Take Five: 5-Minute Video Messages from our Rabbis
It just takes five minutes to start preparing our minds and hearts for a meaningful experience of the Three Weeks and Tisha B’Av. Join the rabbis of our shul, and take advantage of the opportunity to enhance your learning, understanding, and meaning by watching these divrei Torah at your leisure:
Tisha B’Av & the 3 Weeks Guide and Video Messages
You can now download our new Guide for the Three Weeks to learn about the practices of mourning and commemoration that help us increase the meaning of the most devastating dates on our religious calendar, and to bring them to life. The Guide also contains the full schedule for Shabbat Chazon and our all-day programing on Tish’a Be-Av.
May the Jewish people know no more suffering, and may the Messiah return us to our homeland, and our service to the Holy Temple.
Introduction and Guide to the Three Weeks
Jewish tradition is particularly rich when it comes to loss, mourning, and memory, so there are many beautiful and deeply meaningful halakhot and minhagim that help us mourn for the loss of the Beit Hamikdash every year. To help you review these great traditions and practices, we have prepared the following guide:
Guide for the Three Weeks & Tish’a Be-Av, 2012
Temple worship was established in the Tabernacle as the Jewish people made their steady advance toward the Land of Israel after their Exodus from Egypt. From that time on for nearly a thousand years, the mainstay of Jewish service to God, and the hallmark of the very continuity of our Jewish heritage, was the daily morning and afternoon offerings known as theKorbanot Tamid – the Continual Sacrifices.
As the Jews grew from a nation of slaves to a Mesopotamian power, not a single day passed when the Continual Sacrifices were not offered morning and afternoon, day in and day out.
But in 586 B.C.E, Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem, and on the 17th day of Tammuz (Shiv’a Asar Be-Tammuz) that year, the supply of livestock in the barricaded city finally ran dry. For the first time since they were instituted in the shadow of Mt. Sinai, the Continual Sacrifices were discontinued.
On the 9th day of Av (Tish’a Be-Av) that year, the Babylonian army set fire to Solomon’s Holy Temple, and it burnt to the ground that night and all day on the 10th of Av.
Hundreds of years later, long after the Temple had been rebuilt, Romans led by Titus again laid siege to Jerusalem, breaching the walls of the Holy City on none other than the 17th day of Tammuz, and ultimately destroying the Temple on the 9th day of Av.
Because of these terrible tragedies and many others that surround these dates in Jewish history, the entire time period from 17 Tammuz to 9 Av is a time of great mourning and sadness for the Jewish people. These three weeks are called בין המצרים – bein hametzarim, a temporal space squeezed narrow by the dates of oppression that surround it.
The above guide is to help us understand and maintain the practices of mourning and commemoration that help us bring to life the most devastating dates on our religious calendar.
Tisha B’Av CDs For Sale
Due to a number of requests, we now have audio CDs of the Chafetz Chaim Foundation Tisha B’Av presentations at the shul office for $5 per CD. The two CDs available feature the following speakers:
- CD 1 – Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, and Rabbi Dov Brezak
- CD 2 – Rabbi Paysach Krohn and Rabbi Ephraim Eliyahu Shapiro
Thank you for your interest in continuing your learning about Tisha B’Av, and in furthering the effort to improve the world around us!
Also, you can continue to view the Tisha B’Av video messages from your Torat Emet rabbis year-round on our Tisha B’Av page.
May the Jewish people know no more suffering, and may the Messiah return us to our homeland, and our service to the Holy Temple. May the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount be rebuilt speedily in our days.
