Tisha b’Av 2024

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

This is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, when the destruction of both the First and Second Temples is commemorated. According to the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:6) the following tragic events occurred on this day in Jewish history:

1. The twelve spies sent by Moshe to scout the Land of Israel returned, with ten of them bringing a damaging report that led to forty years of Bnei Yisrael wandering in the desert until the entire generation had died out.
2. The First Temple, built by King Shlomo, was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and the population of the Kingdom of Judah was sent into exile.
3. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and signifying the beginning of a two-thousand-year exile.
4. The subsequent defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt and destruction of the city of Beitar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians in 135 CE.
5. Also in 135 CE, following the Bar Kochba revolt, Roman commander Turnus Rufus ploughed the site of the Temple and the surrounding area of Jerusalem.

The fast observed on Tisha B’Av begins at sundown at the end of 8th Av, and lasts for 25 hours until nightfall on the 9th Av. As well as all the customs of the Nine Days, Tisha B’Av shares the five prohibitions of Yom Kippur, which are:

1. No eating or drinking;
2. No washing or bathing;
3. No application of creams or oils;
4. No wearing of leather shoes;
5. No marital relations.

Additionally, there are several customs of mourning associated with Tisha B’Av. These include: the eating of a hardboiled egg dipped in ashes, and a piece of bread dipped into ashes, during the pre-fast seuda mafseket meal; refraining from studying Torah (apart from sad portions) until midday on 9th Av (because of the enjoyment it provides); the removal of the parochet (curtain of the Ark) and the dimming of the lights in the synagogue; and the sitting on low stools or on the floor, (as is done during shiva) until midday. Megillat Eichah (Lamentations) and special kinnot (sad poems) are read during the synagogue service, and the custom is to not put on tefillin or a tallit at the Shacharit morning services of Tisha B’Av, but rather at Minchah instead.

Four Hundred and Eighty Years

By: Gershon Hepner

Four hundred and eighty years had passed

before the Temple could be built,

like buildings, years must be amassed

to be for time, not space, a quilt.

Four hundred eighty years once more

would pass before it was destroyed.

Despite attempts made to restore

it fell once more into a void,

its site now used by Ishmael

for mosque and golden-covered dome.

Quilted, time is like a tale

repeated like a palindrome.

On Av’s ninth day, that’s known as Tisha,

we hold as fast as to deep wells

to time, each faster a well-wisher

who’s hoping that the tale he tells

on it will have a happy ending,

and that a message old and deep

will be the one this day is sending

to all the Jews who on it weep.

Then time’s great “happy ever after”

is seen by all as its profound

inclusion, turning it to laughter

which comes because it rolls around,

just like inclusions of the tales

the Bible tells us, nearly all

wrapped by conclusions, happy tails

we wag when we bad times recall.

Their symmetry is far less fearful

than tigers’ eyes, for though beginnings

of tales it tells are often tearful,

there’s laughter in most final innings.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

To this day, the Holocaust survivors I know spend their time sharing their memories with young people, not for the sake of revenge, but its opposite: to teach tolerance and the value of life. Mindful of the lessons of Genesis, we too try to remember for the future and for life.

In today’s fast-moving culture, we undervalue acts of remembering. Computer memories have grown, while ours have become foreshortened. Our children no longer memorise chunks of poetry. Their knowledge of history is often all too vague. Our sense of space has expanded. Our sense of time has shrunk.

That cannot be right. One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is the knowledge of where we have come from, the things for which we fought, and why. None of the things we value – freedom, human dignity, justice – were achieved without a struggle. None can be sustained without conscious vigilance. A society without memory is like a journey without a map. It’s all too easy to get lost.

Try To Praise The Mutilated World

By: Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

Don’t wait for a Temple and a Messiah – Act now!: My annual thoughts on Tisha B’Av

Steve Bilow (almostrational.wordpress.com)

22 July 2015

Every year, as Tisha B’Av arrives, I write about all the Jewish tragedies that supposedly occurred in this very day,

Tisha B’Av used to be a time to mourn the destruction of the first, and then second, temple. But, a big problem arose with Reform Judaism because, in our faith, we have no wish to return to the days of ritual sacrifice. We also don’t necessarily believe that there is an actual dude called “the Messiah” so we don’t have a reason to want the temple back.

We believe that, through our actions, we can improve the world to the extent that one day a Messianic age will arrive through our efforts. We need no savior, like Christians do; no singular prophet; and no special guy from the lineage of David. What we DO need it to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. Each individual is tasked with doing their own little part until one day the sum of those parts is great enough to affect a global culture of holiness, respect, and love.

What we also need is the courage to press on no matter the obstacles. THAT is why I care so much about Tisha B’Av. Irrespective of mourning the Temple, we can use this day to realize that our people have survived countless instances of cruelty and hatred and yet we have remained.

Think about it. In this week’s Torah portion, the first of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses begins the first of his three great “sermons”. He reminds us, through a perspective that is much more mature in its deutero-retelling than in the original tellings earlier in Torah, of all the things we have been through. He also reminds us of our failures and our lack of courage and persistence. In a rather timely sort of annual occurrence, it is said that one of the things that happened on Tisha B’Av was the failure of the “spies” to come back from reconnoitering the promise land with confidence in our success. Moses not only reminds the people of their lack of faith and their unwillingness to persevere and enter the land but he takes personal responsibility for it by reminding them that G-d is angry with him as well.

What I’m saying here is that, in his well seasoned maturity, Moses takes responsibility even for the things that he himself did not do. The buck stops with Moses. From this we learn that we, as a society, must have the forbearance to take action AND that we, as individuals, must have the integrity to accept responsibility for making those actions work or not work.

So, on this Tisha B’Av I am not suggesting we neglect the temple. Nor am I suggesting that we ignore the crusades, the inquisition, the expulsion from Spain, the expulsion from Portugal, the weak will of 10 out of 12 biblical spies, the mass transport of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto to Auschwitz, or anything else that has tragically befallen the Jews throughout history. Rather, I suggest that, as we mourn the myriad terrors, we use that memory to notice that we yet remain a people.

Remember that much of the reason we persist is that we never give up, never give in, never allow humiliation to trump fortitude, and never act with complacency in the hope that all will be fine with a new temple, a Davidic Messiah, a second-coming of Christ, or anything else.

Don’t wait for the end of days to take responsibility for doing your part to bring about the world you hope to someday have.