחק על מנת לכתוב, if you erase in order to write. The same thing סותר, if you break something, you break a building on שבת, it's one of the 39 מלאכות. And the גמרא asks, if you break it, you're a מקלקל, you're destroying, and the rule is כל המקלקלין פטורין. If you destroy something and you're doing it through one of the 39 types of work, you are פטור, that's not considered that you did a מלאכה. So how could one of the מלאכות be destroying? And the גמרא says it means if he סותר על מנת לבנות, if he destroys in order to build. So then the destroying is a מלאכה, because it's not called מקלקל, it's not for breaking. So when השם destroyed the בית המקדש, if we're going to look at it סתם, that he destroyed the בית המקדש as a idea, ענין of destroying, then he wasn't allowed to do it. How could he destroy the בית המקדש? There's an עבירה in destroying בית המקדש. He destroyed it in order to be able to rebuild the third one. So then this is not a מקלקל, this is not a סותר, it's a בונה. So if we look at תשעה באב, the day of the חורבן בית המקדש is the day that the building of the third בית המקדש started. Just like the person who breaks the house in order to have the place ready for the mansion that he wants to build, that's the day he started building. And if he wants to celebrate the rest of his life the day that he started building this mansion, so some people would do it from the day that you had the הנחת אבן הפינה, you lay the cornerstone, the dedication, or whatever they call it. And some people would say from the day that the bulldozer started knocking down that old building, that's the day that I will celebrate as the day when I started building my mansion. So if you look at it from that point of view, תשעה באב, which is the day that the בית המקדש was destroyed, laid the foundation for the rebuilding of the third בית המקדש. And therefore, תשעה באב has something positive in the two in it, too. There is a bright side to תשעה באב that this is the beginning of the rebuilding of the third בית המקדש, which will be much greater, as I said before, from the first and the second put together. And as I said before, there's no other way we could get to it unless we go through the destruction and also go through the form of גלות, and because the גלות is only a stepping stone to the rebuilding of the third בית המקדש, there is something positive in it.

But the truth is we could go a step further. There is something even more in תשעה באב. Not only because תשעה באב is the day that the beginning of the building of the third בית המקדש started, there's something more in תשעה באב. Because תשעה באב is the worst day of the year, the saddest day of the year, תשעה באב is the day that we were really punished by השם, the worst punishment possible. That's the day that השם revealed His greatest love to Jewish people. Why did השם punish us? Because He loves us. There's a פסוק, it says, את אשר יאהב השם יוכיח. The one that השם loves, He punishes. If He wouldn't love us, He wouldn't punish us. They give a משל that there were once group of children and one of them was misbehaving, and somebody came over to that child and gave the child a פאטש. People didn't know who it was, but they all said, oh, this must be his father. He gave him a פאטש! Why would you think it's his father? Because he's the only one that cared. And it was his father. This mischief that the child did and deserved a punishment, they deserved a פאטש, revealed within his father a feeling of love to the child, and therefore the father did what the father did. When a parent punishes a child for misbehaving, it's a revelation of love even greater than the revelation of love that a parent does when it rewards a child for behaving. I'll tell you why. When a child behaves and the parent gives the child a present, the parent is not going against his own nature. Naturally, a parent wants to give the child a kiss, naturally, the parent wants to give the child a present, and here you have the chance to reveal your natural instinct, what you want to do, in a form of reward. No parent wants to hurt a child. But when a parent punishes a child, it shows that the love is so deep that it even went as far as causing the parent to go against his own nature or her own nature because of the love. Giving a child a reward is not going against your nature, so you don't It doesn't show that your love is so strong, that even if it means that you have to break yourself, you're ready to break your nature because of the love for the child. But if you punish the child, you have to, you're doing something against your own nature. And why are you doing it? Because it's my child and I care about the child. So, here the caring for the child is so strong, that it even goes beyond your natural desire, and it causes you to do something which you really don't want to do, but because you love the child, that's why you'll do it. There is a way to remember it. All you have to know is when פסח was. And when you know when פסח was, there is a way to figure out every other holiday, and I'll tell you how. It goes through את, בש, גר, דק. אלף, תו. אלף is the first letter of the alphabet, of the אלף בית. תו is the last. So take אלף, connect it to the תו, first with the last. בית, the second to the first, with the שין, which is second to the last. גימל with the ריש. דלת with the קוף. הא to the צדי, ואו to the פא. And this is how it goes. אלף is one. Whichever day of the week the first day of פסח was, the one, first day of