Tisha B’Av is widely known as the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. Second in severity only to Yom Kippur, and observed with the same self-afflictions (thought for a very different purpose), the date became marked for mourning when the Jewish people cried baseless tears after believing the spies’ smear job on the Holy Land over G-d’s own promises. Over the millennia, a litany of tragedies have befallen our people on this date – from the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the fall of Beitar to the 1492 expulsion from Spain and the first deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.
Yet while oft repeated and tragically well-founded, the characterization of the Ninth of Av as the saddest date on the Jewish calendar has no explicit Talmudic or Mishnaic source.
I am not here to dispute that designation – our history speaks for itself. Yet I think it’s worth exploring – particularly during this trying period which has intensified, for many, thoughts of the final redemption – the hopeful side of Tisha B’Av, something which sets it apart from the other three fast days marking the escalating stages in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Though less stringent and with their fated character not having been painfully reinforced over and over again, those other dates do not have an antipode, an escape hatch, if you will, embedded within them as Tisha B’Av does: the consolation that the day holds the potential for – indeed the promise of – total transformation.
For this there is a source in the Torah: The Gemara, aptly the Jerusalem Talmud (in Brachot 2:4), teaches that the Ninth of Av is the birthday of Mashiach.
This is more than just a fascinating factoid. In Kabbalah, a birthday marks the ascendancy of the heavenly constellation which was in force at one’s birth, giving him special strength and power. (Hence the Chabad custom of celebrating birthdays with fervor and giving out blessings to others on one’s birthday.) Thus, the birthday of Mashiach brings a quickening of the redemptive energy of his birth which will usher in our Geulah. Whether Mashiach has already been born or has yet to be born, each year Tisha B’Av renews our momentum toward the final redemption.
If we knew nothing else about Tisha B’Av save this inspiring tidbit, we would think it a day for rejoicing. Perhaps that is why in Eicha (1:15), Jeremiah calls it a “mo’ed” (the Prophets’ word for holiday) – a moniker given to no other fast. When G-d decides to finally bring Mashiach, the day will indeed be a holiday.
Our task is to anticipate that happening in Av 5785.
It is told that every year, Reb Avraham of Chechanov would have to buy a new book of kinnot – because at the end of each Tisha B’Av, he would dispose of his copy and state aloud that surely it would not be needed again for Moshiach was on his way.
How many of us visualize the redemption so viscerally?
After Pesach concluded this year, a well-to-do Jew in the Diaspora remarked to my husband’s cousin, his neighbor at their vacation home development, his surprise that Mshiach had not come. “I was so sure he was coming this year!” he asserted in a disappointed tone. “Really?” she responded. “Did you pack a suitcase? Did you buy an apartment in Israel? If you were really so sure he was coming, what did you do to prepare?”
This echoes the famous joke (I’ve heard it told as a story but sincerely hope it’s not) of the woman who began crying at the end of the Seder upon the singing of “L’shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim.”
“Why are you crying?” her concerned husband asked.
“Because we just redid the kitchen… and I wanted to go to the Caribbean next year…”
“Don’t worry, dear,” her husband soothed, “it’s only a song.”
For nearly two years, we have experienced unprecedented horrors and unfathomable miracles. There is a growing sense of being in the birthing room of history. All whose heart and soul are open can feel it – the inexorable admixture of crushing pain and exhilarating wonder which, for believing Jews, can mean only one thing: Mashiach must be on the doorstep.
There is hope to be drawn out from the depths. This Tisha B’Av, let us tap into the redemptive power of the day. Let us infuse our tears with the conviction – beyond empty words and pious posturing – that we are ready for Geulah.
