The Relevance of Tish’ah Be’av
Aug 2, 2000 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
Next week, Jews around the world will observe Tisha B’av, mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples and commemorating many other tragedies of Jewish history. The literary centerpiece of the holiday is the book of Lamentations, Eikha, which mourns the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people from its land. The book’s refrain is the word “Eikha,” asking the question “How could it be?”–“How could it be that the teeming city lay desolate, that God rejected God’s people?” (Lam 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 4:2)
Read More
Memory’s Comfort
Jul 28, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
Next week I will commemorate Tishah B’Av at Camp Ramah. Many a summer finds me vacationing in Vermont when the fast day comes. My isolation makes its observance doubly difficult. Judaism requires community. Our religious reserves quickly run dry when we go it alone. The presence of a minyan united by ritual not only generates an atmosphere of sanctity, it also inspires our own participation.
Read More
Judaism’s Message
Aug 9, 2003 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Va'et-hannan | Tishah Be'av
Reenacting an historical moment through liturgy and deed is a forte of Judaism. Our calendar year overflows with holidays and observances that transport us to our former days and inspire us to reenter the narrative and relive salient moments of history. This week in particular, observing the 9th of Av, we read of the destruction of the Temple and continue the mourning of our ancestors for the calamities that befell them. While it is possible to read this narrative as a preventive measure to ensure that we, too, do not fall victims to George Santayana’s dictum condemning us to either learn from our history or repeat it, I believe that Judaism’s message is a blessing, not a curse. It is a blessing for us to be able to relive life’s difficult moments – and the reason why can be gleaned from Moses’ behavior and our parasha this week.
Read More
The Power of the Spirit
Jul 26, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Masei | Mattot | Tishah Be'av
This week’s parashah finds the Israelites routing the Midianites. The victory is total; the five kings of Midian and all their male subjects meet their death. The Torah appears to go out of its way to inform us that the Israelites “also put Balaam son of Beor to the sword (31:8).” It is a passing detail that triggered the rabbinic imagination. The narrative fragments which constitute the interaction of this pagan prophet with the fate of Israel seem little more than dots waiting to be connected midrashically. A form of reader participation, midrash embellishes the spare story line of Torah narrative. In the process, it tends to give the material a refreshingly moral twist.
Read More
Tisha Be’av
Jan 1, 1980
25 When you have begotten children and children’s children and are long established in the land, should you act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness, causing the Lord your God displeasure and vexation, 26 I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you that you shall soon perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess; you shall not long endure in it, but shall be utterly wiped out. 27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a scant few of you shall be left among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. 28 There you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, that cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
Read More
The Poetry and Theology of Tishah Be’av
Jul 24, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
On the Shabbat prior to the fast of Tishah b’Av, the synagogue reverberates to the opening chapters of Deuteronomy. The name of the book and of the parashah, Devarim – Words – emphasizes the key Jewish response to calamity. Historically, Jews rebuild their shattered worlds with words of high emotion and daring imagination. Like God at the dawn of creation, we bring order out of chaos through words. The instrument has nothing to do with the magic of incantations. It mirrors the fundamental human condition. The worlds we inhabit are a construct of our minds.
Read More
Tisha Be’av
Jan 1, 1980
13I will make an end of them
—declares the Lord:
No grapes left on the vine,
No figs on the fig tree,
The leaves all withered;
Whatever I have given them is gone.
How We Reconcile Grief and Comfort
Jul 17, 2010 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Tishah Be'av
The Hebrew month of Av, as the Rabbis have acknowledged and history has reinforced, is the month of calamity—the month of sorrow. There is quite a list of catastrophes that transpired on the day we observe in fasting and mourning this week: from the report of the spies under Moses to the destruction of both the First and Second Temples; from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, under the edict of Franz Ferdinand, to the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in 1942. Each shares this day on the calendar, and as we approach the ninth of Av, we prepare ourselves for some destruction—be it spiritual or historic—that resonates with each of us.
Read More
