Teachings: Tisha B’Av

It is important to recognize the presence of sadness, fear, and lingering mourning from horrific events in our lives and lineage. To express the anguish of this is called a lament. The sages noticed that excess lamenting was destroying the creative spirit of our people. After allowing an ample period for grieving, they created a container for the grief, this annual three week process to honor and integrate our losses. Done in the safety of home and community, this process commences with a daylight fast on the Seventeenth of Tammuz to mark the breeching of the walls of Jerusalem, and concludes with a full fast on the fifteenth of Av, Tisha b’Av, the date of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, and again by the Romans in 70 CE. This is similar to the function of shiva, the Jewish mourning process, it is intensive in the first week, month, year and then the container of a yartzeit, a yar (year) of tzeit (time) having passed, on the anniversary of the person's soul's departure from their body, we remember them. Tisha b'Av is one huge yartzeit that isn't about any one person, but rather oceans of our people.