Tisha B'Av - 9 Av

Tisha B'Av : The Saddest Day in the Jewish Calendar

Tisha B'Av (9 Av, this year from Sunset, July 23, to Nightfall, July 24, 2007) commemorates the destruction of both Temples, as well as other tragic events that were said to have happened on this date (the ninth of Av): The capture of Bethar, the razing of Jerusalem by the Romans, an edict compelling the Jews of England to leave the country in 1290, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. It is a day of mourning and reflection for the Jewish people.

"More fortunate were the victims of the sword than the victims of famine, for they pine away stricken, lacking the fruits of the field."

—Lamentations (4:10)

Relating Tisha B’Av to Today’s Environmental Crises

By RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ

Tisha B'Av is a time to consider the devastation brought on by hunger and starvation: An estimated 20 million people worldwide die every year because of hunger and its effects. "The Jewish people must...consider personal and societal changes that will start to move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a sustainable path," writes Schwartz, author of Judaism and Global Survival.

Devarim and Tisha B'Av: Standing at the brink of redemption, amidst the destruction

By JOSEPH BERMAN

We are always standing at the Jordan, waiting to cross into the promised land of redemption. But we also mourn our exile, all of the destruction, and what we went through in our search for freedom. Our responsibility to heal the world—the work of tikkun olam—is what exists between destruction and redemption.

Fires and False Prophets

By NINA WOUK

Driving home from shul after breaking the Tisha B'Av fast last year, I turned on the car radio only to hear of the worst forest fire season on record. In Sumatra, Labrador, Kentucky, Siberia, British Columbia, Italy, California, Guatemala, Finland, Tennessee, New Mexico, Spain, Alaska—wherever forests existed, oxygen-producing trees were uncontrollably transforming into choking clouds of polluting particles, gushing tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Global warming was feeding itself, the world burning as the Temple once burned, and for much the same reason: the inevitable consequences of human acts.

What Brings About Destruction?

By RABBI DAVID ROSENN

When people don’t rebuke each other for doing wrong, are they preserving the civility of society or are they undermining society? Minding your own business can be risky business.

Kibbutz Conversation

By RABBI AVI SHAFRAN

Here is another way of looking at the importance of Tisha B'Av. It came out of a conversation between two teenagers on the outskirts of a kibbutz in Israel, who came from very different Jewish backgrounds, and poignantly points out the historical reasons why we should commemorate and mourn during Tisha B'Av in order to maintain the memory of historical, tragic incidents in which others tried to destroy our people and our faith.