The saddest and most tragic day in the year is the fast of the Ninth of Av (Tisha b’Av). It is a day of fasting and mourning. The date coincides with an event which took place during the exodus. The Jews were looking forward to entering the Holy Land so they sent forth scouts, or spies, before them. The spies came back with an unfavorable report. They felt that the inhabitants of the land were giants and therefore were too strong for them and that they could not possibly capture the land. The people wept and did not have sufficient faith in G-d. The Almighty said, according to the Talmud, you cried tonight for no reason; whenever there will be cause for you to weep in years to come, it will occur on this very day of the Ninth of Av. They also had to wander the desert for 40 years before they could enter the Promised Land.

On this day in the year 586 BCE, the first Temple was ransacked and burned to the ground by the Babylonians. On this day in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the second Temple. The destruction of the Temple, the religious center of the people, was not only a religious disaster but also marked the end of the First and Second Jewish Commonwealths, respectively, and the exile of most of the Jewish people from their land.

This is also the day that the fortress of Bethar fell in 135 CE, ending the Bar Kochba war of rebellion against Rome, only 65 years after the destruction of the Temple. In the year 1290, on Tisha B’Av, the official decree expelling the Jews from England was signed. This was the first time the Jewish people had ever received a nationwide expulsion. Over 200 years later, Spain did the same thing, on Tisha B’Av in 1492. They expelled the largest and most successful Diaspora Jewish community ever to exist. Those who didn’t leave were asked to convert to Christianity or die. On the following day, Messianic Jew, Christobal Colon, and his mainly Jewish crew set sail for America. He was most probably largely financed by the confiscated Jewish property that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella took.

The first time that the Jews were forced into a Ghetto was in Rome on Tisha B’Av in 1555. The Chielminicki Massacre started on this day in 1648. The Cossacks drenched the Ukraine and Poland with Jewish blood -- a quarter of a miilion or more were muredered. Babies were smashed against walls. Pregnant women had theri bellies ripped open and live cats were put inside and they were sewn back up. World War I began on this day-- August 1, 1914. The Nazi Reinhard Heydrich was ordered to carry out the Final Solution on July 31, 1941. The following night, as his first orders were going into effect, was Tisha B’Av. This was also the day of the Decree to establish the Warsaw Ghetto. One year later on Tish B’Av, the relocation to the East began in the Warsaw Ghetto. El Al, Israel’s airliner, had its only plane loss in 1955 on Tish B’Av. A flight wandered into Bulgarian air space by accident and was shot down. The planet Jupiter represents Y’Shua. In 1993, on Tish B’Av, the comet, Shoemaker-Levy (named after two Jewish guys) crashed into Jupiter in 39 places.

Though the Jewish State was reestablished in 1948, and Jerusalem was reunited in 1967 under Jewish sovereignty for the first time sine 70 CE, the significance of Tisha B’Av has nevertheless been reaffirmed by contemporary tinkers and scholars.

In the first place, the Temple itself - the destruction of which is the basic reason for the mourning of Tisha b’Av - is still not restored. The Temple Mount in fact was appropriated by Islamic leaders, who in the year 691 CE built on Judaism’s holiest site a major Islamic shrine - The Dome of the Rock. This only highlights the Temple’s loss to the faith of Israel.

Secondly, there is no more appropriate occasion in the year to remember, mourn and grieve over all those occasions in Israel’s history which were steeped in sorrow and suffering, in death and torture, in cruelty and oppression, all of which reached their climax in the European Holocaust when over a third of all the Jewish people, more than six million men, women and children, were systematically and barbarically put to death after the most unbelievable suffering.

Tisha b’Av is a biblical holiday, though not a High Holy Day, since normal work is performed on this day. It is described in Zechariah 8:19 as the fast of the fifth month. The same verse promises that the fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the House of Judah; so love truth and peace. Tisha b’Av is a day of total fasting. As on Yom Kippur, eating or drinking anything from before sundown on the eighth of Av till nightfall is forbidden. The following mourning practices are in effect:
-- You cannot wear regular leather shoes. (There are no prohibitions against footwear made form rubber, cloth, or non-leather materials.)
-- You must abstain from washing or bathing. (This applies only to washing for personal comfort or pleasure. It does not apply to washing to wash off dirt, or to washing upon arising, or after taking care of one’s needs.)
-- Men abstain from shaving and women from cosmetics.
-- Abstaining from sexual relations.
-- Abstaining from studying the Torah, for such study gladdens the heart, as it is written in Psalm 19, verse 9, The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. It is, however, permissible to read or study such books as Lamentations, Job, selections of Jeremiah, and parts of the Talmud that deal with the destruction of the Temple or with the laws of mourning.
-- Abstaining from doing any work ( in the usual sense of the word, not in the Sabbath definition of work), at least all evening and until noon of the fast day. After noon on Tisha b’Av, it is permissible to engage in all work, if necessary, although the fasting and mourning might make it difficult to do so.
-- Whenever possible, at least until noon, it is customary to sit only on lower stools after the fashion of those who sit in mourning during the week of shiva.

A lenient attitude is adopted toward sick persons, even those who are not dangerously or critically ill. Such persons are permitted to fast for only part of the day and are not required to complete the entire fast.

In the synagogue following the evening services, the Book of Lamentations (Megillat Aichah), is read in the mournful chant traditionally associated with it. In the evening as well as the morning, dirge or kinot prayers are recited following the services with the worshippers sitting on the ground or low stools. A person who prays by himself, without a minyan, should also read the Book of Lamentations and recite the kinot.

To emphasize the mournful character of the day, it is customary to remove the parokhet, the curtain from the Holy Ark, and the decorative cover from the Reader’s table, providing a stark appearance. (In some communities, the Ark is draped in black.) It is customary in some communities to extinguish most of the lights, reciting the kinot by the dim light of candles held by the worshippers.

Because a tallit and tefillin are called religious adornments, symbols of beauty, neither is worn at the morning services of Tisha b’Av. They are instead put on for the afternoon mincha service.

Although the fast of Tisha b’Av ends at nightfall, one should not eat meat or drink wine or celebrate in any way until noon of the next day. This is done because according to historical tradition, The Temple burned all through the night and most of the day of the tenth of Av. Because of this, weddings on the night immediately following Tisha b’Av are still forbidden.

Tisha b’Av marks the culmination of a period of three weeks that is observed in semi-mourning, beginning with the minor Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz (three weeks earlier), which marks the first breech in the walls of Jerusalem made by the attacking Babylonian forces.

During this three week period, weddings are not permitted; or any other celebrations and festive gatherings, particularly if accompanied by music. It is customary not to cut one’s hair during this period.

The semi-mourning becomes somewhat more intensified on the first of Av, during the period referred to as the Nine Days. A wide spread custom is to abstain from meat and wine during this period, except for the Sabbath day and except for a religious feast (Bar or Bat Mitzvah). It is also the practice not to purchase or put on new clothing during this time until after Tisha b’Av.

Unlike Yom Kippur, if the Ninth of Av occurs on Shabbat, it is observed on Sunday instead since Shabbat should be a day of feasting and joyful worship of G-d.

The Hebrew word for mourner, Avail, Aleph- Vet- Lahmed uses the same word as Av - Aleph , Vet. Av means father. In spite of whatever punishment G-d administers, remember that He is still your Father in Heaven. There will be destruction of Aleph, the First Temple (and the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet) and Vet, the Second Temple ( and the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet), on this date. Rome and Babylonia will be the two nations responsible for the destruction of the House of G-d. In Hebrew, these two nations respectively begin with the letter aleph, standing for Edom or Rome and bet or vet which stands for Bavel or Babylonia.