Tisha B'Av - When the Beis HaMikdash Falls, Where Does Hashem Go?

What happens to our relationship with Hashem when the structure through which we experienced Him is destroyed?

In this shiur, delivered to the Chizuk Mission, Rav Burg explains that the loss of the Beis HaMikdash was far more than the destruction of a building. It created a terrifying spiritual question: If the place of the relationship is gone, has the relationship itself disappeared?

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai answers: Wherever the Jewish people were exiled, the Shechinah went with them. Galus changes the form of the relationship, but it does not end the attachment. The proof of our belovedness is not that exile never happens. It is that exile never becomes abandonment.

Through the remarkable stories of the ancient shuls of Hutzal and Shaf VeYasiv, Abaye’s journey toward the Shechinah, and Rav Sheshet’s refusal to be displaced by the angels, this shiur explores how we survive rupture without forgetting the past.

This shiur about trauma and rebuilding, memory and movement, human vulnerability, and the God Who refuses to leave His children alone.