The saddest and most remorseful day of the year to Jewish people is the Fast of the Ninth of Av. (Tisha B’Av) It is a day of remembrance of many tragedies in the history of the Jewish people.  The destruction of Solomon’s temple occurred on Tisha B’Av.  This is recorded 70 years later by Zechariah,( Zech 8:19). He describes it as a time of separating oneself through weeping, mourning, and fasting. This is a remembrance of the tragedy that befell the Jewish people when they were carried away to Babylon and the temple of the L-rd was destroyed as a judgment for the sins during the time of Jehoiakim and the turning over of the great city of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. The people still mocked G-d’s prophets until the wrath of the L-rd rose against His people as Chronicled in 2 Chr. 36:12-16.  The walls of the temple came down, 2 Ki. 25:3-4, and the temple of the L-rd was utterly destroyed.

 

Yeshua would have observed Tisha B’Av six centuries later. How much more so the historical Yeshua must have mourned on this day of fasting, knowing the future events to occur on that day. In 70 CE the gloriously rebuilt temple that stood in Yeshua’s day was destroyed by the Romans, leaving only a small section of the Western Wall that still stands and is commonly called the Wailing Wall today, also known as the Kotel.  Yeshua knew this was to happen. He prophesized as recorded in Mt 23:27:38 and 24:1-2 that “…not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

 

Tradition holds that the temple burned all night and through the 10^th of Av.  For this reason it is forbidden to marry on the 9^th or 10^th of Av.

 

To this day the Temple Mount has not been restored and has be appropriated by Islamic leaders who built a major Islamic shrine on the Temple Mount in 691 CE.  Even as an independent state since 1948 and a reunited City of Jerusalem since 1967 the Temple has not been rebuilt.  Jerusalem is one of the only spots in the world where the victors of war have not rebuilt their holy places after victory.

 

On the ninth of Av, 135 CE, the Bar Kochba revolution against Rome was violently crushed. Looking for a manly king, many Jews of his time thought Bar Kochba to be the Messiah.  The crushing of this revolution showed Bar Kochba not to be the Messiah and also crushed any hope of an independent Jewish state for 1,800 years.

 

This was not the last tragedy associated with this date. In 1242 the Jewish people of Paris had their holy books collected by the Church and burned.  In 1290 CE all the Jews were expelled from England on Tisha B’Av with their only crime being that of being Jews.  In 1492 CE King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain launched the Inquisition. The Inquisition saw many Jews killed by the Church for failing to renounce Judaism and turn to Catholicism. In 1942 on Tisha B’Av the Nazis started the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camps.

 

In remembrance of all these events Tisha B’Av is a day of fasting and remembrance. The scroll of Lamentations is read in synagogues and people sit in short stools of mourning.   Poems and dirges are recited of the temples destruction, the death of those martyred for their faith, the destruction of total communities, the slaughter during the Crusades, and the more recent tragedies such as the Holocaust.

 

Some of the practices of mourning are:

Not wearing leather shoes

Abstaining for washing or bathing for personal comfort or pleasure

Abstaining from shaving

Abstaining from doing any work

Sit in lower stools in the fashion of those sitting Shiva

Reading from the book of Lamentations

 

In the middle of the afternoon the people rise from mourning to recall a tradition that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av.  This tradition is born out of the hope of redemption springing forth from the depths of despair.

 

The Sabbath after Tisha B’Av is called the Shabbat Nachamu, “Sabbath of Consolation” as Isa. 40:1-26 is read, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your G-d.”  The fact that Israel does exist as a nation and the ingathering of the exiles as prophesized is occurring gives hope during the remembrance of past evils.

 

We realize the coming of the L-rd is near and even in this day of mourning cry out MARANATHA.  “Come quickly.”

Standing Strong

A Messianic Jewish Congregation with an outreach to Believers in Israel

Tisha B’Av