“He was Going to Collapse”
He raced between the houses, looking for a place to hide from the conquering soldiers. After a while his lungs burned from the effort but he continued to run, distancing himself from the place of danger. He constantly looked right and left. The fear that he would encounter enemy soldiers kept him on high alert, knowing that an encounter like that would cost him his life • Full Story
Beis Moshiach/By D. Chaim
He raced between the houses, looking for a place to hide from the conquering soldiers. After a while his lungs burned from the effort but he continued to run, distancing himself from the place of danger. He constantly looked right and left. The fear that he would encounter enemy soldiers kept him on high alert, knowing that an encounter like that would cost him his life.
When he saw the high wall in the distance a small smile appeared on his tired face. He allowed himself to slow down his pace and he finally decided to stop altogether and rest a bit. Only then did he feel what a great effort he had made. His heart pounded and he lay, exhausted, on the ground.
After a few minutes passed, he got up and removed the stopper from the pitcher tied to his side so he could rinse his sweaty face with the few drops of water that remained.
The sound of galloping horses made him jump and he returned the pitcher to its place on his thigh and began running again. Within a few minutes he reached the mountains where he finally felt secure. He climbed to the top of one of the peaks and turned toward the city. He held his palm over his eyes and fixed his gaze and trembled.
Who was this man and what was he afraid of? In order to understand, let us go back in time.
Yehuda, a Jewish soldier, stood at one of the positions on the high wall that surrounded Yerushalayim. He was immersed in his task which demanded his full concentration. Down below, near the wall, right under him, many Roman soldiers were amassed, trying to breach the wall. Their goal was to conquer the holy city, to conquer Yerushalayim! Dozens of them held a heavy iron battering ram, and again and again they rammed the wall.
This was after a long period of fighting. The starving, besieged Jews fought valiantly and pushed back at the Roman soldiers, but the food in the city ran out and daily, more Jewish soldiers fell. The situation was unbearable.
Like his friends who survived, Yehuda was also focused on his task. He had to push back the enemy soldiers and prevent them from entering the city. He had many means at his disposal, from deadly arrows to boiling oil and heavy rocks. He fought like a lion to prevent the Romans from succeeding. One by one, the Roman soldiers holding the battering ram fell after being hit by a rain of Yehuda’s arrows, but they were immediately replaced with other Roman soldiers.
Yehuda felt that he was going to collapse. The many hours of fighting that passed without decent food entering his mouth threatened to tell him. But he did not give in, and with superhuman strength he continued to fend off the Romans. However, despite his desperate attempts, the wall shook. Another ramming and another ramming and in a minute the wall would break and the Roman soldiers would enter the city.
Yehuda turned to toss another rock but saw that his weapons were used up. At just that moment a huge noise was heard accompanied by a crumbling sound and a large hole appeared in the wall. The Romans quickly enlarged the hole and masses of soldiers began to pour in.
But then, to their amazement, they saw a new wall. The Jews had realized a long time before that the wall would not last and they quickly built a new, additional wall. The Romans began to despair but their commanders quickly renewed their attempts to get in and the battering rams were put to work again. Yehuda and his friends continued to fight back.
Not long afterward, this wall was breached too and the Romans entered the city, but they were astonished once again. The Jews had built a third wall! This time, even the Roman commanders despaired. They realized that Hashem was not giving them the city and they began to think of withdrawing.
Then, in a last minute decision, the wicked Titus went over to measure the wall. To his surprise, he saw that the wall was sinking into the earth day by day. All he had to do was wait …
When the wall sank nearly all the way into the ground, the Roman soldiers broke in and captured the city. Yehuda ran between the houses (as you read earlier) until, with his remaining strength, he reached the top of a hill in the mountainous area outside the wall. He held his palm over his eyes, fixed his gaze, and trembled.
He saw the flames shooting up. He refused to believe what his eyes saw and what his heart knew to be true, but a quick calculation of the location of the flames told him he was right. His eyes filled with tears and he thought his heart would break from sorrow. The Beis HaMikdash, where the Sh’china dwelled, was going up in flames!
He knew that sins and not obeying their righteous leaders were what caused the terrible destruction. He committed to not resting; instead, wherever he would be exiled with his brethren he would urge them to do t’shuva until Hashem brought them back and the Beis HaMikdash would be rebuilt.
Nearly 2000 years have passed since then and the Jewish people still have not merited the third Beis HaMikdash. With Hashem’s help and open miracles, the Jewish people are now privileged to live in Eretz Yisroel, but we are still in galus and we still do not have the Beis HaMikdash.
At one of the farbrengens, the Rebbe exclaimed that the Gemara says: a generation in which the Beis HaMikdash was not rebuilt in its days is like it was destroyed in its days. Let us imagine that we are standing in Yehuda’s place and we see the Beis HaMikdash on fire. We would do all we could! So as long as the Beis HaMikdash is still not rebuilt, and it is like it was just destroyed, how can we sit and do nothing?
On Chof-Ches (28) Nissan 5751 the Rebbe taught a shocking sicha in which he said we need to sincerely ask Hashem to send Moshiach to take us out of galus and that it should be out of the question for us that Moshiach does not come this minute. Ad Mosai!!
Then the Rebbe said, “From now on, do all that you can to bring Moshiach Tzidkeinu immediately!” Yes, the Rebbe put it in our hands. We must dedicate ourselves and do all we can so that the Rebbe immediately appears and builds the Beis HaMikdash, so that on Pesach Sheini we will bring the Korban Pesach in Yerushalayim!
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‘Todah raabah’ for the great story and lesson, “Moshiach Auchsov!’
(I’m heavily invovled in ‘The 7 Noahide Laws.’)