For the Orthodox Jew who knows what they are remembering right now are the days of Tishsa B'Av, or the 9th of the month of Av. In my house, we would be remembering my brother's birthday on the 2nd of August; my baby brother who was such a gift to us, David.
To me as a Jewish daughter, sister, mother and grandmother, I certainly do remember this part of our history; the most important part, that the religious remember with fasting and prayers.
Long ago the 9th of Av (August) was like a bad luck day; so many things bad happened then, and today, the 3rd of August, is the 2nd day of this.
Five calamities
Excavated stones from the Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Jerusalem, Israel), knocked onto the street below by Roman battering rams in 70 CE
According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4:6), five specific events occurred on the ninth of Av that warrant fasting:
The Twelve Spies sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan returned from their mission. Only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, brought a positive report, while the others spoke disparagingly about the land. The majority report caused the Children of Israelto cry, panic and despair of ever entering the "Promised Land". For this, they were punished by God that their generation would not enter the land.The midrash quotes God as saying about this event, "You cried before me pointlessly, I will fix for you [this day as a day of] crying for the generations", alluding to the future misfortunes which occurred on the same date.
The First Temple built by King Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and the population of the Kingdom of Judah was sent into the Babylonian exile. According to the Bible, the First Temple's destruction began on the 7th of Av (2 Kings 25:8) and continued until the 10th (Jeremiah 52:12). According to the Talmud, the actual destruction of the Temple began on the Ninth of Av, and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.
The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 9 Av 135 CE.
Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
Other calamities
Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.
The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).
Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval inEuropean Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.
On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.
On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.
The AMIA bombing on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on 18 July 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).
While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, either in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.
Tisha b'Av prayers (1740)
Similarly, within Religious Zionist communities, the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza is mourned on Tisha B'Av as well, a practice supported by Religious Zionist rabbis like Yaakov Ariel and Dov Lior. Kinnot have been composed about the withdrawal, and the connection to Tisha b'Av was emphasized in 10-year anniversary commemorations. Although the disengagement operation had been delayed specifically to avoid coinciding with The Three Weeks and Tisha b'Av, the timing lent itself to symbolic interpretation both by Religious Zionists and by wider Jewish culture. However, even within Religious Zionism, Chaim Navon holds that the disengagement did not rise to the level of a calamity and Shlomo Aviner has written that mourning the disengagement on Tisha b'Av is forbidden because it incites political division. Yona Metzger, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled in 2006 that the disengagement was a tragedy but mourning rituals should not be integrated into Tisha b'Av, while Howard Jachter permits it in narrow fashion.
Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak HaLevi Horowitz (1745-1815) – known as the Hozeh(Seer) of Lublin – was one of the famed hasidic masters who has captured the imagination. Hasidic collective memory remembers the Hozeh for his miraculous ability to look at a person’s face, peering deep into the soul and perceiving that person’s innermost struggles. Hasidic lore recounts his dramatic demise after mysteriously falling out of the window on Simhat Torah 1814. He was injured in a fall from a window on Simchat Torah night, following the ritual hakafos dancing, and died almost a year later on Tisha B'av (August 15, 1815) from injuries relating to this fall. He is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery, Lublin. His great grandson was Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczna. During his stay in Lublin, Horowitz was opposed by a prominent mitnaged rabbi, Azriel Horowitz. He established his synagogue there at Szeroka 28 in the Jewish Quarter of Lublin. Even after Horowitz's death the synagogue remained the heart and soul for the scholars of the city.
Horowitz was a descendant of Isaiah Horowitz, a prominent rabbi and mystic, and his maternal grandfather, Yaakov Koppel Likover, also a prominent rabbi and scholar, as well as a contemporary of the Ba'al Shem Tov.
The Hozeh’s mark has been indelible. His many disciples and their students should be credited with the emergence and flourishing of Hasidism in Poland during the nineteenth century – one of the golden periods of the movement. Chelm was originally said to be a Polish town. Jews lived there since the 15th century; at least after the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. It was destroyed during the Cossack massacres of 1648 but later was re-founded. The community numbered 7,615 before World War II.
