Tisha B’Av

The Day of National Mourning

Tisha B’Av refuses the comfort of resolution. It is a day devoted to remembering wounds that have never fully healed. By mourning destruction long past, we protest the illusion that history simply moves on. The fast strips away distraction, forcing us to confront the cost of hatred, indifference, and spiritual arrogance. Tisha B’Av insists that redemption cannot be rushed, and that forgetting is itself a moral failure. Only a people willing to grieve honestly can hope to rebuild without repeating the same catastrophes.

9 Av 5787

Begins at Sundown on Wednesday, August 11, 2027

Ends at Nightfall on Thursday, August 12, 2027

Why We Remember

Thoughts on Tisha B'Av

In Tisha B’Av by Yael Shahar

Jerusalem has been rebuilt. Jewish sovereignty has been restored. So why do we still mourn on Tisha b’Av?

Perhaps because the day is not only about what others did to us, but about what we did to ourselves—and what we might still do again. Tisha b’Av confronts us with the dangers of division, mistrust, and unequal responsibility, while asking whether we can preserve our sense of shared destiny even when no external enemy forces us to unite.
July 20, 2026
Tisha B’Av and Victimhood

In Jewish Thought and Philosophy and Tisha B’Av by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Tisha B’Av is frequently perceived as a day of victimization, the date both Temples were destroyed and the Jewish People was transformed into a nation of eternal victims. If this was true, there would be no purpose to Tisha B’Av.
July 25, 2023
The Temple Sacrifices and the Meaning of Life

In Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Rav Kook, Parashat Vayikra and Tisha B’Av by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Regardless of the many traditional approach to offering sacrifices in our day, there is no question that the Temple and its rituals once played an enormous role in Judaism, and that offering sacrifices was at the very center of its holy service. So, what was it that made sacrifices such an essential part of Judaism in bygone times? Was it merely primitivism? Or was it something that we are no longer connected to today and are missing out on? What holiness could there have been in the offering of sacrifices? And were we to discover this holiness, would that mean we should reintroduce the sacrificial rites in our own contemporary times?
July 14, 2021
Rabbinic Despair and Simple Courage

In Tisha B’Av by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

When the world collapsed, the sages despaired. But the people did not. In the shadow of destruction, ordinary Jews chose to marry, build, and believe. This essay tells the story of a quiet, stubborn faith—the kind that refuses to surrender, even when all logic says it should.
August 8, 2019
The Fragrance of Things to Come

In Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Maimonides, Parashat Vayikra and Tisha B’Av by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

The Temple whose destruction we mourn on the 9th of Av has no inherent value. It is only a means to something that no physical object can contain. On Tish’a B’Av, we do not mourn the loss of the Temple but rather the loss of its message, which we no longer seem to grasp.
July 19, 2018
Tisha b’Av: Can we still mourn? A reply to Rav Cardozo

In Tisha B’Av by Yael Valier

Rabbi Cardozo writes: "Maybe we should literally go out in the streets and help people, sit down with our ideological enemies and see where we can find common ground, instead of simply reciting more kinot?" And yet, there are reasons why we should continue to fast and read Eichah on Tisha b'Av. Here are just a few of those reasons
August 21, 2016
A Slap in the Face to the Holy One Blessed Be He?

Some Afterthoughts on Tish’ah be-Av

In Israel, Jewish Thought and Philosophy and Tisha B’Av by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

I must confess that this year’s Tish’ah be-Av was the first time in 54 years (since I was 16) that I did not go to synagogue to hear Eichah (the reading from the Scroll of Lamentations) and recite kinot (elegies written by famous sages throughout the centuries regarding the destruction of both Temples and the many later tragedies that befell the Jewish people).
August 18, 2016
A Thought on Tisha Be’Av

In Tisha B’Av by Calev Ben-Dor

A few years ago, Israeli academic Amnon Rubinstein wrote 'The Sea above us,' a fictional tale in which Tel Aviv, Israel’s first Hebrew metropolis, lies under water. In an interview with Ari Shavit, the author explained the idea behind his novel, describing his deep ‘existential anxiety that our country is hanging by a thread, that one day it may simply cease to be. I haven’t read the book, but I admire Rubenstein and share his anxiety about the future
July 15, 2013