Tisha B'Av Tisha B'av and Mourning by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin This article is courtesy of Ohr Torah Stone Bleakest Day Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av is the bleakest, blackest day on the Jewish calendar, the memorial of the destruction of both Holy Temples. We mark this day by fasting and mourning. Indeed, for the three weeks prior to Tisha B'Av our mourning gains in intensity, beginning with the 17th day of Tammuz, commemorating the Babylonian and Roman siege around the holy City of Jerusalem, continuing with the first nine days of the month of Av and culminating in the day of tragedy itself. During this period we do not get married or engage in group festivities, acquire new possessions or take haircuts. During the fast itself, we behave as full-fledged mourners. We sit on the ground, remove our shoes (no leather is permitted) and refrain from any greeting. We are even forbidden from studying Torah because our sages believed that Torah causes rejoicing to the heart. We have to be totally in touch with our pain and allow for no palliatives. Mournful Vibrations Although we have never seen this Holy Temple, and we may find ourselves living in a good land, comfortable with its language and culture, we transport ourselves to Jerusalem of 2,000 years ago. We take on the mournful vibrations of Jeremiah's Lamentations, turn over our seats and literally feel the earth weep underneath our bodies. We have become mourners. Why? What is the critical link between losing the Holy Temple and losing a close relative? Why do we not merely memorialize the destruction? Why do we mourn as we would the loss of a parent or a sibling? The result of sin We mourn when someone we love has died. We mourn the loss of life; we mourn the fact of death. And Judaism teaches that death is the result of sin, not so much from a personal individual perspective. Adam, the fiirst human being, sinned, then became subject to mortality or death. Hence our sages declare, "There is no death without transgression" (Bab. Talmud Shabbat 55a). And our vision of ultimate redemption, and the concomitant perfection in its wake, is a world without death, a dimension in which "death will be swallowed up forever." Therefore our sages instituted the law of mourning not only in order to help us get through a tragically difficult period of our lives, but also to teach and ennoble us, to bring us to reexamination of our lives and to lead us to repentance. Introspection In sitting for seven days and not leaving his home, the mourner isolates himself from society and the world at large. This ultimately provides an opportunity for introspection, an environment to evaluate one's values and priorities. Moreover, a temporary wall is erected between the mourning and external society, because all too often society at large respects only materialistic accomplishments. Anxious to make it in the outside world, a person can lose whatever values he may have once had. He forgets who is important in his life, what is genuine and precious. So the first act of mourning is separating oneself from society's misleading paths. Removing the external Second, the mourner does not shave, take a haircut or wear new clothes. Many of our sins revolve around the physical, the material, the external, the mystery of beauty and the lure of unimaginable wealth. Entrapped in such pursuits anything can happen, and our ability to resist financial indiscretions, theft, bribery, and sexual temptation is reduced to a minimum. The mourner must divest himself of the trappings of external fastidiousness. How he looks inside must take precedence over how he looks outside. Subduing vanity Third, mirrors are covered in the house of the mourner. According to the Responsa, Dudaei Hasadeh, the Hatam Sofer (on Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, ch.387, par 2) suggested that the Talmudic requirement that the mourner "overturn his bed," (Bab. Talmud,. Moed Katan) has nowadays been re-interpreted "to cover the mirrors." What is the connection between "turning over the bed" and "covering the mirror"? We read in the Talmud that when Father Jacob wanted to reveal to his sons (the 12 Tribes of Israel) what would happen at the end of days, the divine presence left him. Jacob wonders if perhaps he had sinned, if there was something "...invalid about his bed." Abraham had an Ishmael and Isaac had an Esau. Were his children, or some of them, unworthy of hearing the prophecy? At that moment Jacob's sons declare to him, "Hear O Israel, God our Lord is One," putting to rest his fears that any of them are guilty of heresy, that they caused their father's bed to become invalid (Bab. Talmud, Pesachim 56a). Hence, it is clear that for our sages, a bed has a sexual connotation, referring to the generations that emerge from the intimate husband-wife relationship. A mirror is often called a vanity; it can be the vehicle of our most illicit desires, riveting our attention upon outward, instead of inward, values. The damage this can cause to future generations is truly catastrophic. Exile and repentance Thus the mourning requirement of separation from the world, any garment with leather, barbers and mirrors force the mourner to reexamine his values, to reestablish his priorities, to engage in repentance. If death is the result of sin, so is exile. After all, death is the ultimate exile from this world, and after their transgression, Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden. And this theme of sin and exile is part of Jewish theology. Every additional prayer service (musaf) on the Sabbath emphasizes this idea: "Because of our sins have we been exiled from our land." For Tisha B'Av to become more than a memory of tragedy and serve as a springboard for redemption, we must mourn as we do for a lost relation, we must experience the mourning of our repentance. After all, if sin brought about destruction, misplaced values, hedonistic goals, only repentance can bring about redemption. This may well be what our sages meant when they taught that anyone who truly mourns the destruction of the Temple on Tisha B'Av merits to see its rebuilding.