If you ask the average Israeli what Tisha B'Av is, they might mumble something about the destruction of the Temple, but this day is very far from their world.
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He fails to understand his connection to a temple that was destroyed two thousand years ago.
His secret: Earn a prestigious degree without preparatory school and without prerequisites • Want one too?There is a profound failure here on the part of the Israeli education system, which has failed to instill in the consciousness the importance of Tisha B'Av within the system of values of Jewish existence.
There are elements of basic tradition that unite the people as a whole – circumcision, bar mitzvah, Yom Kippur, holidays and festivals, mezuzah, etc. Without all of these, what is the meaning of being Jewish?
Well, to this list we must add Tisha B'Av. This day contributes to the Jewish experience the connection to the suffering-filled history of our people and the hope of redemption.
Trouble list
Tisha B'Av drains into itself all the pain that the Jewish people have gone through over the thousands of years of its existence.
The spies, who brought bad slander upon the land, and caused the people to weep on the night of Tisha B'Av. This sin delayed entry into the land for forty years and indirectly caused the death of Moses our Lord.
The destruction of the two Temples. The persecution of foreign cultures and the gratuitous hatred that caused the destruction still accompany us and serve as a warning sign for the need to correct this by adhering to Jewish identity and embracing gratuitous love.
On Tisha B'Av, the great city of Beitar fell. On this difficult day, Jerusalem was plowed over, to the point of destroying even its remains. Tisha B'Av is also the day of the expulsion from Spain, which began a period of suffering and persecution for the Jewish people.
To this difficult list, we can add another disaster today – the destruction of the Gaza Strip communities, following an unfortunate decision by the Israeli government. This destruction and the expulsion of ten thousand Jews from their homes was also scheduled, ironically, for Tisha B'Av.
On Tisha B'Av we connect with the suffering of the Jewish people. Episodes from our painful past pass before us. The fickleness of the Gentiles. One day they are friends, and the next they are sworn enemies. Spain, for example. The Jews there reached the peak of social integration and the top of power. And suddenly came the Inquisition and the cruel expulsion.
Historical memory propels us forward. The Crusades, the riots of 1818-1819, the pogroms and deportations, communist Russia. And then the terrible Holocaust, which exterminated a third of our people with a diabolical cruelty unparalleled in the history of mankind.
Out of sorrow will salvation grow.
This review gives rise to feelings of sorrow for the terrible suffering we have endured, but it also contains great hope.
Jewish history proves that after every decline comes a rise, and out of sorrow and anguish, salvation has always emerged. From this day on, we also draw tremendous strength, and connect with the age-old Jewish determination to continue living, to have children, to build and to plant.
Tisha B'Av carries with it the faith and hope that at the end of the long journey we will soon reach true and complete redemption through our righteous Messiah.
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