As a kid I would cry at the drop of the hat, my mom would tell me that if I continued to cry she would give me something real to cry about. My Mom however, wasn’t the first to use that phrase, it was God who invented it, he invented it on the 9th of Av and it’s all explained in the Book of Numbers.
In the book of Numbers (beginning with chapter 13) Moses sends twelve spies into Canaan, ten of them came back with a report that the land was unconquerable because it was inhabited with strong giants. This report caused cries throughout the Israelite settlement, they begged Moses to take them back to Egypt.
Now realize this happened only four months after they left Egypt when they witnessed all those miracles (the ten plagues that gave them freedom and the splitting of the Reed Sea), It was only two months since the revelation at Sinai when they heard God’s voice and received the Ten Commandments. And don’t forget they were being led by a column of fire and being fed by food from heaven (manna, which BTW translates into English as “what’s this?”). But even with all of those miracles those newly freed slaves lost their faith in God and his promise to help them conquer the land. Because of the report they were afraid and wanted to go back to Egypt and bondage.
God’s response was not only that the generation that knew slavery would die out in the desert, but also that the 9th of Av (Tisha b’Av) will be a horrible day for the Jews until the coming of the Messiah. In other words, just like my mom used to say, God gave the Jews something to cry about.
From that day forward, horrible things happened to the Jewish people on or around Tisha b’Av. Some of them include:
- The First Temple built by King Solomon and the Kingdom of Judah destroyed by the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE.
- The Second Temple built by Ezra and Nehemiah was destroyed by the Romans in August 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land
- On Tisha b’Av 135 CE, The Roman Army crushed Bar Kochba’s revolt against Rome and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 580,000 Jewish civilians
- On the very next 9th of Av (136 CE), Roman general Turnus Rufus ordered that the Temple area and its surroundings were to be plowed-under. Jerusalem was to be rebuilt as a pagan city – renamed Aelia Capitolina – and access was forbidden to Jews.
- The first Crusade officially commenced on Tisha b’ Av 1095 CE. The Crusaders killed 10,000 Jews in its first month, destroying Jewish communities in France and the Rhineland. A grand total of 1.2 million Jews were killed by people leaving for this crusade
- The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 CE on Tisha b’Av.
- The Jews were expelled from France, Tisha b’Av 1306
- In 1492 the deadline for Jews to leave Spain, convert or die
- The beginning of WWI –which lead directly to the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust.
- 1941 SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for “The Final Solution.” Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to make all the necessary preparations for the Final Solution.
- The first transports reached Treblinka and the extermination of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto began on July 23, 1942, Tisha b’Av
- In 1955 El Al Flight 402 was shot down over Bulgarian airspace on the 8th of Av.
- The AMIA Bombing (Asociación Mutua Israelita Argentina) by terrorists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 86 and wounded more than 120, was on July 18, 1994, the 10th of Av.
- In 2004, Barack Obama Gave the Keynote speech at the Democratic Convention on Tisha b’Av and was crowned the heir apparent of the Democratic Party. He won the presidency four years later and has proven to be the most anti-Israel President ever.
- The Disengagement from Gaza began on the 10th of Av in 2005, leading to years of rocket bombardment from Hamas into Israel and three wars.
- On Tisha b’Av in 2009 President Obama sent Robert Gates to Israel in his first of many attempts dissuade the Jewish State from carrying out military strikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Now Obama has signed a treaty that guarantees Iran will be able to create a bomb.
The three-week period between the 17th day of the Jewish Month of Tammuz (the day the Jerusalem City walls were first breached) and Tisha b’ Av is a period of mourning. Observant Jews will not take a haircut, shave or listen to music. No Jewish weddings or other major celebrations are allowed during the “three weeks” as the entire time is considered a mourning period. “The P5+1 deal with Iran was signed on the 27th day of the Hebrew Month of Tammuz (during the three weeks) and the falsehoods and sell job by the administration is continuing up to and past Tisha b’ Av. Whether or not this is another Tisha b’ Av tragedy is still to be seen but It feels that way.
Tisha b’Av became the saddest day in the Jewish calendar because we didn’t trust God and his promise to give us the land of Israel. In a way our collective egos were too big. After witnessing all of those miracles, the nascent Jewish (then called Israelites) people felt they knew better than God and didn’t believe that he would keep his promise.
Thirty-five hundred years later we are still weighted down by our large egos. Many American Jewish leaders seek to gain favor from an anti-Israel President who became famous on Tisha b’Av. Jewish organizations, such as the ADL, The AJC, AJ Committee, and the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements put progressive politics in front of their Jewish missions. They worship the “Golden Calf of big government,” to protect their positions in liberal politics and in some case they helped their progressive masters to sell the horrible Iran deal.
Thirty-five hundred years ago, the Israelites did not trust God. They said they could not conquer the land and because of that were punished. Today many Jews still show no faith in God and God’s promise, even worse they commit “Jew-i-cide” by support a President (who has his own ties to Tisha b’ Av) who fights those who would practice faith. This President would have us worship big government instead of God (as does many of our supposed Jewish Leaders do).
Those same progressive leaders are supporting a Democratic presidential who would try and restrict the practice of faith, and has always displayed a hatred of the Jewish State, her vice presidential candidate has won awards from the anti-Israel group J-Street.
On this Tisha b’Av, as well as every other day, I will pray that my Jewish brethren and indeed all Americans wake up before it’s too late.
By the way Tisha b’Av will not only be a day of mourning. According to the Talmud, the Moshiach (Messiah) will be born on Tisha b’Av and after he brings peace that day will be celebrated as a day of joy for eternity. May God bring those days soon.