פסח was, you will know the תו is תשעה באב. בית, whichever day of the week the second day of פסח was, is שין. שין is שמחת תורה - שבועות, sorry, I said - שבועות, שין is שבועות. Whichever day of the week the second, you can figure it out, look back at this year, whichever day the second day of פסח is, is שין. גימל, whichever day the third day of פסח is, is ריש, ראש השנה. דלת, whichever day the fourth day of פסח was, is קוף. קוף is קריאת התורה, is שמחת תורה, when we read the תורה. הא, צדי, whichever the fifth day is, הא is five, צדי is צום כיפור. צום כיפור means the fast day of יום כיפור. ואו, פא, whichever the sixth day is, פא is פורים. That's how it goes. But פורים actually is the one before, I don't want to go into this. But it's an interesting thing here, that תשעה באב is the same as the first day of פסח. Well, we would imagine that תשעה באב is the furthest away from the first day of פסח. The first day of פסח is the day of גאולה, the day we celebrate our freedom, the day we went out of גלות. תשעה באב is the day we went into גלות. And why is it that תשעה באב has a connection to אלף, to the first day of פסח? And the answer is, because going into גלות, if you look at it deeper what חורבן בית המקדש was, going into גלות is similar to the first day of פסח. It is the beginning of the גאולה, the beginning of the rebuilding of the third בית המקדש. And just like the first day of פסח, השם showed His love to the Jews, that's why we celebrate. Says in תנ״ך השם loved us and took us out of מצרים. תשעה באב is also the day that השם expressed His love to us, in a different form. And in a form that nowadays we don't see it yet, but when משיח will come, we'll look back and we will see that this was the day השם showed His love even deeper than He showed on the first day of פסח. This is what this is what the inner meaning of תשעה באב is. That's why it says in the name of ר׳ פנחס קאריצער, it says, the three weeks, we know that from שבעה עשר בתמוז when we fast till תשעה באב, there are three weeks, 21 days. So he says, that the three weeks are parallel to the 21 days starting from ראש השנה till שמיני עצרת. From ראש השנה to שמיני עצרת there are 21 days. שמיני עצרת is שמחת תורה, the first day is שמחת תורה. And he said it's an interesting thing that the 21st day, which is תשעה באב, is parallel to שמיני עצרת. And when we look in the קריאת התורה that we read on תשעה באב, he said, one of the פסוקים is אתה הראת, which we say we say on שמחת תורה by הקפות. So we see that תשעה באב and הקפות are parallel. תשעה באב and הקפות, תשעה באב and שמחת תורה, two opposites! The truth is, no. That the inner meaning of תשעה באב is like שמחת תורה, is the happiest day of the year. That's the day that when we look back we see that this was the greatest day of the year. And I'm going to finish off, this shows, this is the inner פשט in the גמרא. The גמרא tells us a story, have to finish to have מנחה, the גמרא tells us a story that the end of גמרא מכות, that the חכמים once were travelling and they came to ירושלים, and it was not long after the destruction of the בית המקדש, and they happened to be by the מקום המקדש, the place of the בית המקדש. And all the חכמים started crying. They saw the בית המקדש, the place of the בית המקדש, and they happened to see a fox come out of the place where used to be the קודש הקדשים, the Holy of Holies, so they all started crying. And רבי, רבי עקיבא started smiling. So the חכמים said to רבי עקיבא, \"What happened to you? Why are you laughing? What's so funny? Why are you so happy?\" So he turns around to them and he says, \"Why are you crying?\" They said, \"What do you mean, why are we crying? The holiest place of the world, and now look what's happening to it.\" He says, \"For that same reason, I'm I'm happy.\" And the גמרא says, what did he say, why is he happy for that? So he said that if we see that השם fulfilled the prophecy that He will destroy בית המקדש, we are sure, this proves to us that He will fulfill the other prophecy. If He fulfilled one, He will fulfill the other, that He will rebuild the בית המקדש and bring משיח. But the deeper פשט in what רבי עקיבא meant, רבי עקיבא when he looked at the חורבן בית המקדש, he looked a little bit deeper. He looked beyond the way it looks superficially, that that's only destruction, but he looked that this is the beginning of the fulfillment of the other prophecy of bringing משיח and rebuilding the בית המקדש. And therefore, the bottom line is like this: the בית המקדש is not here yet, משיח didn't come yet, and therefore at this point we don't see the יום טוב behind תשעה באב, and therefore we have to fast and we have to do all the הלכות of תשעה באב, because we're still at the stage like that child that still feels the פאטש and doesn't see how that changed his life. But in our mind we have to know that after all we're so sure משיח will come soon that we will we know already now that we will look back and see this is a יום טוב, and therefore now already there is a הלכה that we don't say תחנון on תשעה באב, now already there's a הלכה that it's called a מועד, because now already we see what later on it will be. And when משיח will come, תשעה באב will be the biggest יום טוב of the whole year, because this will show to us that this is really the first beginning of the coming of משיח and the rebuilding of the בית המקדש. And we hope we won't have to wait too long to see this, but very very soon משיח will come and rebuild the בית המקדש, and we will all go to ירושלים עיר הקודש במהרה בימינו. אמן.