The Sages are looking back at the darkest chapter in our history, the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and the exile of our people, and they are trying to solve a mystery. They turn to a passuk in Yirmiyahu that asks a devastating question: “Why was the land lost?” But here is where the story gets strange. The Gemara tells us, “Davar zeh amru Chachamim v’lo peirshuhu, amru Nevi’im v’lo peirshuhu.” This question was put to the greatest minds, the wisest Sages, and even the Prophets, and none of them could answer it.
Think about that for a second. The greatest leaders of our nation couldn’t articulate why the blueprint was falling apart. It remained an absolute mystery until Hashem Himself revealed the answer: “she’lo birchu baTorah techila”—because they didn’t say the blessing over the Torah before studying it.
On the surface, it’s a baffling conclusion. Of all the macro-problems facing a society, the downfall of a nation began because people skipped a morning blessing? How does a missed bracha create a chasm between us and Hashem deep enough to destroy the Beis Hamikdash?
Reb Nosson of Breslov (Likutei Halachos, Birchos Hashachar 5:7) offers an explanation that cuts straight to the heart, and it hits incredibly close to home today.
When we make the blessing over the Torah, we can zero in on three crucial words: “asher bacher banu, who chose us.” Rebbe Nosson explains that, as much as birchas Hatorah is a halachic prerequisite for learning, much more importantly, it’s a daily moment of mindfulness. It’s a designated pause to reflect on the first “choice” Hashem ever made. A moment to think about: Why did Hashem choose us? Is there really a way to explain why Hashem chose us?
It is a chance not only to think about this choice in the collective sense, but on an individual, deeply personal level. Hashem chose me. He chose you. He gave each of us a highly specific, tailor-made mission to bring light into this world in a way that only we can. We are special, but articulating that specialness means going beyond the articulable. This bracha calls out to us to pause for a moment at the beginning of every day and come back to this truth, no matter how difficult it is to explain.
But let’s be honest: when you live inside a beautiful, vibrant community, it is incredibly easy for Yiddishkeit to become cultural. We get so good at being “frum.” We know exactly what to do, when to do it, what to wear, and how to talk. It becomes the default setting. We can get so used to doing what we are supposed to be doing, that in the middle of all that routine, a real struggle can start to brew beneath the surface: the struggle to actually feel chosen, to feel special. Because we can’t logically explain why we are special, we risk doing something dangerous: cutting ourselves off from the idea entirely. We focus on the habit, but drop the wonder and mystery.
Can we actually articulate why Hashem chose us? No. There is something profoundly mysterious about His Ratzon, about the desire of Hashem and what causes it. Something so mysterious and supernal that it defies logic.
And that, Rebbe Nosson suggests, was the root of the collapse before the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. The people back then looked at the unexplainable nature of G-d’s love and basically said, “If I can’t fully understand it or prove it logically, it must not be true. There must be nothing actually different or special about a Yid.” On some level, by denying the mystery of why Hashem chose them, they denied the existence of their own neshamos, the most mysterious differentiating part of a Yid. They traded a living, breathing, dynamic, and mysterious relationship for standard, cold intellect.
That is exactly what the Gemara is telling us. When the Sages couldn’t explain the destruction and the Prophets couldn’t articulate it, it wasn’t because they lacked information. They themselves were struggling with this exact same tension. They were standing at the edge of human intellect, realizing that the root of the problem lay in a realm that logic simply couldn’t touch: the realm of unexplainable love. This is the very same realm whereby Hashem chooses to create a world, born from that same original, infinite desire that Hashem had to build reality in the first place.
The lesson the Gemara is leaving us with is that when we struggle with this exact thing, when we demand that our value, our specialness, and our connection fit into neat, logical explanations, we create a profound distance from it. The moment we try to rationalize a love that is meant to be transcendent, we push it away.
Hashem revealed the reason for the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, she’lo birchu baTorah tchila, so that we don’t make the mistake. And if we do, we can turn to our tzadikim who will remind and encourage us to rejoice in the unexplainable zechus we have in being chosen by Hashem to be a Yid.
As we look ahead at the Three Weeks, this idea gives us a completely fresh lens. If the distance began because we stopped believing in the unexplainable beauty of a Yid, then the rebuilding can only happen when we choose to lean back into that mystery, both in ourselves and in the person sitting across from us.
It means looking at another Jew and saying, “There is something inside you that I cannot explain, but it makes you completely irreplaceable.” It means actively searching for that Nekudah Tova, that unique, beautiful point of goodness contained within them. It means quite simply — seeing the good.
The truth is, all the logical reasons in the world might be stacked against seeing it. Sometimes, the outer layers (the behavior, the background, the choices) lead us to a totally different conclusion about a person. Sometimes even within our personal inner world, we struggle to feel special; we can’t explain why we were chosen.
But rebuilding the Beis HaMikdash asks us to look past the logic. It invites us to bypass the intellect and travel to that same place of unexplainable choice and unexplainable love that Hashem uses when He looks at us.
We don’t need to fully understand the mystery to live it. We just have to be willing to believe in the spark.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 88.
