Parshas Devarim - Shabbos Chazone

One evening from his rooftop King David saw a woman and was smitten by her. His soul told him they would together bring the messiah into the world and ultimately they did. The woman was technically divorced because her husband had gone off to war and the custom of the time was for soldiers to divorce their wives lest the husband go missing in battle and the wife remain forever unable to remarry. King David summoned the husband home and ordered him to return to his wife. The husband defied the King and did not return to his wife. For that he was liable to the death penalty for treason. King David sent the husband back into the heat of battle where he was killed and King David married the woman.

Nathan the prophet comes to King David and tells him about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had many sheep the poor man one little lamb. When guests came the rich man could not part with his sheep so he took away the poor mans lamb. King David was outraged and wanted to punish the man. Nathan said "you are that man and because of your actions Hashem will destroy you and your entire family".
Lets stop and consider. How would we respond to Nathan. "That's not fair. She wasn't really married. The husband was treasonous. I saw that she and I are destined to produce Moshiach. Why didn't Hashem stop me?" All arguable rationalizations. What did King David really say? "I have sinned to Hashem" Nathen responds "Hashem has forgiven you you will not die" Hashem heard Davids sincere regret and accepted it.

King David made mistakes. We all do. King David was a big man so he made big mistakes and he had big rationalizations to back them up. What made King David great was that when confronted with his wrong doing he accepted it. He didn't vow to fight the charges or appeal the verdict. He realized that all of his rationalizations were nothing more than that. Rationalizations. He composes psalm 53 "to the conductor a Song of David when Nathan came to him.." King David actually celebrated the event in song. Why was he so happy. The Sochatzover rebbe explains that David rejoiced because Nathan had snapped him out of his delusional rationalizations and brought him to Emes, the truth.
This is a powerful tale with a powerful message to each and every one of us. We look at the news and see pictures of religious Jews being led off by the FBI for alleged crimes. Of course we hope and pray that they committed no wrong doing and they are exonerated. But if they have committed wrong doing how could it be? We see pictures of religious Jews throwing stones or lighting fires and we ask how could they commit these acts of hooliganism. The answer is that they are not evil people but that they rationalize that they are doing it for a noble cause or in other words 'it's OK G-d will surely understand'. Of course as Nathan told King David it's not OK.
If we persist in asking 'but how could they do such things' we have missed the point. They did these things because they rationalize. The same way we rationalise all of the things that we do that we know we shouldn't and that we don't do that we know we should. As sad as we are to see these events unfolding we could rejoice if they snap us out of our delusions and cause us to take a realistic look at ourselves. We just heard Isaiah the prophet rail against "the perversion of justice. Hands full of blood, making a mockery of all things Holy". It was these rationalizations that brought the destruction of our Holy Temple and these same rationalizations that prevent it from being rebuilt.
So when Tisha B'Av comes around don't ignore it and we don't get angry at those bad people who caused so much death and destruction. Embrace it. Sit down on the floor and mourn our rationalizations that lead to our wrong doings that destroy our lives. Then we get up and say thank you Hashem for sending us this day to snap ourselves out of our delusion and bring us to Emes , truth.