OzTorah

AKIVA – Mishnaic rabbi, supporter of Bar Kochba; laughed to see foxes in the Temple ruins, saying that though the destruction had been prophesied, so had the redemption (Makkot 24b).

ARZEI HaL’VANON (“Cedars of Lebanon”) – medieval poem recited on Tishah B’Av to recall ten scholars martyred by the Romans; another version is recited on Yom Kippur.

AV – 5th month of the year; popular saying, “When Av commences, joy diminishes”; also known as M’nachem Av, “Av the Comforter”, since the Messiah will be born then.

BABYLONIANS – destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE and took many of the people into exile.

BETAR – last Jewish fortress to fall to the Romans (135 CE) on 9 Av.

CUSTOMS – during the 3 Weeks (q.v.), no weddings or celebrations; no shaving or haircutting; no buying or washing clothes; on 9 Av no greetings, wearing leather shoes, cosmetics, walking for pleasure, or marital relations; in the synagogue, lights are dimmed, drapes are removed, and people sit on low seats or the floor.

ECHAH – elegiac Book of Lamentations, one of the 5 M’gillot (“Scrolls”); read to a sad melody on Tishah B’Av evening; 4 out of 5 chapters have an alphabetical acrostic; written by Jeremiah, who watched the destruction of the 1st Temple.

ELI TZIYYON (“Let Zion mourn”) – the final kinnah, sung (despite its sad contents) to a joyous tune to symbolise the hope of redemption.

FASTING – Tishah B’Av is a 25-hour fast; 3 other fasts (dawn to night) recall the Temple: 17 Tammuz, 3 Tishri, 10 Tevet. All will eventually be days of joy (Zech. 8:19).

HAFTAROT – 3 weeks before 9 Av have haftarot of rebuke; then come 7 haftarot of comfort. The Tishah B’Av morning haftarah is Jer. 8-9; the afternoon haftarah is Isa. 55-56.

HOLOCAUST – several rabbis have composed kinnot in memory of the Holocaust; Tishah B’Av is kept by some as a yahrzeit for the martyrs.

JEREMIAH – witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and recorded it in Echah; a kinnah depicts him pleading with the patriarchs to pray for their descendants.

JERUSALEM – a symbol of Jewish history and destiny; attacked by many enemies.

KAMTZA/BAR-KAMTZA – similarly-named men whose quarrels symbolise the internal problems that helped the enemy to prevail (Talmud Gittin 55b-56a, Shabbat 119b).

KINNOT – dirges read evening and morning on Tishah B’Av; they blame the enemy and also our own sinfulness (e.g. “You are righteous: we are shamefaced”); many recall medieval persecutions including book burnings.

MARTYRS – commemorated in many of the kinnot (q.v.); even the burnt books are martyrs.

MEAT AND WINE – not consumed during first 9 days of Av except for Shabbat; abstention is a mark of mourning.

MESSIAH (“The Anointed One”) – the promised Redeemer, who will be born in Av.

MOURNING – required during the 3 Weeks (q.v.); the mourning practices are partially lifted after midday on 9 B’Av.

NACHEM – a prayer on Tishah B’Av afternoon calling Jerusalem a desolate city; some modern versions (eg by Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren) use past tense referring to “the city that was desolate”.

NINE DAYS – an intense period of mourning (except on Shabbat) leading up to Tishah B’Av.

ROMANS – destroyers of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE.

SE’UDAH MAFSEKET – the final meal before the fast; bread and hard-boiled eggs are eaten.

SHABBAT CHAZON – the Shabbat before 9 Av; the haftarah is Chazon Yeshayahu – “Isaiah’s Vision” (Isa. 1).

SHABBAT NACHAMU – the Shabbat after the fast; the haftarah is Nachamu Nachamu Ammi – “Comfort, comfort My people” (Isa. 40).

SHACHARIT – morning service on the fast; tallit, tefillin and some blessings are omitted.

SHEHECHEYANU – thanksgiving for something new, generally omitted in the 3 Weeks (q.v.).

STUDY – on Tishah B’Av is restricted to sad subjects.

SYNAGOGUE – on Tishah B’Av, the Ark curtain and reading desk cover are removed, the lighting is dimmed, worshippers sit on low stools or the floor.

TA’ANIT (“Fast”) – a tractate of the Talmud listing sad events at this time of year; many later tragedies also occurred then.

TEMPLE – the sanctuary and national symbol; destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Romans in 70 CE. (See also here and here, and here.)

TENTH AV – the day after the destruction, when the Temple ruins smouldered for hours.

THREE WEEKS – 17 Tammuz-9 Av, known as Bein Ham’tzarim, “between the straits” (Lam. 1:3).

TORAH READINGS – Tishah B’Av morning, Deut. 4:25-40; afternoon, Ex. 32:11-14.

WEDDING – not held during the 3 Weeks (q.v.); engagements are permitted.

ZIONIDES – kinnot about Zion commencing with Judah HaLevi’s Tziyyon ha-lo tish’ali – “Zion, do you not care?”

See also Rabbi Raymond Apple’s Tishah B’Av – A Guide to the Service.

The mood is positive, but also negative. Where Israel need encouragement, encouragement they get. Where they deserve rebuke, the rebuke is forthcoming.

