As we approach Tisha B’Av, we spend time mourning the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. We reflect on what was lost, the pain of exile, and the longing for redemption. But tucked inside this painful chapter is a lesson that has profoundly changed the way I experience hardship. The rabbis ask a fascinating question. The Torah teaches that we are forbidden from destroying something needlessly. If so, how could God destroy His own Temple? Doesn’t God keep His own Torah? One answer is that in His immense love for the Jewish people, God poured His anger onto wood and stone rather than onto His children. The destruction of the Temple became an act of mercy.
But there is another beautiful layer.
Jewish law allows something to be taken apart if it is being dismantled to build something greater in its place. The moment God allowed the destruction of the Second Temple, He had already envisioned the Third Temple. It wasn’t destruction for destruction’s sake. It was the beginning of rebuilding. And that changes everything. How many times in life have we experienced what feels like complete demolition?
A marriage ends.
A dream falls apart.
A career changes unexpectedly.
A friendship is lost.
A diagnosis arrives.
A door slams shut.
In those moments, it feels as though the blueprint for our lives has been torn up. We can’t imagine how anything beautiful could ever emerge from the rubble. Yet so often, months or years later, we look back and realize that what felt like our greatest destruction became the doorway to our greatest growth. The question I’ve been asking myself is this: Is it possible to remember that while we’re standing in the rubble? Imagine purchasing a piece of land with an old house on it. Before your dream home can be built, the existing house has to come down. The demolition is loud. It’s messy. It looks destructive. But no one stands there crying over the falling walls because everyone knows what is coming next. The demolition only makes sense because of the vision. Life rarely gives us that vision in advance. God doesn’t hand us the architectural drawings for what He’s building. Instead, He asks us for trust. Trust that every demolition has a purpose. Trust that every destruction is making room for construction. Trust that every ending is already carrying within it the seed of a beginning. This lesson is deeply personal for me.
When my life shattered in 2016, I truly believed everything I had built had been destroyed. I couldn’t imagine how anything good could possibly come from that level of heartbreak. If someone had told me then that one day I would look back and call it of the greatest gifts of my life, I would never have believed them. And yet, here I am. Not because the pain wasn’t real. Not because the losses weren’t devastating. But because God wasn’t destroying my life. He was rebuilding it. Over the last ten years, there have been many more demolitions. Disappointments. Unexpected setbacks. Dreams that changed shape. Each one felt painful in its own way. But something inside me has changed. I’ve developed a different muscle.
Today, when life begins to shake the walls around me, I still feel sadness. I still grieve. I still ask questions. But I don’t lose hope the way I once did. Because experience has taught me something my fear never could: Every demolition is a remodeling. Every destruction is construction.
God has never once torn something down in my life without building something stronger, wiser, deeper, or more beautiful in its place. I don’t always know what He’s building. But I know the Builder. And that changes how I stand in the rubble.
As we mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash this Tisha B’Av, may we also remember that the story doesn’t end there. The very destruction carried within it the promise of redemption. Perhaps that’s true of our own lives as well. Perhaps what feels like the end is actually the beginning of something we simply cannot see yet. And perhaps trusting the Architect is the first brick in rebuilding our own hearts.