Excavated stones from the Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Jerusalem), knocked onto the street below by Roman battering rams in 70 C.E |
The saddest day on the Jewish calendar
Tisha B’Av means literally, the 9th (tisha) day of the month of Av. There were many tragedies that happened on this day in Jewish history and commemorate them and remember the sadness.
The fast of Tisha B’Av commemorates 5 tragedies that befell the Jewish people on that date:
- Moses sent 12 spies into Israel to look at the land. Ten came back with horrible reports bu two, Joshua & Caleb, brought a positive report. The people Israel believed the bad & not the good, getting themselves 40 years in the desert.
- The first Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple), built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar on the ninth of Av almost 2,500 years ago.
- The second Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple), built by Ezra and Nehemiah, was destroyed by the Romans on the ninth of Av about 1950 years ago. This scattered the Judean empire and began our exile from Israel.
- The failure of Bar Kochba’s revolt against the Roman Empire and the destruction of the city of Betar left 100,000 Jews dead in 132 C.E.
- Jerusalem was destroyed in 133 C.E. after the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the site of the Holy Temple was plowed under by Roman commander Turnus Rufus who renamed it Aelia Capitolina.
Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 121:5
Other tragedies that happened on 9 of Av:
- The First Crusade was declared by Pope Urban II in 1095 C.E. which killed 10,000 Jews in the first month and permanently destroyed renowned Jewish communities in France and the Rhineland.
- 4,000 Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I in the year 1290.
- 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain by Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in the year 1492 (which interestingly, led to the first Jew in the Americas… a Ladino Jew who was Columbus’ translator… who didn’t speak any of the Americas’ languages but needed to escape the expulsion).
- Word War 1 started on 1 August 1914 – with Germany declaring war on Russia causing devastation in Europe, German financial depression, increased anti-semitism and setting the stage for WWII and the Holocaust.
- The mass deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto of Jews to the concentration camp Treblinka happened on the eve of Tisha B’Av, 1942.
- The Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 86 and wounding 300 others on the ninth of Av in 1994.
(thanks to Halocha a Day on Facebook and Wikipedia for some of these details)
Even after the fast is over and we move into the 10th day of Av, the sadness isn’t finished. Tradition tells us that our Holy Temple burned all night and most of the day on the 10 of Av and so many people will refrain from eating meat or drinking wine until midday on the 10th.
It is a very intense time for us. Even as I sit at work and write this, I have found myself shaky with hunger and overwhelmed with sadness. But there is hope. Some people believe that the Moshiach will be born on Tisha B’Av.
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