A leader about to step down from office is entitled to look back on his career and to say critical things about people and events, and that is what Moses does. His audience is Israel, Kohanim, Levites, ordinary people, old and young, men, women and children.

Introducing the leader’s message, however, the Torah could just as well have said, “These are the words which Moses spoke to Israel”. Why does the text actually say, “to all Israel”?

The Midrash gives an answer: “All Israel” includes Moses himself. To whom does he address his criticism? To the people, yes; but to himself too. Indeed, he rebukes himself first, according to the Midrash, before he rebukes the people.

A career in leadership must never blind the leader to his own failings. He has to know himself and acknowledge, at least to himself and to God, that for all that he has achieved, he might have achieved even more had he been able to change himself and work on his own shortcomings.

Echah, “How!”, figures three times this week – in the Torah portion, in the haftarah, and in the Book of Lamentations.

The Echah in the Torah portion is a rhetorical question by Moses: Echah essa l’vadi tor’chachem umassa’achem v’riv’chem, “How I can I bear by myself your troublesomeness, your burden and your strife?” (Deut. 1:12).

Moses is telling the people how hard it is to be a leader. They make his life difficult, they blame him for everything, and they are never satisfied. He gets so weighed down that he probably begins to blame himself whenever anything goes wrong.

It happens with most leaders. Rabbis are particularly prone to self-doubt. If people don’t come to synagogue, the rabbi thinks it is due to him. If the community moves to another district, he thinks he caused it. If a program is not a success, he accuses himself. Obviously no rabbi is perfect and his failings have an effect, but self-blame is too easy.

Bear in mind that sometimes a synagogue flourishes regardless of the rabbi; sometimes the rabbi is unfortunately a mediocrity but it is his luck to be in a congregation that suddenly benefits from demographic changes.

This does not imply that the rabbi is an irrelevancy, but it is unfair for the congregation to think everything is the rabbi’s fault and for the rabbi to blame himself regardless.

Q. Shouldn’t the fast of Tishah B’Av become an occasion for celebrating now that the Jewish people have a state in the Land of Israel and Jerusalem has been rebuilt?

A. In the 17th century, the false messiah Shabbetai Zvi promoted his messianic claims by making Tishah B’Av a yom-tov and telling his followers to rejoice on the day as they would on the normal festivals.

This was partly because 9 Av was his birthday; it impressed him to think that Judaism had long believed that it would be on this date that the Messiah would be born.

But it was more than personal considerations that led him to change the mood of the day.

Zechariah had prophesied that in the messianic era, fast days such as 17 Tammuz and 9 Av would “be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful seasons” (8:19).

Convinced that the messianic prophecies had been fulfilled in himself, Shabbetai Zvi believed the time had come to make Tishah B’Av a festival.

His pretensions brought great suffering to the Jewish people. He himself ended up in another religion, though some continued to believe in him.

History views him as one more pretender. But though the real Mashi’ach is yet to come, many argue that the wondrous re-emergence of Israel and its survival against all odds, is a messianic beginning, and some suggest that the mood of Tishah B’Av must change – if not to make the day a yom-tov, at least to lift some of the gloom.

The answer is not basically political: it is spiritual. With the destruction of the Temple came not merely the exile of the Jewish people but the exile of the Shechinah, the Divine Presence.

In spite of the great blessing which Israel represents to our people and – if only the world knew it – to humanity as a whole, so much still needs to happen before the messianic era of peace, justice and truth can be said to have arrived.

One day the Amalek spirit will vanish and the Shechinah will be at ease. Only then will Tishah B’Av be “joy and gladness and a cheerful season”.

Q. I learned that the Second Temple was destroyed on 10 Av. Why then do we commemorate the destruction on 9 Av?

A. According to the Second Book of Kings (25:8-10), the Temple was burnt and the walls of Jerusalem razed on 7 Av. Jeremiah (52:12) says it was 10 Av.

When the Talmud discusses the date (Ta’anit 29a) it suggests the following reconciliation: “On the 7th day the heathens entered the Temple and ate in it and continued to desecrate it throughout the 7th and 8th of the month; towards dusk on the 9th day they set fire to the Sanctuary and it continued to burn the whole of that day”.

The view of Rabbi Yochanan is, “If had lived in that generation I would have chosen 10 Av for the mourning because the majority of the Temple was burnt on that day.”

The Talmud responds that the 9th was chosen because the beginning of a tragedy is what should be marked. It adds that 9 Av saw such a succession of other catastrophes that the day seems to have an uncanny capacity to attract calamity. In time to come the same day will be a time of rejoicing and whoever shared in the mourning will share in the joy (Rosh HaShanah 18b).

Halachically, the mourning practices of the Nine Days leading up to Tishah B’Av continue until midday on 10 Av.

Josephus, an unreliable historian at best, asserts that it was the Jews themselves who set fire to the Temple, since “God had for certain long ago doomed it to the fire”.

Since the first Temple was understood as having been destroyed by the king of Babylon on 9 Av, says Josephus, the second Temple met its fate on the same day as Divine punishment and as retribution for rebelling against the Roman regime (Wars of the Jews VI:4).