BECAUSE TISHA B'AV STARTS TONIGHT (ON FRIDAY NIGHT), THE FAST HAS BEEN CHANGED TO START SATURDAY NIGHT.
Guide for the Perplexed: "The 9th Day of the Month of Av”
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought," July 27, 2012
Based on Jewish Sages
1. The 9th Day of (the 11th Jewish month) Av is the most calamitous day in Jewish history. Fasting on that day commemorates national catastrophes, in an attempt to benefit from history by learning from critical moral and strategic missteps, thus preventing future catastrophes. It was first mentioned in the book of Zechariah 7:3.
2. The Passover holiday of liberty and the fast of the 9th Day of Av are commemorated on the same weekday. The fast of the 9th day of Av is succeeded by the 15th day of Av – a holiday of love and rapprochement. The 9th Day of Av is treated simultaneously as a day of lamentation and holiday, thus highlighting a cardinal lesson: In order to fortify liberty and advance deliverance, one must commemorate calamities, avoid wishful-thinking and be mentally and physically prepared to face crises, and never lose optimism. A day of destruction/oblivion is the first day of the path toward construction/deliverance. A problem is an opportunity in disguise. According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Berachot 2:4), the Messiah is destined to be born on Tisha Be'Av.
3. Major Jewish calamities occurred on the 9th Day of Av (Tisha' Be'Av in Hebrew):
*The failed "Ten Spies/tribal presidents" (VS. Joshua & Caleb) –slandered the Land of Israel, preferring immediate convenience and conventional "wisdom" over faith and long term vision, thus prolonging the wandering in the desert for 40 years.
*The destruction of the First Temple and Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (586BC) produced a massacre of 100,000 and a national exile.
*The destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem by Titus of Rome (70CE) was accompanied by a massacre of 1MN and a national exile.
*Bar Kochba (Great) Rebellion was crashed (135CE) with the fall of Beitar (in Judea & Samaria) and the plowing of Jerusalem by Quintus Tinius Rofus, the Roman Governor – 580,000 killed.
*First Crusade Pogroms (1096) – scores of thousands slaughtered.
*Jewish expulsion from Britain (1290).
*Jewish expulsion from Spain (1492).
*WW1 erupted (1914).
*The beginning of the 1942 deportation of Warsaw Ghetto Jews to Treblinka extermination camp.
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