​This text-based class on Likkutei Sichot, vol. 21, Parshas Terumah, explains in a novel way the reason for the Rambam giving us a history lesson about the Holy Ark in his halachik work: "W​hen ​K​ing Solomon built the Holy Temple, knowing that it was destined to be destroyed, he built a place in which to hide the Ark, [at the end of] hidden, deep, winding passageways.” It was there that King Josiah placed the Ark twenty-two years before the Temple’s destruction.

The Holy Temple in Jerusalem was built by King Solomon in the year 2928 from creation (833 BCE), and was destroyed 410 years later, on the ninth day of the month of Av, by the armies of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar. Seventy years later it was rebuilt; the second Temple stood for 420 years, until its destruction by the Romans, also on the ninth of Av, in 3829 (69 CE). 

From the Rambam's words about the Ark we discover that the core of the Beis Hamikdash (the Holy Temple) was never destroyed. What is more, it means that the first, second and third Temples are not three different structures, but the continuum of a single edifice.

The class also tackles the question of why we allow ourselves to make such destructive mistakes. It turns out, we are the ones who do this to ourselves, for a very healing reason.