By Barry Rosenfeld
“And you will say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, “If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you, to listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I have been sending to you again and again, but you have not listened; then I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth.”’” (Jeremiah 26:4-6)
In Israel each life is precious and the loss incurred by the ongoing Gaza war has taken a heavy toll. Many families are grieving the loss of their sons in battle to protect the people of Israel. In the midst of this the country stops to observe the fast of Tisha B’Av ending the three weeks of mourning beginning with the Fast of Tammuz which commemorated the breach of the walls of Jerusalem leading to the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC.
The three week period is one of prayer and contemplation. This year it fittingly corresponds with Operation Protective Edge, in which the Israeli military is systematically removing the Hamas threat of rocket attacks over Israel’s population centers and the many terrorist tunnels snaking into Israeli border communities.
It was on Tisha B’Av, or the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, (this year falling on Monday August 4th and Tuesday August 5th) that the first and second temples were destroyed. In addition the fast commemorates other tragic events that occurred on that same day. Included in these is the massacre by the Romans of over 100,000 Jews living at Batar during the Second Jewish Revolt in the year 132 AD in which Bar Kokhba’s rebellion was crushed. The Mishnah (Taanit 4:6) says that it was on this day that the 12 spies described in Numbers 13 and 14, returned from Canaan, with ten giving a bad report saying that the Hebrews could never overcome the “giants” in the Land and leading to the 40 years of wandering in the desert.
Over the years other calamities have come to be associated with this date. These include the First Christian Crusade which resulted in the deaths of 10,000 Jews during its first month when Jewish communities were destroyed in France and the Rhineland. In all 1.2 million Jews were massacred by this crusade which began on the 9th of the month of Av.
On this date in 1290, the Jews were expelled from England, in 1306 from France. The year 1492 saw the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, again on this date.
The horrendous “Final Solution” for the destruction of European Jewry, was approved on this date and also the mass deportation of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto to their destruction in the Treblinka death camp took place on the 9th of Av. Most Jewish communities use this day to mourn the loss of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
But the central event establishing the 9th of Av as a day of fasting and mourning was the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC, an act that had been prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26: 6).
But now the Jewish people have returned to the Land and we look forward to the soon return of the Messiah. No longer should Tisha B’Av be a time for mourning, but a season of hope in his sure soon coming. The Walls are no longer breached and the people of Israel live and will no longer be scattered from their homes. Am Yisrael Chai.
“Hear the word of the Lord, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’” (Jeremiah 31:10)
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