Rabbi Vinsisky has the ability to bring lofty ideas down to earth and he was able to explain to us, what exactly we are mourning for in this
time period and what our actions are supposed to be producing.
Rabbi Vinisksy started by saying that just as a general reviews his plans before he goes to battle, we should also review
Our game plans as to how we desire to bring about refuahs and yeshouahs in the next few weeks. Our plan will have 3 parts-Tefila, Tehillim and Tisha B’AV

Tefila is a contradiction-On one hand Hashem wants our tefilos very much and on the other hand, tefila is a chutzpah-who sent the illness , or withheld the
cure in the first place so why Are we davening to the one who brought the tozors? And furthermore, who are we to ask Hashem to change his mind-where is
our bitochon that all is for the best? And it is ridiculous that we have to tell Hashem over and over again, what we want-he knows better that we, what we want.
Rabbi Vinsisky explained that when we daven and we ask Hashem for things, we start by praising him and we end by praising him. Our requests for asking for things
is sandwiched between our emuna for Hashem . .Every time we daven we reinforce our emuna in Hashem and we actuality improve ourselves. And by doing this
, we are hoping that Hashem re-elevates his position and hopefully in our new improved selves, Hashem will judge us more favorably. Rabbi Vinisksy went on to discuss
why is our tefila stronger when we daven b’tizbur-in a group. The judgment that Hashem gives on a group overwrites the judgment on the individual-so
even if the individual doesn’t deserve that chesed, but if he is part of the group-Hashem will give his brocha to the entire group. And besides that, Hashem loves ‘achdus’.
From the time, Hashem told us about the building of the Bais Hamikdtash till it was actually built was 400 years-why did it take so long, because it took 400 years for there to be enough achdus among the shovitim, that Hashem would even consider building his home amongst us. When we daven b’achdus, Hashem loves us and in that zchus he will help the cholim.

The 2nd part of the plan is Tehillim-but why Tehillim-tehillim is not a book of requests? Why not 4 shomonei esrays in a row-there we have the praise and the requests
for all we need? Why when we want something major in our lives-we take out sefer Tehillim. Rabbi Vinisky spoke about the greatness of Dovid HaMelech
Only 3 people in history who could raise us back to the spiritual level we lost when Adom Harishon sinned in Gan Eden- Adom Harishon, Dovid HaMelech & Moshiach.
But Dovid saw that he was not going to be able to get all of Klal Yisroel to the same spiritual level he was on, so he decided instead to write sefer Tehillim.
Dovid HaMelech could be viewed in a million different ways, a tzaddick, an artist, a warrior, a musician-everybody could relate to him but above all, but
his only desire was to become closer to Hashem. His greatest accomplishment was that he left us the blueprint to attain spiritual perfection (for more on this,
listen to rabbi Vinisksy shier number 55 in our archives). Tehillim are not prayers-it is 150 recipes for spiritual growth and accomplishment. Rabbi Vinisksy ,
when he teaches Sefer Tehillim (he has a popular Sunday evening class) always teaches the group-what is the lesson to be learned from this perek.-everything
we need to know , is in Sefer Tehillim.
Dovid HaMelech also taught us another legacy-how to really desire something, so that it totally encompasses you. This we learn from his yearning to build the
Bais Hamikdatch. Even though he wasn’t zocha to build it, his desire was so huge, that it is called after him Bais Dovid, and not after son, who actually build it.
. When we come together as a group, and we want to show Hashem that we are growing in our yiddishkeit, it is perfect, rather than saying additional prayers, that we say sefer Tehillim-the blueprint of how to be a good Jew-sefer Tehillim, written by a tzaddik who really worked on getting closer to Hashem-that it consumed his every breath.
This is what we say when we talk to Hashem-we want to say the lesson plan of life.

Why is plan one and 2-tefila and Tehillim especially important now, at the beginning of the 3 weeks -this brings us to Part 3-tisha b’av

Why is this so important in the 3 weeks,- we need to answer 2 questions: tisha b’av is a moed-it will be a joyous occasion after Moshiach. How is that
Possible? How could we celebrate the destruction of the Bais Hamikdatch and the death of so many people? Moed doesn’t mean holiday, moed is an
appointed meeting time-moed is a scheduled time where we have agreed to meet with Hashem to spend time together-a time of closeness . Every year, on
different occasions-i.e. chol hamoed-Hashem peeks thru the door in the moed to see how we are doing, to see what we have learned from his lessons and punishments.
It is a time when we can give our father nachas In the future we will look back and see how all these tragedies of tisha b’av fit into Hashem’s master plan).
So when we are told that tisha b’av will be a moed in the future it means we will have a meeting with Hashem and we will understand how he did what he did. And
we will see the lessons we learned from it.
Another question-the Bais Hamkidatches were destroyed for different things- The2nd one for sinas chinum-so we should be doing teshuva for all the aveiros
that caused the Bais Hamikdatch to be destroyed-that seems logical. Instead we adopt 3 weeks of mourning and act as if are ‘aveilim’. When a person does an
aviera, he does teshuva and hopes to be forgiven. He doesn’t ’stop getting haircuts, stop listening to music, stop eating meat. If we want to do teshuva for sinas
chinom, why don’t we dodo something specifically to compensate. Why do we act like mourners?
The point is we did not get a punishment for our sins, rather , we got cut off from a key part of Hahsem. Hashem severed our relationship. We weren’t’ punished, rather
Hashem said he had enough of us and he threw us out of his house. And said don’t come back till I am convinced that you are worthy of living in my house
We were severed, we were cut off. Without the bais hamikdatach we don’t exist-but that seems hard to understand-we live,we go to work, we have children but
True living is not a girl waking up to having most of her family killed, or a people who know how to grid search for a missing person, we have been cut off from our existence.
At the time of the churban, not only Hashem kicked us out, but the whole world kicked us out and slammed the door behind us.
Without an existence close to Hashem we are dead. We are not mourning for the bais hamidktcah , we are mourning for ourselves, we are almost dead.
Hashem wants to know, how much did you miss me, did you want to come back into the house.. Every generation that is not rebuild, it is as if that generation destroyed it.
How? Hashem came to the moed, and peeked thru the door to see how we are doing and he didn’t invite us back us, so that generation is just as dead as the
generation that was kicked out
so our game plan is -We want to daven, we want to show Hashem we want back in, we say Tatty in himmel we remember and we want to grab your coat and we want to
come home. And hopefully if Hashem sees how hard we have worked on ourselves in these 3 weeks, when he comes to visit on us on the ‘moed’ he will forgive us
and let us come home.


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