Hakaras Hatov/tisha baav

throughout our lives, we are always asking for things, whether it be us asking our friends parents or Hashem to help and give us things that we want and need. but how often is it that when finally receive that "something" that we ask for do we say thank you.. yes we may say it.. but how often do we really MEAN it, and feel that sense of gratitude and appreciation that someone gave you something you wanted or needed. i read in a amazing book from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin called "Life is Now" that hakaras hatov is such an important thing to show and how often we seem to let opportunities to show our hakaras hatov to other slip away. he tells a story about how a man went to shamayim and walked into one "chamber" of shamayim and saw milllions of malachim running back and fourth, he stopped one of the malachim and asked "what is this place why are all these angels running around?" the angel responded, we are delivering all those requests to Hashem and everyone keeps asking for things so we have to keep going back and forth!" the man went on to the second chamber and again saw millions of angels runnning back and forth but in the opposite direction.. he stopped another angel and asked what is this place why are all the angels running in the opposite direction as the last chamber? the malach responded .. we are delivering all the things that Bnei yisroel has asked from Hashem... the 3rd chamber was different from the previous 2. this 3rd chamber was slow and there were very few angels there, the man stopped an angel and said .. what chamber is this? and the malach responded.. we deliver all the "thank you's" to Hashem after He gave them what they wanted......

its natural for poeple to ask for things when they lack it. we have to make sure to not only speak to Hashem when we want and need things. we should also speak to Hashem when we get the things that we asked for. thats how u form a true meaningful relationship with Hashem and with other people. going into the 9 days i think that its a time to really execute this midda of Hakaras Hatov because from this , stems good feelings towards other people and when we have good feelings for members of klal yisroel we counteract the reason why the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed (i.e sinas chinam)

i hope that these 9 days are days of really working on feeling true ahavas chinam for klal yisroel, days of connecting to Hashem and asking Hashem to please rebuild the home where His shechina can dwell in and IYHashem when Hashem does rebuild it we should all be able to say THANK YOU SO MUCH and feel the love that i know we all work so hard to feel and that this should be the last time we mourn over the loss of our beis hamikdash amen !