Min haMuvhar

Question: The Talmud contends that "from the day that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, the gates of prayer were locked...but the gates of tears were never sealed". (Bava Metzia 59a-Berakhot 32b) The implication is that tears have an impact upon prayers. Or better yet, tearful prayers are always in order. How are tearful prayers more significant or potent than simple prayers without tears?

Many Jews in our day, like many of our brethren of other tribes, are seeking
to mend the fractures that divide us from ourselves and from others, and to
find ways to heal the wounds that afflict us only six decades after the
Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel. Amid these efforts, an idealistic,
scholarly nineteenth-century rabbi from Livorno seems,
to some, to provide a beacon of hope and humanity.

For nearly two thousand years, the Jewish people experienced powerlessness wandering in exile, often without privileges, land or rights. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, we became the prototypical ger (stranger), perpetually in a state of alienation from our surroundings. During the modern period, Jews won increasing rights in the Western world and began to participate more actively in the societies in which they lived.

Introduction