is this not what we've been praying for?

The picture below (obviously I am not a great photographer), showing 4 cranes on the horizon,  was taken from a window in our hotel room (if I remember correctly) a few weeks ago when we visited my daughter in Eretz Yisrael.  We switched to a different hotel during our trip, and at that second one there was a crane practically parked outside the window.  So much for the view!  Of course, all this construction makes for a huge traffic mess.  One evening we were taking a bus back from somewhere and there was a backup for at least a few blocks trying to get to tachanah merkazit.  People were begging the driver to let them off so they could walk instead of wasting time sitting in traffic.    

When you end up sitting in traffic in Yerushalayim, stuck on a bus, and have a hotel room with nothing but views of construction cranes as far as the eye can see, and you turn Heavenward and ask, "What did I do to deserve this?" I can't help but feel that Hashem's answer is, "Isn't this what you've been asking me for for 2000 years?!"

"Don't you plead with me three times a day every day, 'U'vnei Yerushalayim Ir haKodesh b'm'heira b'yamaeinu'?  So what are you complaining about?  How do you build a city if not with cranes, without construction sites, and traffic detours?"

Somehow we fail to put 2 and 2 together.  Somehow we see right in front of our eyes all the evidence of our prayers being answered, and instead of thanking Hashem, we complain about the traffic.  What did we expect?  Buildings to fall in place from the sky?  Should we also expect to return after 2000 years of exile with no practice running a country and not have fights over things like judicial reform, not have arguments in the Knesset, not have political, social, religious turmoil?  

Maybe miracles that would happen if we would be zocheh, but for now we have to live with the next best thing -- miracles that happen b'toch ha'teva, with all the bumps in the road, but which are miracles nonetheless.

That's what we celebrate on Yom haAtzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim.  

Worth listening to the whole thing, but for those who can't, one point: at the very end he quotes a kashe from R' Charlap.  The gemara says that after 120 a person will be asked whether they fulfilled tzipisa l'yeshu'a.  A person lichora can say back to Hashem that they have an excuse.  What if they just did not live in a time which is fit for yeshu'a?  Not their fault. 

R' Charlap answered that what Chazal are telling us is that tzipisa l'yeshu'a gufa means that we have to believe that every dor, with all its problems, with all its issues, is fit for yeshu'a.  That's what you will be held accountable for after 120. Did you believe in the potential of even your generation to experience redemption? 

Hopefully those cranes dotting the skies of Yerushalayim, the traffic jams because every other person now has a car and a place to go, make that belief a little easier for us to hold on to.