We ask Hashem for a lot of things. Health. Parnassah. Nachas. Peace of mind. These are good prayers — real prayers. But somewhere in the middle of asking, it’s easy to miss a much simpler question about God’s Presence and the Beis HaMikdash:
What does Hashem actually want to give us?
The answer is sitting inside a phrase we say three times a day and probably don’t think twice about: “R’tzei Hashem Elokeinu b’amcha Yisrael u’vitfilatam”, the line from the Amidah that opens the Avodah blessing. We translate r’tzei as “be pleased” or “find favor.” But what does that mean, exactly? Can Hashem be pleased? Can we even talk about God having something like pleasure?
Can Hashem Really “Take Pleasure”?
Obviously, Hashem doesn’t have emotions the way we do. When Chazal describe Him as taking pleasure, or even being pained, they’re not describing God’s inner life — they’re describing something about our relationship with Him, in language we can actually understand.
The Mother Whose Baby Won’t Nurse
Think about a mother whose baby won’t nurse. That’s not just a physical discomfort for her. It’s something deeper. She has so much to give, and her child won’t take it. Her pain isn’t that she’s missing something — it’s that her greatest gift is being turned away.
That’s the closest we can get to what it means for Hashem to be “pleased.” It happens when we actually want what He’s been wanting to give us all along.
Which leaves us with the real question:
What Does God Really Want to Give You?
The Beis HaMikdash answers it.
The Gift the Beis HaMikdash Was Really About
It wasn’t just an extraordinary building. It wasn’t just the address for korbanos. The Beis HaMikdash was Hashem’s answer to that question — a physical form for the greatest gift He has always wanted to give.
So what is that gift?
A Memory of Presence
I think about this through a memory of my own. I remember being a little boy, lying in bed, listening to my mother read to me. Looking back, the story was never really the point. What I remember, what stayed with me, was that she was there. Fully. Nothing else existed for her in those minutes — she’d set the rest of her world aside, gathered herself up, and given all of it to me.
That kind of presence doesn’t come in a box. You can’t buy it. But it might be the deepest form of love one person can offer another — to be completely, undividedly there.
If that’s true between a mother and a child, how much more is it true between us and Hashem?
God’s Presence: The Gift Behind the Beis HaMikdash
Hashem’s greatest gift was never just blessing, success, or comfort.
It’s God’s Presence — what the Torah calls the Shechinah.
That’s what the Beis HaMikdash actually was. Not a magnificent structure. Not only a place for korbanos. It was where God’s Presence lived among us — where the distance between Heaven and earth closed, and the Jewish people could feel close to Hashem in a way that existed nowhere else on earth.
Which gives “R’tzei Hashem Elokeinu” a different weight. We’re not simply asking Hashem to accept our prayers. We’re saying something bigger:
Hashem, give us what You actually want to give us.
Not just Your blessings.
You.
Do I Miss God’s Presence?
Maybe this is the real grief of Tisha B’Av.
Yes, we mourn a building. But the Beis HaMikdash was never really about the building — it was about God’s Presence living inside it. It was the meeting point of Heaven and earth, the place where the closeness Hashem has always wanted with us became something we could actually feel.
So the question of Tisha B’Av isn’t just, do I miss the Beis HaMikdash?
It’s:
Do I miss God’s Presence?
Do I miss the closeness it made possible? Do I actually want what Hashem wants to give me — not just His gifts, but Him?
Maybe that’s what “R’tzei Hashem Elokeinu” is really asking for: a people who finally want His greatest gift, not just His good gifts.
Because rebuilding the Beis HaMikdash doesn’t start with stone. It starts when what we’re longing for stops being just blessing — and becomes God’s Presence itself. That’s the whole story of God’s Presence and the Beis HaMikdash: a longing that never really left us, waiting for us to finally want it back.