One of the least commemorated holydays in the Jewish calendar cycle comes this Monday evening and Tuesday, Tisha B’Av, the day marking the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem (586 BCE and 70 CE). Each was a horrendous and traumatic event in the ancient Jewish world. Historical documents record that blood flowed like a river through the streets of Jerusalem, that all was destroyed, that the survivors, such as there were, became slaves to the Babylonian and Roman conquerors respectively, and that God was driven into exile with the people.

Beyond the geo-politics of those events, sages of later generations linked the two destructions to the people’s behavior. Following the first destruction they explained mip’nei chataeinu gilinu m’artzeinu (“because of our sins we were exiled from our land”). The sins included the perversion of justice, disregard for the needs of the widow, orphan and stranger, and worship of the false gods of profit and materialism. Following the second destruction, our sages said mipnei sinat chinam gilinu m’artzeinu (“Because of gratuitous hatred [of one Jew for another] we were exiled from our land”).

Over the centuries Tisha B’Av became a day of national mourning. For modern Jews focusing on the sins of the people as the first cause of the destruction raises difficult theological and moral problems especially after the Holocaust. Yet, even if we believe we are individually and collectively innocent of the oppressive and hard-hearted conditions that characterize our era, Rabbi Heschel reminds us that “some are [indeed] guilty, but all are responsible.”

Towards the end of the day, during Minchah, the mood of Tisha B’Av abruptly changes. At that hour, tradition teaches, the Messiah will be born. Thus, our mourning is transformed suddenly into celebration and our dejection is converted into anticipation of reunification with God.

Though national in character, Tisha B’Av has personal parallels. This past Friday evening during Shabbat services I witnessed the  devastation that death brings in its wake and that Tisha B’Av commemorates for us as a people.

A dear long-time member of our community who had raised both her daughter and son at Temple Israel had just returned from New York where she buried her 60 year-old daughter. Her younger son had died at the age of 51 five years ago. She had come to say Kaddish.

A parent’s absolute worst nightmare had been visited upon her twice. As I prepared to say Kaddish with her I recalled Rose Kennedy’s loss of four children in her life-time and the words she taught her children when they were young as recalled by Ted Kennedy in his memoir True Compass:

“The birds will sing when the storm is over;  The rose must know the thorn;  The valley makes the mountain tall.”

May Tisha B’Av be a day when as we recall our national and personal traumas we also remember that as long as we have life there will come a new day if we are patient enough.