Even today, the Hasidic group with the greatest political clout in Israel, Gur, traces its spiritual origins back to the Hozeh.
My Jewish Encyclopedia lists a Jacob Isaac as the Rabbi of Lublin who also died in 1815 and was a Hasidic rabbi (same person as Yaakov). He was originally from Galicia and then moved to Lublin in about 1800".
It happens that some Germans were moved to Lublin, Russia's town of Chelm, center of Jewish folklore containing the fools. Many Jews happened to also live here. At the beginning of September 1939, Chełm was occupied by Nazi Germany, but on 25 September, the Germans withdrew in advance of Soviet forces. The Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement stipulated that Chełm should be under German control, and on 9 October the city was ceded back to Nazi Germany. During their brief period in Chełm, the Soviet authorities established a civil government under a Jewish major, who was a Soviet sympathizer. Fearing reprisals from the Polish residents in Chełm, hundreds of Jews fled together with the retreating Red Army. Immediately following the German occupation, the Jews who remained in Chełm were attacked and brutalized, in part because of their central role during the Communist occupation. Some escaped to Russia in 1939 when Germany entered Poland. The remainder, Jews, were killed by the Nazis.
"Jacob's saintliness was legendary and the Hasidim believed him to be possessed of the Holy Spirit, calling him Ha-Hozeh("The Seer"). Jacob wrote works on the Bible and emphasized the importance of the tzaddik".
The naive inhabitants of Chelm figure in many anecdotes of Jewish folk-humor. Because Jews have lived among so many and varied peoples with diverse culture, their humor has had a rich and versatile foundation and has enjoyed and continual stream of influences.
Reference:
Book: The Enneagram and Kabbalah; Reading Your Soul by Rabbi Howard A. Addison; p.vii
Tisha B'Av when the 1st Temple of Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
Israel Prepares for Expected Attacks by Iran and Hezbollah
Israel advised people to stock up on food and water 2 days ago in fortified safe rooms, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told soldiers that Israel is “prepared for defense, as well as offense.”
On April 4th and 17th, Iran has threatened Israel with a War of Annihilation on Tisha B'Av which happens to fall this month of August between the 12th and 13th. It's our traditional date of "'The ninth of Av') which is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both of Solomon's Temples; in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar; (After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jews of the Kingdom of Judea went into exile. According to the Bible, the Temple was plundered by KingNebuchadnezzar IIof theNeo-Babylonian Empirewhen the Babyloniansattacked Jerusalemduring the brief reign ofJehoiachinc. 598 BCE (2 Kings 24:13).
A decade later, Nebuchadnezzar again besieged Jerusalem and after 30 months finally breached the city walls in 587/6 BCE. The city finally fell to his army in July 586/5 BCE. A month later, Nebuzaradan, commander of Nebuchadnezzar's guard, was sent to burn and demolish the city. According to the Bible, "he set fire to the Temple of Yahweh, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem" (2 Kings 25:9). Everything worth plundering was then removed and taken to Babylon (2 Kings 25:13–17).
Arch of Titus in Rome picturing Jewish slaves out of Jerusalem after fire
The 2nd Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire during the First Jewish-Roman War. in 70 CE.) These are well documented events in history.
DUBAI, April 23 (Reuters) - An Israeli attack on Iranian territory could result in there being nothing left of the "Zionist regime", Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the official IRNA news agency.
Other calamities
Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.
The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).
Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.
On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.
On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.
The AMIA bombing on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on 18 July 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).
