[Avodah] Mourning for the Temple or repenting?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, July 3, 2007 6:25 pm, Rich, Joel wrote:
: [R' Daniel Eidensohn:]
:> I spoke recently with Rav Meisleman and he confirmed as elementary
:> that mourning is external activities and does not require feelings
: of sadness.

...
:      I'm not sure we need a mitzvah to feel the loss of a loved one,
: it is inherent in the briah and the mitzvot seem designed around it
: (again for aveilut yachid/ chadasha versus rabim/yeshana) One could
: argue (R' YBS) that the whole point of the 3 weeks is to build those
: feelings.

Or perhaps it's even more parallel...

Aveilus is a mitzvah that channels and harnesses the feelings of loss.
As RJR writes, it takes it as a given that those feelings are there.

The notion he attributes RYBS, that the qiyum of aveilus is the
sadness, doesn't seem muchrakh. Aveilus starts with sadness and
teaches how to express it.

I would therefore suggest that the 3 Weeks were designed with the
assumption that people would feel sadness for the loss of the BHMQ and
of la'asos chovoseinu beveis bechirasekha, and the qiyum is using that
sadness properly.

Which would be teshuvah, at least in part.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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