{"id":1939,"date":"2014-08-05T19:37:48","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T19:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1939"},"modified":"2014-08-05T19:37:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T19:37:48","slug":"tishah-bav-facing-the-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/tishah-bav-facing-the-giants\/","title":{"rendered":"Tishah B\u2019Av – Facing the Giants"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Elisabeth Hinze
\n\"HAMAS-GIANTS\"<\/a>
\nLast night at sundown, as the rockets continued to rain down, as Hamas continued to hatch its evil plans for the destruction of the Jewish people and as Israel mourned so many of her sons killed while defending their right to live, Israel ground to a halt to commemorate Tishah B\u2019Av. It\u2019s the saddest day in Jewish history. Some say even sadder than Yom Kippur. For good reason. <\/p>\n

On the 9th day of the month of Av, the 5th month in the Biblical calendar, Jews around the word fast and mourn as they remember the destruction of the First Temple (King Solomon\u2019s temple) by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Jewish people\u2019s subsequent exile to Babylon. Yes, it\u2019s tragic. But by far not the only terrible thing that happened on this day. Actually, Tishah B\u2019Av reads like a chronology of destruction in Jewish history.<\/p>\n

It started on the 9th of Av 586BC, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem. Bad enough, I know. But it got much worse almost 700 years later, when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple on the 9th of Av 70AD. Yes, on that exact same date. Too much for mere coincidence don\u2019t you think? Disaster struck again on the 9th of Av 1095 when the Crusades started, which would result in the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews and the destruction of Jewish communities in Israel and Europe. The pattern continued. On the 9th of Av 1290, all Jews were expelled from England. On the 9th of Av 1492, the Spanish Inquisition reached a climax, resulting in the expulsion of Jews from Spain. World War I was declared on the 9th of Av 1914, which would set the stage for World War II and the Holocaust. Himmler presented the \u201cFinal Solution\u201d plan to the \u201cJewish Problem\u201d on the 9th of Av 1940. And on the 9th of Av 1942, the Nazis started deporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp and for so many, their death. I\u2019ve picked a few of the main tragedies. The list is far from complete. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard a number of theories to explain the tragedy that is Tishah B\u2019Av. One of them made me think. See, according to the Rabbis, Tishah B\u2019Av started way before the destruction of the First Temple. Apparently, the first Tishah B\u2019Av was the day that the 12 spies returned from their scouting expedition in the Promised Land and Israel chose to believe the rantings of the 10 spies, telling them that the giants were simply too huge to conquer. The first Tishah B\u2019Av seemed to be the day that Israel looked away from the might of God and instead looked at the difficulties staring them in the face. If so, it is also the day that God told a generation of Israelites that they would never set foot in the Promised Land.<\/p>\n

Truth? According to the Mishnah, yes. But that\u2019s not the point I\u2019m trying to make here. The lesson I take from Tishah B\u2019Av is this: if God (as opposed to my own thoughts, desires, will and emotions) tells me to do, face, overcome or conquer something, I better be standing sword in hand, believing I can. <\/p>\n

The giants that Israel had to face since that day she stood on the edge of the Promised Land listening to the spies have not diminished. My prayer for this Tishah B\u2019Av is that Israel would not grow weary, not succumb to despair or look around in dismay. But that her eyes would be fixed on the One Who promised to be mighty on her behalf. <\/p>\n

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By Elisabeth Hinze Last night at sundown, as the rockets continued to rain down, as Hamas continued to hatch its evil plans for the destruction of the Jewish people and as Israel mourned so many of her sons killed while defending their right to live, Israel ground to a halt to commemorate Tishah B\u2019Av. It\u2019s more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75,625,631,181,125,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-1939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorial","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-israeli-news","10":"tag-israeli-life","11":"tag-jewish-calander","12":"tag-news-from-jerusalem","13":"tag-tisha-bav","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}