Tisha B'Av

After the Meraglim came back from spying the land of Eretz Yisroel, Klal Yisroel cried all night. In Parshas Devarim the Pasuk tells us that they said "Besinas Hashem oysanu hoitzunu meretz Mitzrayim...." For Hashem hates us has he brought us out of the land of Egypt to give us into the hands of the Amorites to exterminate us. The Soporno says that Klal Yisroel was scared that Hashem wanted to take revenge on them for worshiping idols in Mitzrayim, so he wanted the Amorites to kill them. They cried because they gave up, they thought all was lost. They got reports from the meraglim that the people living in Eretz Yisroel were powerful and strong. Instead of putting their faith in Hashem that they will go into Eretz Yisroel and win the Battles and with Hashems help conquer the land, they found reasons to believe that Hashem hates them and that they're not worthy of any more miracles. This is what the Chazal call "Bechiah shel chinnom" crying for naught they cried all night but they cried out of hopelessness. The punishment is that that same day is reserved for "Bechiah shel emes" true bitter tears.
There's a story said that after the chorban Yermiyahu was crying and a non-Jewish philosopher met him and asked how can such a brilliant man like you cry over wood and stones. To which Yermiyahu answered that you'll never understand it. The Navi wasn't crying for what was and all that we lost but he cried for a yearning to see Hashem to feel that closeness that we enjoyed in the Bais Hamikdosh. He was telling the goy that you will never understand how a Jew cries for we don’t cry out of hopelessness we cry because we know there will be an end to all our troubles and we yearn for that day. That is what all our tears should be for.
Tisha Bav is called a Yom Tov and we don’t say Tachnun or slichos like the other fast days. The message is clear - while there is mitzvah to cry on Tisha Bav we cannot fall on our hands and just give up and say there is no hope for us. We cannot even say viduy and confess our sins because it may lead us to rationalizing that we deserve what we are getting and Hashem wants to take revenge on us. Giving up and feeling lost was the sin of the Meraglim. The crying of Tisha Bav is a crying of yearning and waiting for that day when we won't have anymore worries.
How is it possible for the Yidden that went through all the tzoras, the ones that lived through the churban, the ones that were driven out of their homes in Spain, the one that saw cities being rampaged by the crusaders, and the worst destruction that ever fell upon the Jews since man was created, the Holocaust - How did they have the strength to be mikadesh shem shomaim the way they did? How did the poshiter yidden of not so long ago live and die with such awesome mesiras nefesh?
A teenage girl was in a slave labor camp, to stay alive people would steal from the kitchen which was punishable by death. This one girl said that she doesn’t want to steal for if she has to die she wants to die because she’s a Jew not because she stole a potato. A shoemaker in the Kovno ghetto was arrested on his way to daven holding his tallis bag under his arm. As the Germens led him through the streets Ithche Moshe walked between his captors not as if he were the prisoner, but as if they were his escorts to do the greatest mitzvah. Bochrim that risked everything they had gave up their food rations just so that they can put on tefilin. The group of kedoshim knowing that it's their last night in this world, they where going to be hung the next morning, stood and davened the tefilos of Yom Kipper. As the noose was put around their necks they were holding at the end of Neillah and they were mekabel ol malchos shomaim screaming Hashem Hu O'Elokim. How about just a few years ago when a Arab animal blew himself up in a pizza store, and you were able to hear a father himself lie there dying and in unimaginable pain, tell his small kids to say Shema Yisroel together. This is just a drop in the bucket of the tears that fell. How did these simple Yidden - some that didn't have the zchus of learning in Yeshiva, how did they have the strength to laugh in the face of the Nazis, to just spit in the face of the Malach Hamoves?
They realized that every tzar we go through in this bitter golus has a purpose. Reb Elchonon Wasserman, as the Nazis were standing there preparing to take him and his Talmidim away gave his last shmooze to all of Klal Yisroel. "Heaven apparently considers us righteous people, for it wants us to atone with our bodies for Jewry as a whole........... we will thereby save the remaining Jews, so that they will be able to carry on as the remnant of Jewry. Let us walk with our heads held high...... we are about to fulfill the greatest mitzvah- the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem. The fire that consumes our bodies is the fire that will rebuild the Jewish people." What he was saying is that every tzar we go through, every tear we shed is a building block, it's just a piece of our long history on the path to rebuild the third Bais Hamikdosh. Every anguish we feel in this long bitter golas is really a building process that started that night when the Yidden gave up hope of entering Eretz Yisroel. Every tear of hope is a Tikkun to that crying and a new stone in the Third Bais Hamikdosh. It is these fires these bullets and these tears that are the bricks of the Geulah. May this Tisha Bav be a real Yom tov not just a building block for the future but the future we have been yearning for for 1,939 years. Amen!