Tisha B'Av

by Patti Breitman

Tisha B'Av means the 9th of the month of אָב ’Àv, falling this year on Tuesday July 27 (starts at sunset, Monday, July 26). Tisha B'Av commemorates the destruction of both ancient Holy Temples in Jerusalem, and is traditionally a day of fasting and mourning.

King David had wanted to build the first temple, but, the story goes, God wouldn't let him because he had led so many military campaigns, and the Temple was supposed to be a holy place of peace. David's son, King Shlomo (Solomon), whose name derived from the word peace, shalom, built the temple between 965 B.C.E. and 925 B.C.E. The Tanakh says that no iron tools were used to create the structure, because iron was a material of war and weapons. In 586 B.C.E., the Babylonian army, led by general Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the Temple on the ninth of Av. (It is said that while grieving for the first Temple, the prophet Jeremiah wrote Psalm 137: “By the waters of Babylon, we lay down and wept for thee, Zion.”.)

Sixty years later, a new Temple was built, but it never attained the beauty or stature of the first Temple.

Then, King Herod, a tyrannical egomaniac, decided that the rebuilt temple needed to be bigger and more beautiful. He enhanced and expanded it during the first century B.C.E., and intended to continue adding to the Temple and its grounds, but the work was never finished. The Roman army, led by General Titus, destroyed the Temple on the ninth of Av.

While some historians dispute whether both Temples were actually destroyed on the 9th of Av, the date has become a symbol of Jewish tragedy and loss, and commemorated with mourning and fasting.

To learn more, I recommend the book The Jewish Home: a Guide for Jewish Living, by Daniel B. Syme (UAHC Press, New York, 1988, paperback).

—from our July-August 2004 Newsletter

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