King Solomon planned for the worst by building hidden chambers for the Ark. What if we planned for the best? Could that actually invite positive results? A lesson about optimism.
Six Shuls in One Village
In southern Israel, not far from Kiryat Gat, there is a village called Zavdiel. It was founded in the 1950s by immigrants from Yemen.
Today, about 120 families live there.
Now, how many shuls do you think a village needs in order to serve 120 families?
Some years ago, a TV segment was published about the village. The reporter discovered that this small community had six synagogues. He came to the village to understand: why does one small place need six shuls?
First, he tried to find out which synagogue had been built first. But even that became an argument.
He interviewed one woman whose husband had moved from one shul to another, and he asked her what was behind this unusual number of synagogues.
She explained that among Yemenite Jews, everyone wants to be a leader. Everyone wants to have a say in the shul. So when a person feels that his opinion is not accepted, he opens another shul where he can be in charge.
She added that there is an old story that when Ezra led the return from Babylon during the time of the Second Temple, he sent a letter to the Jews of Yemen asking them to join him and return to the Land of Israel. They chose not to come, and Ezra “blessed” them that each one of them should want to be the head.
One of the people who founded a shul in the village was asked what led him to do it. He answered that one day, a neighbor came to him and said, “I have two Torah scrolls. Let’s open a shul, and you’ll be the chazan.” That was an offer he could not refuse.
Another man said that for nearly thirty years, during the week, he has been davening in a nearby village. The reporter was incredulous; “You have six shuls right here, and you daven in another village?”
The Unique Aspect of Yemenite Jewry
What really drives the opening of more and more shuls?
In an Ashkenazic shul, it can be hard to find someone who knows how to read the Torah. And even if he knows how, he may not necessarily want to do it.
Among Yemenite Jews, it is exactly the opposite. Everyone knows how to read the Torah, and everyone very much wants to do it.
So when a person only gets the honor of reading the Torah once in a while, he may feel disappointed—and eventually decide to open his own shul.
There is also a second issue, which really comes from the same beautiful quality. Since so many of them are experts in Torah reading, they can immediately hear every mistake.
But they do not always leave the merit of correcting the reader to the gabbai. Instead, everyone calls out the correction together, sometimes quite loudly, and they make sure the reader knows that he made a mistake.
Of course, this does not come, G-d forbid, from bad intentions. It simply bursts out of them. It is almost a reflex they cannot control. It comes from the depths of the heart.
Of course, the person who was corrected does not always enjoy the experience. So the next time the one who corrected him is the one reading, now he has his own opportunity to give him a lesson in the laws of “corrections.”
Needless to say, this kind of behavior does not exactly increase friendship and love in the synagogue.
Who Was the Mori?
Where did all this knowledge of Torah reading come from?
In Yemen, every Jewish child learned by the mori — the traditional teacher.
Usually, the mori had one Chumash, which was placed on a crate in the middle of the room. The children would sit on the floor all around it, on all four sides.
That meant that the children learned to read Hebrew from every direction — from the top of the page, from the bottom of the page, from the right side, and from the left side.
The mori also had a whip. If a child did not learn properly, the mori would give him a lash.
Every child was expected to come to shul on Shabbos knowing how to read the parshah perfectly.
So after they “purchased” their knowledge with blood, sweat, and tears, it is only natural that they are proud to display that knowledge when the Torah is being read.
Toward the end of the segment, the reporter writes that all these fights belong to the past. For many years now, there has been peace and quiet in the village.
So he dared to ask: perhaps the days of Moshiach have arrived, and maybe now is the time to unite all the shuls in the village into one?
The first man was surprised by the question.
As far as he was concerned, it was enough that they were no longer fighting. But merging the shuls? That had never even crossed his mind.
He answered, “The time has not yet come.”
When the gabbai of another shul was asked the same question, he answered immediately:
“You don’t close down a shul.”
Hidden Deep Below
We are standing on the eve of Tisha B’Av, when we mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Still today, thousands of years later, the location of the Temple Mount is always making the news.
What is so special about that place?
Of course, the Temple Mount is the place where the two Batei Mikdash once stood. And even after the destruction, the holiness of the place remains. As the Rambam says, “Even though it was destroyed, it remains in its holiness.”
And about the Western Wall, our sages say that the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, never departed from the Western Wall.
But there is something even deeper here.
The book of Divrei Hayamim tells us that before the destruction of the First Temple, King Yoshiyahu saw that the kingdom of Yehudah was growing weaker and that the destruction was approaching.
So he instructed the Levi’im to hide away the Aron, the Holy Ark, in “deep and winding hidden chambers” beneath the Temple Mount — chambers that had been built by King Shlomo himself (Hilchos Beis Habechirah 4).
The Rebbe explains that the entire essence of the Beis Hamikdash is the Aron, which contained the Luchos, the Tablets. So if the Aron was hidden in the tunnels beneath the Temple Mount, that means the Aron is still there to this very day.
In other words, the holiness of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is not only because the Beis Hamikdash once stood there, and once contained the Aron. The outer building was destroyed. But the heart of the Beis Hamikdash — the Aron Hakodesh, the Holy Ark — remains there, eternal and intact, until this very day.
That is why it is no wonder that everyone fights over this place. Everyone wants a connection to it. Everyone is drawn to it.
The Luchos are like a magnet, pulling Jews back again and again to the Kosel, to come close to the holiness of the Aron.
But who built those hidden chambers where the Aron could be concealed?
The Rambam writes: “When Shlomo built the House, he knew that it would ultimately be destroyed. Therefore, he built within it a place to hide the Aron below, in deep and winding hidden chambers.”
The Rebbe says something remarkable.
The Beis Hamikdash, in and of itself, had no possibility of destruction. It is the House of Hashem. No foreign power could ever have control over the Beis Hamikdash on its own.
So how was it possible that the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed?
Only because, within the Beis Hamikdash itself, from the time it was built, there was already a place prepared for the possibility of destruction.
An enemy has no power over a Jew on his own. The only way that can happen is if the Jew gives room for it through his own actions and choices.
And this, says the Rebbe, is why the Rambam emphasizes that when Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash, he not only knew that it would one day be destroyed. He actually built into the structure itself a place that made room for the possibility of that destruction.
But at the same time, he also built the place where the Aron would remain safe forever.
The outer structure could be destroyed.
But the essence would remain untouched.
Be Optimistic!
The Rebbe is saying something very powerful here.
The nations of the world have no real control over the Beis Hamikdash. Therefore, if Shlomo Hamelech had not built tunnels in preparation for the possibility of destruction, the destruction could not have happened.
The fact that it did happen was because Shlomo Hamelech prepared for that possibility.
There are some people who, when they meet a young man or woman who just got engaged and is smiling from ear to ear, immediately feel the need to say, “Enjoy it now. Just wait. You have no idea what’s coming.”
They meet a couple who are excited and happy, expecting a new baby, and they say, “Sleep now, because once the baby is born, you won’t know day from night.”
A family goes on a trip with three adorable little children who are behaving beautifully, and immediately someone says, “They’re cute now. But just wait until they become teenagers. They’ll drive you crazy.”
And so on.
The lesson from the story of Shlomo Hamelech is that we do not need to plan for the worst and prepare ourselves for the worst.
On the contrary, we should expect good, prepare for good, and live with optimism.
When we are optimistic, Hashem fulfills our optimistic hopes.
So let us wait for, hope for, and expect the coming of Moshiach.
And may we merit that even before Tisha B’Av, Moshiach will come — and instead of fasting, it will become the greatest celebration.
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