Why do we still mourn?

[Jewscout]

A story is told that in the 1930s, the world-renowned tzaddik, the Chofetz Chaim, received a letter from a Jewish soldier who had been drafted into the Polish army. The soldier related that he was assigned to a remote base where there were no Jewish soldiers, no religious services, no kosher food and where it was impossible to keep Shabbat or any mitzvah at all. His question to the Chofetz Chaim: "How do I survive as an observant Jew in this forsaken place?"

The reply of the Chofetz Chaim is awesome: "If it is impossible for you to keep Shabbat, kashrut, or to pray or to keep mitzvot, don't be discouraged. There is one thing you can and must do. Whenever you have a free moment, speak to God, and whenever you speak to God, face east. Why face east? Because you will be directing your thoughts to Jerusalem. In so doing, you will reunite yourself with the Jewish People and with God. In fact, whenever a Jew faces Jerusalem in prayer -- he or she is in Jerusalem." The Jew may not be in Jerusalem -- but Jerusalem is always in him.

Most Jews in some way participate in a Passover Seder and observe Yom Kippur. The most dramatic moments of the Yom Kippur service occur just as the day is about to end. At the conclusion of this most sacred day, a long shofar blast is sounded, to which the congregation responds, "Next year in Jerusalem." The very same hope is expressed at the end of the Passover Seder. This is not a coincidence.

For many Jews, the wedding ceremony concludes with the singing of the phrase, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget how to function." Then a glass is broken by the groom as a symbolic gesture of grief, so that even at their happiest moment, the newly married couple recalls the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. This is in keeping with the next verse, "Let my tongue stick to my palate if I remember you not, if I set not Jerusalem above my greatest joy." Synagogues around the world are built facing Jerusalem. Why is there so much emphasis on remembering Jerusalem in our lives?

To the world at large, the history of Jerusalem opens with its conquest by King David. For the Jew, Jerusalem is the place where man was created. Jerusalem is the city of King Malkizedek, the city in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob worshipped, the city chosen by God to radiate direction and spiritually to all mankind. Jerusalem is the gateway through which all of mankind's prayers rise to heaven. Jerusalem is the place where the Shechinah, the very presence of God, is felt more intensely than anywhere else on earth.

full story here:
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jer...ill_Mourn_.asp