Today is Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, and it is considered to be the saddest and most serious day in the Jewish calendar.  Tisha B’Av was the day when it was decreed that the Jews would wander in the desert for 40 years before they could enter the Land of Israel.  In 586 BCE, on Tisha B’Av, the Babylonian army destroyed the First Temple.  In 70 CE, on the ninth of Av, the Second Temple was destroyed – an act which forever altered Judaism and almost marked the downfall of the religion.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Rabbis began to notice a pattern, that the month of Av – and especially the ninth day of that month – was a herald for many disastrous events to befall the Jewish people.  Both the expulsion from England in 1290 and the expulsion from Spain in 1492 occurred on Tisha B’Av.  The emptying of the Warsaw Ghetto – 9 Av, 1942.  The bombing of the JCC in Buenos Aries, in which 90 people were killed and 300 injured – 9 Av, 1994.

Of course, not every calamitous event in Jewish history has occurred during the month of Av, and many a Tisha B’Av has passed with nary a bother.  But because of the deep significance of the Temple’s destruction to the Jewish psyche, Tisha B’Av has become the representative day of mourning for all the sufferings of the Jewish people.  And when an event like the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing occurs, its sting is just a little sharper, because it happened on Tisha B’Av.

Source: http://www.holidays.net

Tisha B’Av is observed with ritual mourning practices, as if mourning the passing of a loved one.  In addition to a 25-hour fast, Jewish tradition mandates refraining from wearing leather, washing one’s body, and using perfume.  Active mourning rituals include the reading of Eicha (Lamentations) and Kinot (Hebrew elegies written at different periods in Jewish history).  And while regular Torah study is discouraged (because the study of Torah is meant to be joyful), the study of Job and Jeremiah, as well as the portions of Talmud and Midrash that discuss the destruction of Jerusalem, is encouraged.

My suggestion?  If you can, set aside a little time today to do just that.  Read through the book of Lamentations, or, with a friend, read and discuss the many probing questions posed by the book of Job.  Reflect a little.  Think about humanity’s capacity for cruelty, and where that has led us over the centuries.  And think about what we can all do to offset that, and to make our world just a little bit kinder.

-Naomi