NINTH of AV - TISHA B'AV
A Traditional Fast

    The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av falls between mid-July and early August, a date that is not commanded but is nevertheless commemorated as very special on the modern Hebrew calendar.  On this day in 586 B.C.E. the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem and sent the Israelites into exile.  The Temple built by King Solomon, the third of Israel ’s kings, was utterly destroyed.  Jeremiah, a witness to the destruction and desecration, composed the Book of Lamentations shortly after the event. 

    The Persians later conquered the Babylonians and, fifty years from their initial exile, the Jews were permitted to return to and rebuild their homeland.  After 200 years of Greek and Roman occupation, the Romans destroyed the second Temple and for the last time the Jews were driven from Palestine .  They would not return en masse until millennia later to reestablish the state of Israel in 1948.  Ironically, the exact day of the second Temple ’s destruction was the very day on which it was destroyed by the Persians. 

    Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning, expressed with fasting for twenty-four hours, refraining from celebrations such as weddings, refraining from meat and wine because they symbolize comfort and luxury, recitation of the Book of Lamentations and Medieval liturgical poems.  If Tisha B’Av falls on a Shabbat, it is suspended until the following day, since no mourning is permitted on the Sabbath.

    Some feel that because Israel has once more regained their ancestral land, Tisha B’Av is no longer necessary as a time of fasting and mourning, but simply to be remembered as an event in our history.  Today, many Jews celebrate it at the Western Wall, the retaining wall and only remnant of the last Temple .  As Rabbi Wayne Dosick writes, “...like all of Jewish history, it is a combination of tears and laughter.”  Tears for the difficulty, happiness for their glory, hope for their future.  He goes on to say, “The contemporary observance of Tisha B’Av... leads the way into the Jewish future.  It is a solemn yet hopeful commemoration of Jewish history and Jewish destiny.” (Jewish Days and Holidays, pg. 199)