מאפילה לאורה – From Darkness to Light: The three weeks * Shabbos Nachamu * Tu b’Av 

Our living Torah is alive in the full sense of the word. Asides from being eternal, dynamic, with undying spiritual and intellectual vitality, it also has a living body and a living soul. Jewish law as to how we are to conduct is referred to by Chazal as גופי הלכות – the bodies of Halacha. Torah that goes infinitely deep into the realm of all the mysteries of creation and Divine Providence is referred to asנשמת התורה – the soul of Torah. As the Torah was not given to individuals, rather given to us as a nation, our nation also has a unified national body and the שכינה – Divine Presence of Hashem our King that resides amongst us is our national soul.

All this had a living model in the Beis HaMikdash. The house and vessels encompassed a microcosm of the entire of physical reality and the Divine Presence that filled it was a microcosm of the Divine Providence that gives life and guides all. This living model perfectly reflected our nation’s spiritual health and relationship to the Torah.

The destruction of the Beis HaMikdash paralleled a disruption of our national fabric, not just geopolitically, but in the Divine Presence going into hiding from us, not just as a nation, but even the individual has his soul in hiding. The intended natural ability to tap into the full power of soul to attain prophecy has been barred. Just as the nation is scattered, the individuals are scatter-minded.

In this book Rabbi Bechhofer explains the parallels between the individual, the nation, the Torah, and the Beis HaMikdash. The destruction that we mourn during the three weeks had its parallel in the nation, in the relationship to Torah, and in the spiritual health of the individual. The Geula is not just the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash but the restoration of spiritual health for the nation and the individual.

EVEN SHESIYA

Even Shesiya was founded by Rabbi Yochanan Bechhofer to spread the light of נשמת התורה Even Shesiya has taken on the holy mission of collating from the entirety of Torah all materials pertaining to body and Soul and the harmony between them to promote a Torah based map and methods for every Jew to attain inner Harmony and fully actualize their spiritual potential to the fullest extent possible in this day and age