Tisha B'Av; Jewish Day of Mourning

Started by Moishe3rd, July 14, 2013, 09:15:42 AM

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Moishe3rd

The story is told that Napoleon Bonaparte was walking through the streets of Paris one Tisha B' A v night.
As his entourage passed a synagogue he heard wailing and crying coming from within - He entered the synagogue.
There he saw an incredible sight. Men and women weeping. They were sitting on the floor on small stools holding candles while reading from books. The synagogue had an elaborate chandelier but only a few candles were lit. If not for the small candle lights the magnificent synagogue would have been in complete darkness. It was a gloomy and sad sight to behold.
Napoleon asked why the people were weeping and wanted to know what misfortune had happened here.
An aide told Napoleon that the Jews were in mourning over the loss of their Temple in Jerusalem.
Napoleon was indignant! "I am supposed to be well informed on all of the affairs of the Middle East. Why have I not heard of this? When did this happen? Which Temple was it?"
The aide responded that they lost their Temple in Jerusalem on this date 1,700 years ago.
The Jewish people had a custom to gather once a year on this day, called the ninth day of Av, the day that marks the destruction of the Jewish people's Temple.
Twice they built a magnificent Temple in Jerusalem and both were destroyed. After their second Temple was destroyed the people were scattered all over the world and sold as slaves. Some escaped and built their homes world over. Somehow the Jewish people exist without their country and their Temple.
In order to commemorate these sad events they gather once a year in synagogue. There they fast, pray, and read sad prophetic writings concerning the destruction of their Temple and land. What we see in this town is happening in all Jewish communities...
Napoleon stood in silence and then said, "Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!"

This Monday night and Tuesday, July 16th, 2013, is Tisha B'Av; the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av.
It is on this day that Great Tragedies occurred to the Jewish People.
We learn that it was on this day, as the Jewish People wandered in the desert, that the spies returned from scouting out the Land of Israel, which G-d had promised to the Children of Israel.
When the spies returned:

"26 They went, and they came to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the desert of Paran, to Kadesh. They brought them back a report, as well as to the entire congregation, and they showed them the fruit of the land.
27. They told him and said, "We came to the land to which you sent us, and it is flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
28. However, the people who inhabit the land are mighty, and the cities are extremely huge and fortified, and there we saw even the offspring of the giant.   
29. The Amalekites dwell in the south land, while the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountainous region. The Canaanites dwell on the coast and alongside the Jordan.
30. Caleb silenced the people to [hear about] Moses, and he said, "We can surely go up and take possession of it, for we can indeed overcome it."
31. But the men who went up with him said, "We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.   
32. They spread an [evil] report about the land which they had scouted, telling the children of Israel, "The land we passed through to explore is a land that consumes its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of stature.
33. There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, descended from the giants. In our eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.    Chapter 14
1. The entire community raised their voices and shouted, and the people wept on that night.
2. All the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the entire congregation said, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this desert.
3. Why does the Lord bring us to this land to fall by the sword; our wives and children will be as spoils. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?"    4. They said to each other, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!"
...
20. And the Lord said, "I have forgiven them in accordance with your word.   
21. However, as surely as I live, and as the glory of the Lord fills the earth...   
22. that all the people who perceived My glory, and the signs that I performed in Egypt and in the desert, yet they have tested me these ten times and not listened to My voice,
23. if they will see the Land that I swore to their fathers, and all who provoked Me will not see it.   
24. But as for My servant Caleb, since he was possessed by another spirit, and he followed Me, I will bring him to the land to which he came, and his descendants will drive it[s inhabitants] out." "
Bamidbar (Numbers) 13:26 - 14:4; 14:20-14:24

Ever since that day, the Ninth of Av has been the day destined for Jewish Tragedy.
We learn that both the 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed on Tisha B'Av.
We learn that the last Jewish rebellion of Bar Kochba against Roman rule in the Land of Israel ended in a horrific massacre in the final battle at Betar - on the Ninth of Av.
The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 on Tisha B'av.
The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 on Tisha B'av.
WWI, which led directly to the Holocaust, began on the Ninth of Av.
G-d Chooses Kings and Controls the Hearts of Kings.
And G-d Leads the People on the Way They Wish to Go.
In a sick demented world of baby killers; Media sycophants; and Democrat loons, Trump is the chemotherapy.

Moishe3rd

Tisha B'Av Continued:

On Tisha B'av, we fast from nightfall to nightfall. The only other Fast Day on the Jewish calendar that is so severe is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, where we stand before G-d, repenting of all of our peronal misdeeds.
Tisha B'Av is a day when the Jewish nation collectively sits in mourning before G-d, trying to understand our collective misdeeds that keep us in Galus; Exile from our Holy Temple and G-d's Land of Israel.

We learn that the First Temple was destroyed on account of the sins of Murder; Idolatry; and Immorality. The Second Temple was built after only 70 years of Exile.
We learn that the 2nd Temple was destroyed on account of the sin of sinas chinum; baseless hatred of one Jew for another.
We have been in Galus for 2,000 years since the 2nd Temple was destroyed..
Every Tisha B'av, we are given the opportunity to repent of the sin of sinas chinum....

We learn that the main cause of baseless hatred of one Jew for another is the sin of loshen hora; literally, evil speech.
There is a story told of how a Jewish man ended up talking about his neighbor, passing on information that was damaging to his neighbor's character.
Although*the*information was, indeed, true the neighbor was devastated by the stories that were told. It went from neighbor t neighbor to acquaintance to acquaintance to casual passerby's until, over time, the damaging stories had spread far and wide...
The man realized what harm he had done and he went to his rabbi to find out how he could repent and correct his loshen hora.
His Rabbi told him - "Take two feather pillows and go to the top of the hill outside town and open the pillows, throwing the feathers into the wind."
The man returned to his Rabbi after completing the task and asked if he had now done atonement for his sin.
The Rabbi replied that their was just one more task to complete.
"Now, gather up every single feather and put them back into your pillows..."

