This Monday night begins the Jewish day of mourning, Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the month of Av. The Shabbat preceding Tisha B’Av is called Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat of Vision, named after the first words in the Haftarah, which begins the prophet Isaiah’s vision of Jerusalem’s destruction.
When we talk about Tisha B’Av, we often refer to it as the day that the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed. But that’s not all. Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6 actually lists five events that all happened on the 9th of Av:
חֲמִשָּׁה דְבָרִים אֵרְעוּ אֶת אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בְּשִׁבְעָה עָשָׂר בְּתַמּוּז וַחֲמִשָּׁה בְּתִשְׁעָה בְאָב… בְּתִשְׁעָה בְאָב נִגְזַר עַל אֲבוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁלֹּא יִכָּנְסוּ לָאָרֶץ, וְחָרַב הַבַּיִת בָּרִאשׁוֹנָה וּבַשְּׁנִיָּה, וְנִלְכְּדָה בֵיתָר, וְנֶחְרְשָׁה הָעִיר
There were five events that happened to our ancestors on the seventeenth of Tammuz and five on the ninth of Av…On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our ancestors should not enter the land (of Israel), The Temple was destroyed the first and the second time, Betar was seized, and the city (of Jerusalem) was plowed up.
We may know about the destruction of the two Temples, but what are the other three events that happened on Tisha B’Av?
The first terrible event to befall our people on Tisha B’Av we actually read about this week, in parshat Devarim. In our Torah portion, Moses recounts the story of the scouts who ventured into the land of Israel. Our tradition teaches that it was on the 9th of Av that the scouts gave their bad report and convinced the people that they would not be able to conquer the land. The people wept — the first time our people would weep on Tisha B’Av — and God decreed that all of the adults of that generation would die in the wilderness.
The fourth event, the capturing of Betar, marks the defeat of an attempted Jewish rebellion, the Bar Kochba revolt, against Roman rule. After the Bar Kochba rebellion was quashed, the fifth event of Tisha B’Av occurred: the Romans plowed over Jerusalem, destroying anything that had remained in the city after the destruction of the Second Temple.
This year, it is the fifth event that strikes me as the most painful of them all. It is bad enough that the Temples were destroyed. But when the Romans plowed up Jerusalem, their action symbolized erasure. Not only did they destroy the city, they attempted to destroy the evidence that there had ever been a people, a culture, that had centered their lives in Jerusalem. And with that destruction, they destroyed the hopes that the Temple would be rebuilt and that the people would return to Jerusalem. It is one thing to destroy a people in the present, it is another thing to wage a cultural genocide to demolish their past. And maybe it is even worse to destroy an entire people’s hope for the future.
Why is it important to mark this communal day of mourning, particularly by being in community?
There are two reasons I am leaning into this year. One, because, much like private experiences of grief, Judaism teaches that mourning needs to be communal. Just as we come together to support mourners at funerals and at shiva minyanim, we come together to chant the book of Eicha (Lamentations) and to sing kinot (elegies) because there is power in being together to wail and to quietly grieve the pain that the Jewish people have experienced over time. The pain is there whether we acknowledge it or not, but bearing grief becomes more possible when we do it together. And this year, perhaps more than ever in a long time, our collective pain feels immense and potentially dangerous to our collective and individual well-being if we ignore it. We have to tend to our grief. Together.
And two: We know from other painful experiences in our collective Jewish history that the pain of erasure and the pain of imposed silence is sometimes greater than the pain of the loss itself. When we can’t share our stories, either because society gives us no place to share them or sees our stories as unimportant — or worse, as made-up — we lose parts of ourselves. But by telling our stories out loud, we claim our own identities, histories, and experiences. In a world that seeks to erase certain narratives, we need to claim our own stories so that we can claim ourselves. So we read Eicha as a way to own our many narratives of destruction, to dig up and uncover that which has been plowed over by history and by those that seek to silence us.
The admonition in this week’s haftorah makes us reflect too, on the ways in which we are implicated in our own destruction and the destruction of others. The words of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:15-17) feel contemporary:
יְדֵיכֶ֖ם דָּמִ֥ים מָלֵֽאוּ
Your hands are full of blood.
רַֽחֲצוּ֙ הִזַּכּ֔וּ
Wash yourselves clean
הָסִ֛ירוּ רֹ֥עַ מַעַלְלֵיכֶ֖ם מִנֶּ֣גֶד עֵינָ֑י
put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes;
חִדְל֖וּ הָרֵֽעַ
cease to do evil;
לִמְד֥וּ הֵיטֵ֛ב
learn to do good;
דִּרְשׁ֥וּ מִשְׁפָּ֖ט
seek judgment
אַשְּׁר֣וּ חָמ֑וֹץ
relieve the oppressed,
שִׁפְט֣וּ יָת֔וֹם
judge the fatherless
רִ֖יבוּ אַלְמָנָֽה
plead for the widow.
We may have lost so much, but all is not lost. This Shabbat is called Shabbat Chazon for a reason. Yes, Isaiah’s chazon is a vision of a destroyed Jerusalem, but the haftarah ends with a vision of hope of redemption.
צִיּוֹן, בְּמִשְׁפָּט תִּפָּדֶה; וְשָׁבֶיהָ, בִּצְדָקָה Tzion shall be redeemed through justice, and those that return to her through righteousness (Isaiah 1:27)
This Tisha B’av, may we gather in mourning, give voice to our collective story of grief, and may we reclaim a sense of hope.
May all the hostages come home to their families and friends.
May those who are working for peace be granted strength and courage to continue their sacred work, and may we soon see peace and dignity for all.
May those who are ill find refuat ha’nefesh, healing of the spirit, and refuat ha’gu, healing of the body.
May this be a Shabbat of blessing and of comfort.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Leah