The quiet power of Tisha B’Av

Other religions can pretend to offer answers; Judaism seems best at offering meaning in the absence of answers.

Tisha B’Av doesn’t get much press. Commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in 586 BCE and 70 CE, it does not include any Hollywood moments. Study of the Torah is prohibited, and in its place isn’t anything like the burlesque of Esther, the perseverance of Ruth, or even the world-weary wisdom of Ecclesiastes. Instead, we are told to read Lamentations or Job.

There is nothing about the day to make it family-friendly, or colorful, and it can’t be turned into a comic book or action figure for the kids. And since Tisha B’Av is a fast day, there are no traditional foods associated with it. Technically we are given the opportunity to climb out of Tisha B’Av with the seven Shabbats that follow it — the Shabbatot of Comfort — and take them into the renewal of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but it is still a dark road, and a long one.

This is especially so since Tisha B’Av is preceded by three weeks of preparation. Traditionally, a whole host of prohibitions on eating meat, playing or listening to music, holding weddings, having sex, getting haircuts and even planting are observed. With all of this in mind, I’m reminded of a rabbi who avoided the holiday altogether, and instead held a barbecue. Do we really need to sit on the floor in the dark in order to remember all the terrible things that have happened to us? Maybe not, but ignoring the day so blatantly only illustrates the large shadow that Tisha B’Av throws.

Open the Babylonian Talmud to Sota 38, and you will find the origin story of Tisha B’Av. Well before the destruction of both Temples, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and a host of other events said to have taken place on or around the Ninth of Av, the story of the spies from Numbers 13-14 is expanded upon:

Still fresh from their escape from Egypt and the revelation at Sinai, the Israelite community was about to enter Canaan. A representative from each of the 12 tribes was sent to scout out the land beforehand and report back. When the overwhelmingly negative account of 10 of the spies caused panic among the Israelites, the Talmud gives God’s reaction: “Because the people weep without cause and do not trust My word to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey, this night and the following day, the Ninth of Av, shall be a day of fasting and mourning, a day of trouble and tribulation for many years.”

Of course, these events from the Torah were not connected with Tisha B’Av until much later. In that sense, it is Jewish interpretation at its best. What better way to deal with and make meaning out of incredible suffering than to widen its radius? Now our otherwise isolated suffering finds a crowd, and indeed the idea and the reality of Tisha B’Av is like a magnet, until the day is adorned and weighed down with tragedy, commemoration, poetry, folklore and theology.

Many Jews today might cringe at the theology of stories like the one where God’s voice (or is the Shekhinah’s?) is heard near the Western Wall in Jerusalem, saying, “Alas, because of the sins of My sons I destroyed My house, I burned My sanctuary, and scattered My children among the nations.” Many Jews throughout history, from those who lived and chose to remain in Babylonia, Spain, North Africa, France, Amsterdam, the Ottoman Empire and finally America, didn’t view themselves as living in a diaspora at all — or if they did, it wasn’t something to mourn, or a condition to blame on their forebears.

At the same time, taking the bite out of Tisha B’Av entirely seems just as unnecessary as blaming Jews’ lack of piety for everything up to the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. David Einhorn, the 19th-century Reform leader in America, wrote in the siddur he formulated that, “the day of sorrow and fasting has become a day of gladness.” He added, “Not like an outcast son did Your firstborn go forth into the strange world, but as Your messenger for all the families of the earth.” It’s a beautiful idea, turning every closed door and locked border (and worse) of our history into a reason to celebrate where we were eventually accepted and did survive. But sometimes sitting on the ground in the dark might be the way to go.

Some things, perhaps, don’t have a silver lining, and sometimes it’s worth illustrating that fact by draping the Ark of the Torah in black. Jews may have persevered and done great things in every corner of the world, but it feels very un-Jewish to say that our doggedness somehow makes up for the destruction, pogroms, expulsions and terrorist attacks that preceded them. It feels more Jewish to tie the knot tighter and say that these things happened, and to refuse to look any further. This seems to be one thing that Tisha B’Av is about.

Other religions can pretend to offer answers; Judaism seems best at offering meaning in the absence of answers. Introducing his translation of Job, the poet Stephen Mitchell lays out three ways of interpreting Job’s sufferings. In the first, God is just and Job is guilty; in the second, God is unjust and Job is innocent. The third is: “Suffering comes from God. God is just. Job is innocent.”

Mitchell remarks that this third option “is not even thinkable.” But in a way, it is the unthinkable-ness of the idea that makes it sound so right. It is unthinkable because, like the Binding of Isaac — or like the tornado of Jewish history that takes this life but not that one — there is no answer. And every year in late July or early August we are reminded that there is no greeting card or T-shirt or coffee mug to make Tisha B’Av more palatable. PJC

Tim Miller is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.