Today (Wednesday July 30th) is the
3nd day of the month of Av on the Jewish calendar.
Since we are in the month of Av and since
there are so many developments on the world scene, I thought it would be
interesting to remind people what happened in the past during Av… and hope for
what is yet to come. You will learn much if you watch the rabbinical teaching at the end.
The 9th of Av (Tisha b’Av) is the saddest day in Jewish history.
·
Picture
this: The year is 1313 BCE. The Israelites are in the desert, recently
having experienced the miraculous Exodus, and are now poised to enter
the
Promised Land. But first they dispatch a reconnaissance mission to
assist in formulating a prudent battle strategy. The spies return on the
eighth day of Av and report that the land is unconquerable. That night,
the 9th of Av, the people cry. They insist that
they'd rather go back to Egypt than be slaughtered by the Canaanites.
G‑d is highly displeased by this public demonstration of distrust in His
power, and consequently that generation of Israelites never enters the
Holy Land. Only their children have that privilege,
after wandering in the desert for another 38 years.
·
The First Temple was also destroyed on the 9th of Av (423 BCE).
·
Five
centuries later (in 69 CE), as the Romans drew closer to the Second
Temple, ready to torch it, the Jews were shocked to realize that their
Second Temple
was destroyed the same day as the first.
·
When
the Jews rebelled against Roman rule, they believed that their leader,
Simon bar Kochba, would fulfill their messianic longings. But their
hopes were
cruelly dashed in 133 CE as the Jewish rebels were brutally butchered
in the final battle at Betar. The date of the massacre? Of course—the
9th of Av!
·
The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 CE on, you guessed it, Tisha b'Av.
·
In
1492, the Golden Age of Spain came to a close when Queen Isabella and
her husband Ferdinand ordered that the Jews be banished from the land.
The edict
of expulsion was signed on March 31, 1492, and the Jews were given
exactly four months to put their affairs in order and leave the country.
The Hebrew date on which no Jew was allowed any longer to remain in the
land where he had enjoyed welcome and prosperity?
Oh, by now you know it—the 9th of Av.
·
Ready
for just one more? World War II and the Holocaust, historians conclude,
was actually the long drawn-out conclusion of World War I that began in
1914.
And yes, amazingly enough, Germany declared war on Russia, effectively
catapulting the First World War into motion, on the 9th of Av, Tisha
b'Av.
(Source Chabad.org)
The 15th of Av (Tu b’Av) is the happiest day in Jewish history.
·
The
Jews while wandering in the desert were according to the Midrash
commanded by Moses to sleep in their graves as punishment for not
believing the spies who were
sent to scout out the promised land. The Jews who slept in their graves
each year would arise from their graves and discover that 15,000 of the
older generation had died in the night. This continued to happen until
all of the older generation had died off.
Tu B'Av was celebrated because they knew that at long last they were
freed from the curse of the grave and free to enter the promised land
under the leadership of Joshua.
·
The
Jews continued to celebrate on the anniversary (Tu b’Av) by allowing
the virgins to dress in white and dance in the vineyards to attract
husbands.
·
The celebration of Tu B'Av became closely associated with courtship, marriage and the the triumph of life over death.
·
According to the Jewish sages, Tu b’Av was the happiest celebration of the year.
To hear a rabbi teaching about the significance of Tu b’Av (15th of Av), I am providing
a link to an hour long video of Jewish teaching concerning Tu B'Av.
It explained in thorough detail why it was considered to be the happiest
and most important Jewish festival in ancient times. It also stressed
that unlike all the other festivals, it was
forward looking to an as yet unfulfilled event ...the wedding of the
Messiah. I paid special attention to the section 49:56 to about 52:50
finding it to be very interesting (yet the whole thing was extremely
enlightening!).
http://www.naaleh.com/viewclass/2635/single/audio/
YBIC
Bruce Baber