Summary of the day

Tisha BeAv (the Ninth of Av) is the greatest day of fasting and mourning in the Hebrew calendar after Yom Kippur, the day on which the First Temple (586 BCE) and the Second (70 CE) were destroyed. The fast lasts about 25 hours, from sunset until nightfall the next day. If the Ninth of Av falls on Shabbat, the fast is postponed to Sunday (the 10th of Av).

The mitzvot of the day

• The five afflictions: no eating or drinking, no washing, no anointing (oil), no leather shoes, and no marital relations.
• Reading Lamentations on the night of the Ninth of Av, sitting on the floor or on a low chair, by dim candlelight.
• Kinot at Shacharit, which recall the destruction and the sorrows of Israel throughout the generations. In Sephardic and Eastern communities there are special kinot, including on the expulsion from Spain.
• No tefillin and no tallit at Shacharit; they are put on at Mincha.
• Nachem: at Mincha “Nachem” is added to the Amidah.
• No ordinary Torah study, only subjects of mourning (Job, Lamentations, laws of mourning, the destruction).

Origin in history

The Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:6) lists five calamities that occurred on the Ninth of Av: (1) the decree on the desert generation that they would not enter the Land, after the sin of the spies (Numbers 14); (2) the First Temple was destroyed; (3) the Second Temple was destroyed; (4) Betar, stronghold of the Bar Kochba revolt, was captured; (5) the city of Jerusalem was plowed up. Tradition adds the expulsion from Spain in 1492 (the Ninth of Av, according to tradition), and further disasters.

The message for today

Tradition says the Messiah was born on the Ninth of Av (Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 2:4), and so the day of destruction is also a day of hope. And after the day come the Shabbatot of consolation. Alongside the mourning, the lesson is unity: baseless hatred caused the destruction, and baseless love will rebuild it. And the small act, in a relationship, in asking forgiveness and in charity, is a building of the Temple within us.