Return us...to the city where Your name dwells, and we will return to serving You as in days of old...
Like days of old...like the days of the exodus from Egypt, when You Started...
Makkot 24b:1-5
Rabbi Akiva and his companions were traveling past the site of the destroyed Temple. When they arrived at the Temple Mount, they saw a fox coming out of the place that had been the Holy of Holies.They began weeping, and Rabbi Akiva was laughing. They said to him: For what reason are you laughing? Rabbi Akiva said to them: For what reason are you weeping?
They said: This is the place that was once so holy that only priests could tread there, and now foxes walk in it. Shall we not weep? Rabbi Akiva said to them: That is why I am laughing!In the prophecy of Uriah it is written: “Therefore, for your sake Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become rubble, and the Temple Mount as the high places of a forest” (Micah 3:12), where foxes are found. In the prophecy of Zechariah it is written: “There shall yet be elderly men and elderly women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem” (Zechariah 8:4). ...
Now that the prophecy of Uriah was fulfilled, it is evident that the prophecy of Zechariah will also be fulfilled....The Sages said to him: Akiva, you have comforted us; Akiva, you have comforted us...
(translation adapted and abridged for clarity by Rabbi Kelilah Miller)
Said the ancient Rabbis: When was the first Eicha? And they answered, it was God’s lament “Ayekka” as the Exile from the Garden of Eden began.
I Look on “Chadesh yamenu k’kedem” not as “Give us back the good old days” but as “Make our own days new, as they were long ago.” New to explore, experiment, create moments of joy and also fall flat. - Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Midrash HaGadol - God takes nothing from this world until he puts something else in its place.
Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav - All new beginnings require that you unlock a new door.
Sherri Mandell - Sometimes you need an angel. Sometimes you have to become one.
Kotzker Rebbe - There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.
Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav - The day you were born is the day God decided the world couldn't go on without you any longer.
Saint Francis of Assisi - God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reb Yisrael Hopstein, Maggid of Kohznitz - "When one feels as if one is being tested, this could be an example of 'descent for the sake of ascent'. It is similar to when a person is climbing a ladder - when one needs to go up to a higher rung, one must remove one of one's feet from the lower rung, and temporarily stand with one foot on the ladder and one foot in the air. A person then needs to be extra careful so as not to fall. This is also the case in serving God, when a person feels as if they are being tested, even though they may become more elevated after the fact, in any event, at the moment they feel as if they are being tested, it is as if they are temporarily standing on one foot, and it takes extra watchfulness and strength in order to persevere."
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Chabad - "If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that G-d has left for you to complete. But if you only see what is wrong and how ugly it is, then it is you yourself that needs repair.”