Word Prompt – MISHMAR – Yitzchak Sprung

The Talmud tells us that every evening contains three "mishmarot," or "watches." And during each one, G-d laments the fate of His Temple and people. If only we would sin less, we would have a home for G-d in our midst. Now, even the righteous suffer because the rest of us sin (Brachot 3a, Ritva).

With the greatest irony, G-d places His desires in our hands. He longs, so to speak, to give us pure blessing, comfort, and glory. Yet, we sin and rob Him of this.

From the cry at each watch, we learn that G-d loves us and wishes to treat us only with love. We also learn that His primary act of love is to give us free will and to allow us to be masters of our own destiny. Better that we should choose poorly than live well as animals of instinct or automatons of programming. We learn of the vision for our future: one day the watches in heaven will correspond to watches in the Temple, and we will indeed have unadulterated glory and blessing. And we learn to reflect G-d's love and sympathy back towards Him. He cries for us. We must respond with acts of love and devotion- Torah study and mitzvot – to Him.