This is the sin of loshen hora. Once spoken, the words spread far and wide and it is impossible to undo the damage...

In Rabbi Shimshon Refuel Hirsch's (1808-1888) essay entitled "Introduction to Isaiah" (which is a part of the bible that we read in the synagogue on the Sabbath before Tisha B'Av -Isaiah 1:1-27), he comments that "Instead of Israel finding its very soul in the Sanctuary, the people regarded it as an inimical opposition to their very life. Instead of allowing their whole lives to be governed by it, and its influence to penetrate every household, so that every phase of life develops under its aegis, the people feared its influence and anxiously confined the sphere of the Temple to its four walls, and zealously watched that its influence should not overstep this limit!... It is this lamentable divisionof life into religious and worldly, into spiritual and lay, into heavenly and earthly, that does not allow the Kingdom of Heaven to be a Kingdom of this earth, that thereby prevents the spiritual and godly from ruling the human and material. It builds churches, temples, and synagogues, not that the whole life should be controlled by them, but that the godly and heavenly can be banished into them..."
- Hirsch Commentary on the Torah

This is Rabbi Hirsch's commentary on Isaiah, who warned Israel that if Israel did not cease these behaviors, their Temple would, indeed, be destroyed.
As it was in the times of Isaiah, so it was in the times of Rav Hirsch and so it is today...

Rabbi Yechezkel Greenberg, of Congregation Bais Yisroel, gives over the following d'var Torah on the significance of Tisha B'Av:

ANNUAL MOURNING: THE HIDDEN KEY TO OUR REDEMPTION
The Talmud states (Ta'anis 30b): "One who mourns Jerusalem merits and sees in her joy." Why is the present tense used? Why doesn't it say, "One who mourns Jerusalem will merit seeing in her joy?" The Chasam Sofer answers by posing a second question.
The Navi (Eicha 1:15) refers to the ninth day of Av as Mo'ed, which usually refers to a Yom Tov. How can such a sad day be referred to as a holiday? This can be answered with yet another question. How is it that almost two thousand years after the destruction of our Temple, the Jewish nation continues to mourn? Throughout the long and bitter exile, due to our sins, we have had nothing but sorrow, yet we have not forgotten that which we've lost. We don't find any other nation or empire that was mourned for so long after its destruction. The explanation is that this itself is the greatest consolation, since Chazal teach that one can never be consoled for a person who is still alive. (We learn this from Yaakov's mourning over Yosef for 22 years.) Other nations have no hope of ever regaining their lost power and prestige; therefore their past is forgotten. But we, Klal Yisrael, look forward to and yearn for the day that the Temple will be rebuilt, and therefore we will not be consoled, but we continue to mourn. Thus, the ninth day of Av is a holiday, since our annual mourning on that day is the greatest consolation, for through it we are assured that in the future we will return to our previous glory. This is what the Gemara we began with is saying. One who mourns merits to see consolation right now, from the fact that he is still mourning a loss of so long ago.
This will explain a Posuk in Tehillim (42:5) that says "These I recall (referring to the splendor of the Holy Temples) and pour out my soul within me (in anguish over their loss), I will pass with the multitudes (as I travel up towards Yerushalayim) and I will walk with them to the House of Hashem." Why does the Posuk speak in the future tense even though it is seemingly reminiscing about what took place in the past? The answer is the same: through our remembering the good that we once had and pouring our hearts out in prayer over the loss of it, we demonstrate that we will IY"H return one day to the glorious days of old.
The Aruch L'ner explains another Gemara in this light. At the end of Masechta Makkos, the Gemara tells a story about how R' Akiva and three others were traveling up to Yerushalayim. When they reached Har Habayis (Temple Mount) they saw a fox leaving the place where the Holy of Holies had been. They all began to cry, but R' Akiva laughed. The others asked him, "Why are you laughing?" "Why are you crying?" asked R' Akiva. They answered, "Shouldn't we cry if we see a fox walking unharmed in a place where no man was allowed to enter?" Answered R' Akiva, "That is precisely why I laugh. We find that the Posuk equates the prophesies of Uryah and Zecharya, although they didn't live at the same time at all. The Torah was making one dependent
on the other. Uryah prophesied about how Yerushalayim would be plowed over, while Zecharya prophesied about how Yerushalayim would in the future be returned to its glory. Now that the prophesy of Uryah was fulfilled in its entirety, I am assured that the prophesy of Zecharya will also be fulfilled in its entirety." They answered, "Akiva, you have comforted us, Akiva, you have comforted us."
The Aruch L'ner explains that from the very fact that Hashem burned the Bais
Hamikdash with fire we see His unbounded love for our people. That is why, as
Chazal put it, He vented His anger on sticks and stones rather than destroy us. The fact that He didn't burn us demonstrates that His ultimate plan is to redeem us from this exile and bring us back to our land.
May we merit seeing this speedily in our days!
http://www.baisyisroel.org/observer.pdf
G-d Chooses Kings and Controls the Hearts of Kings.
And G-d Leads the People on the Way They Wish to Go.
In a sick demented world of baby killers; Media sycophants; and Democrat loons, Trump is the chemotherapy.

quiller

QuoteNapoleon stood in silence and then said, "Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!"

Amen!