in reference to the news from Israel  ….if you like would you please read this……this is from the

http://www.templeinstitute.org/events.htm :

“….this page last updated: 9 Av, 5765 / August 14, 2005

4Please note: The Events page is our window into all new features and additions on the site. As we are constantly adding or updating, we urge you to visit and peruse carefully the Events page each time you return to templeinstitute.org.

Tish'a B'Av - The Ninth of Av

On this day the spies brought their evil report of the land of Israel, (dibat ha'aretz), to the Israelites in the desert. For their lack of faith, G-d decreed that this generation of Jews would die in the desert. Only their children would enter the land some forty years later. As a result of the weeping over the baseless report, G-d decreed that this day would be a day of weeping for the Jews for generations to come.

On this day the first Holy Temple was destroyed.

On this day the second Holy Temple was destroyed.

On this day in 135 CE the stronghold of Beitar fell to the Roman legions, marking the end of the Bar Kochba rebellion. This marked the end of Jewish political or military resistance to foreign occupation of the land of Israel, Jerusalem and Mount Moriah - the site of the Holy Temple, until the beginning of the 20th century.

On this day in 1492 the Jews of Spain were compelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to either convert to Christianity or face torture and death. 200,000 Jews fled Spain.

On this day in 1941 the Nazis officially decreed the implementation of the "final solution of the Jewish problem" - the murder of six million Jews.

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosened my sackcloth and girded me with gladness; So that my glory may sing praise to You, and not be silent; L-rd, my G-d,I will give thanks to You forever."" (Psalms 30 - "A song at the dedication of the House," verses 12-13.)

Today, (Av 9, 5765/August 14, 2005), the Sharon government, having subverted the democratic process, has ordered the Israeli police, who, as in all democracies, have been charged with the protection and wellbeing of its citizens, to actively and forcibly impose an act of ethnic cleansing against the ten thousand Jews residing peacefully in their homes and communities in Gaza and northern Samaria. Sharon has likewise ordered the Israel Defense Forces, which, as in all democracies, have been charged with the protection of its citizens against foreign enemies, to be an active accomplice in this immoral act of expulsion. At midnight tonight, Sharon has ordered the army to hand an "eviction notice" to each and every household in the Jewish communities of Gaza. Any Jewish homeowner and his family remaining in his house past midnight, will be considered a hostile resister to the planned ethnic cleansing, and will be dealt with accordingly by the police and the army, which have been instructed to use all force necessary to complete the assigned task. Even dead Jews are not to be exempted from this crime. Every Jewish grave inside these communities will be exhumed by the army, with or without the consent of the family of the deceased, and reinterred in other locations inside Israel. In accordance with Sharon's decree, no Jew, dead or alive, is to remain in Gaza or in northern Samaria.

Opposition to the planned expulsion is strong despite the attempts, often brutal, and increasingly undemocratic, by the Sharon government to suppress this opposition. The Sharon government has employed every branch of the government in its efforts to rob its citizens of their right to voice their opposition to the immoral policy of ethnic cleansing and the stridently undemocratic means which the Sharon government engaged in to ensure the plan's ratification and enactment. The law enforcement agencies, as well as the entire judicial system have proved accomplice to the Sharon government's planned expulsion of 10,000 innocent citizens from their homes. The Israeli judicial system, all the way up to and including the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice. has brazenly neglected the very tenets of democracy that they have been entrusted to uphold, in "legally" paving the way for the successful completion of the Sharon government's racist policy. Yet, tens upon tens of thousands of Jewish citizens, braving beating at the hands, (and clubs), of the police, and incarceration without legal justification, have marched and demonstrated on behalf of their embattled brethren in the communities threatened with immediate and complete destruction. Hundreds of thousands have prayed at the Western Wall Plaza at the foot of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, for the annulment of the evil decree, and hundreds of thousands have gathered in the Kikar Rabin Plaza in Tel Aviv to voice their steadfast opposition to the Sharon expulsion plan. Tonight, just hours before the "eviction notices" are to be delivered to the Jewish families of Gaza, tens of thousands of their fellow Jews are to begin streaming southward toward the Kissufim crossing into Gush Katif, in order to confront and "engage" the police and soldiers who have been ordered to perform the expulsion on behalf of the Sharon government. Tens of soldiers have already refused orders to be a part of this immoral act of expulsion. Hundreds more are expected to wake up Monday morning with various ailments, rendering them incapable of performing the task required of them. All reports from the Israel military and intelligence establishments, as well as independent think tanks, warn that following the expulsion of the Jews, Gaza will become the terror capital of the world, bringing in sophisticated weapons via the border with Egypt, (with the active or passive support of the Egyptian government), and smuggling them in to Judea and Samaria. The reports warn that a third "intifada", more deadly that the last intifada, which claimed over 1,000 Israeli lives, with imminently break out following the completion of the ethnic cleansing. Palestinian leaders, to a man, endorse this scenario, openly promising a new wave of terror, the ultimate aim of which is the capture of Jerusalem.

May G-d in His mercy nullify the evil decree of expulsion hanging over the heads of the ten thousand Jews of Gaza and the northern Shomron, and over the heads of the entire people of Israel, wherever they dwell. May G-d grant us good tidings, may our people, with renewed spirit, rise up as one, commence the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the renewal of the Divine service, and may our mourning turn to joy...

"A Time to Mourn... A Time to Build"

"Thus saith the L-rd: The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; Where is the house that you may build unto Me? And where is the place that may be My resting-place?" (Isaiah 66:1)

The Jewish people have just entered into an annual period of mourning for the loss of both the first and second Holy Temples. This twenty two day period which stretches from the 17th of Tammuz, (July 24th), to the 9th of Av, (August 15th), begins with a fast, (from sunrise to sunset), and ends with a 25 hour fast. The Jewish people have been mourning the destruction of the Holy Temple for some 1,935 years now, and not just during this three week period. The daily routine of a Torah Jew is filled with remembrances of the Holy Temple. Certain mitzvot, (commandments) connected to the Temple service are still observed today. We mark our houses, our weddings and even our after meal prayers with special mention of the Holy Temple. But the fine line between mourning an irreversible loss, and reminding our selves of an inescapable future can be blurred, especially during the present intense three week period of mourning, known in Hebrew as "beyn ha meitzarim," ("between the straits.") Lamentations 1:3 Throughout the two millennium since the destruction of the Holy Temple at the hands of the invading Romans, numerous attempts have been made to rebuild the Holy Temple. Some efforts went nearly unnoticed, some resulted in disaster, but the Jewish people have never despaired of either the dream or the profound responsibility of renewing the Divine service and rebuilding the Holy Temple. It is this commitment which yet propels us forward into our future................................”