After the capture of the Kotel in 1967, Rav Nachum Partzovitz [RY Mir] came to the Kotel and saw people dancing. He was shocked!
He said "מתו מוטל לפניו" - the dead body lies before us [i.e. the destroyed בית המקדש] and we are dancing??!! [Rav Moshe Shternburch expressed the same sentiment in a Teshuva].
This has been a silent debate that has raged for decades since. Should we dance at the Kotel for what we have or emphasize the mourning for what we don't?? In my years at Yeshivat Hakotel every Friday night the Yeshiva would dance down to the Kotel and dance again where they were there. It wasn't that they/we didn't care that there was no Beis Hamikdash. We were just so happy with what we have [and that it is part of the greater process to complete restoration of the service of Hashem] that we danced. [Actually most of us danced b/c we saw people around us dancing. We weren't so aware of the theological repercussions...] Others feel differently.
I think that this debate touches upon at least two greater issues and is not just a narrow debate about dancing at the Kotel per se:
1] How we view any partial victory in life.
2] How the Jewish people as a whole are supposed to view our present situation of galus in Eretz Yisrael.
ישמע חכם ויוסף לקח.
