When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
Hamlet Act IV Scene V.
Last night (Saturday night) and today until sunset observant Jews are enduring the 25 hour fast of Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av means, simply, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. But why is there a fast? The Mishnah explains:
On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our ancestors should not enter the Holy Land, the first and the second Temples were destroyed, Betar was taken, and the City of Jerusalem was plowed over.
Ta'anit 4:6 (26b). Since the completion of the Talmud in the 5th and 6th centuries CE, calamitous events have continued to befall the Jewish people on the 9th of Av. On the 9th of Av in 1290,
King Edward I issued his decree expelling the Jews from England - a decree that would remain in effect until 1656 - and on the 9th of Av in 1492, the decree of
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelling the Jews from Spain, issued back in March, took effect. The Nazis, well aware of the importance of this day, deliberately made their own additions to this list of calamities.
What does the Mishnah mean when it says that on the 9th of Av "it was decreed that our ancestors should not enter the Holy Land?" The rabbis examined Exodus 40:17, and Numbers 10:11, 10:33, 11:4, 11:20, 12:15, 13:2, 13:25, and 14:1, and concluded that the events recounted in Numbers 13 and Numbers 14 - when the Israelites were condemned to wander 40 years in the Sinai desert because they accepted the negative report of the ten spies, occurred on the 9th of Av. The discussion in the Talmud (Ta'anit 29a) concludes:
Where it is written (Numbers 14:1) "And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night," this verse was commented upon by Rabbah in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: "That day was the 9th of Av, for the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to the Israelites, 'You weep without cause. Therefore I shall a establish for you a weeping on this day that will last throughout generations.'"
The Talmud proceeds to ask, "How is it known that the first Temple was destroyed on the 9th of Av?" There follows a detailed analysis of II Kings 25: 8-9:
On the seventh day of the fifth month [the month of Av], in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down.
and Jeremiah 52: 12-13:
Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem, And burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire.
The Talmud recognizes the two Biblical passages are in conflict as to the dates, but tries to resolve the conflict:
A baraita, commenting on the verse, reads, 'On the 7th' is impossible, because the other passage has 'on the 10th,' but 'on the 10th' is impossible because the other passage has 'on the 7th.' How is this to be understood? On the 7th of the month the heathens entered the Temple, eating and drinking therein and breaking down its walls throughout the following 8th and 9th days until the 9th day was soon to end. . . . Towards the evening of that 9th day they set it afire and toward sunset of the 10th of the month it burned down. Therefore Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai said: 'Had I lived in that generation, I would have fixed the 10th as the day of mourning, for the greater part of the Temple was burned on the 10th. Why did the Sages of that time select the 9th? Because they held that the beginning of the punishment is the main event.'
The Talmud only briefly mentions the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the destruction of Betar by the Romans in 135 CE, ending the
Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans, and the Romans' plowing over of the city of Jerusalem. These were near contemporaneous events for the Rabbis, occurring while the Talmud was being compiled. The rabbis saw no reason to amplify facts that everyone knew. The Talmud does say:
It is taught in a Baraita, Rabbi Jose said, "Fortunate events are assigned to a lucky day, but calamities are assigned to an unlucky day." It was reported that when the Temple was destroyed for the first time it was the 9th of Av which happened to be on a Sunday . . . [and] the Levites were standing on their platform. What song did they sing? They sang the verse [Psalm 94:23] "And He has brought upon them their own iniquity, and will cut them off in their own evil." Before they were able to add the words, "The Lord our God will cut them off," the heathens came in and killed them. And all this happened again in the Second Temple.
The Talmud, tractate Ta'anit (still on page 29a), concludes its discussion of the 9th of Av with the following story:
When the first Temple was destroyed, groups of young priests assembled and, holding the keys of the Temple court in their hands, went up to the roof of the Temple and said, "Master of the world! Since we have not been considered worthy of being Thy treasurers, we hand over the keys to Thee." So saying, they threw the keys towards heaven, and something like a hand appeared and caught the keys from them, whereupon they threw themselves into the fire [the Babylonians had set] beneath.
We continue to live in a world of tragedy. May we work and strive to create a planet where the sorrows we remember on Tisha B'av come no more.