The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, according to some Religious Zionist rabbis like Yaakov Ariel and Dov Lior. Kinnot have been composed about the withdrawal, and the connection to Tisha b'Av was emphasized in 10-year anniversary commemorations.The disengagement's timing lent itself to symbolic interpretation both by Religious Zionists and by wider Jewish culture. However, even within Religious Zionism, Chaim Navon holds that the disengagement did not rise to the level of a calamity and Shlomo Aviner has written that mourning the disengagement on Tisha b'Av is forbidden because it incites political division. Yona Metzger, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled in 2006 that the disengagement was a tragedy but mourning rituals should not be integrated into Tisha b'Av, while Howard Jachter permits it in narrow fashion.
While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, most religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.
On Friday, explosions were heard over the Iranian city of Isfahan in what sources said wasan Israeli attackbut Tehran played down the incident and said it had no plans for retaliation.
April 13: Iran fires 300 missiles and drones; most intercepted; minor damage at IDF base. Unprecedented assault triggered sirens nationwide, booms of interceptions * Bedouin child hurt by shrapnel * IAF, US, UK, Jordan intercepted projectiles.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel on April 13 in what it said wasretaliationfor Israel's suspected deadly strike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1, but almost all were shot down.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will honorably continue to support the Palestinian resistance," Raisi added in the speech in Lahore. They have been doing it through their tentacles of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. They have since learned of the date of Jewish calamities and are threatening reprisal on this date.
Resource:
The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) , specifically within the Book of Kings, includes a detailed narrative about the construction's ordering by Solomon, the 3rd ruler of the United Kingdom of Israel after Kings Saul and David. It further credits Solomon as the placer of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, a windowless inner sanctum within the structure.
Satan is found in the Bible. What we Jews think about him is different from the Christian viewpoint or the Islamic viewpoint.
Satan occupies a prominent place in Christianity, which generally regards him as a rebellious angel and the source of evil who will meet his ultimate demise in battle at the End of Days, which Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe we are now immersed in.
Balaam and the Angel (1836) by Gustav Jäger. The angel in this incident is referred to as a "satan".The Bible contains multiple references to Satan. The word appears just twice in the , both times in the story of Balaam, the seer who is asked by the Moabite king Balak to curse the Jews. When Balaam goes with Balak’s emissaries, God places an angel in his path “l’satan lo” — as an adversary for him.
Jewish sources, commencing with Moses (born c 1391 BCE) on the whole don’t dwell as much on the satanic, but the concept is nonetheless explored in numerous texts. In Hebrew, the term Satan is usually translated as “opponent” or “adversary,” and he is often understood to represent the sinful impulse (in Hebrew,yetzer hara) or, more generally, the forces that prevents human beings from submitting to divine will. In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel29:4 (possibly written by King David or a friend) , it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity.
He is also sometimes regarded as a heavenly prosecutor or accuser, a view given expression in theBook of Job, where Satan encourages God to test his servant. Job is the 3rd book in the hagiographic section of the Bible (the writing of the lives of saints. biography thatidealizesits subject. "a hagiography which is designed to serve a political agenda."
The Talmud (books of discussion of Jewish law) explains that Job was never a real person but was simply a parable; a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.Satan makes many appearances in the Talmud. A lengthy passage in the tractate Sanhedrin accords Satan a central role in the biblical story of the binding of Isaac. According to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, it was Satan that caused the Jewish people to despair of Moses returning from Mount Sinai by showing them an image of the prophet on his deathbed. A passage in the tractate Megillah says that Satan dancing at the party of the Persian King Ahasuerus is what led to the killing of Queen Vashti in the Purim story.
It tries to answer the problem of the suffering of a good or righteous people. Job is an example of a good person. He is a native of Uz who Satan tries to tempt to do bad things. His friends think that his suffering is the result of his wickedness, but Job says that he has not done anything bad. G-d finally steps in from a whirlwind explaining the Divine cosmic order of things and the pettiness of human understanding. The author of Job is unknown, possibly thought to be by some Edomite who wrote it between Mosaic and early 2nd Temple times. The book was not then read but recited by the high priest of the Temple on the eve of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.
Only twice in the Hebrew Bible does Satan appear as a specific figure, as HaSatan — the Satan. One is the Book of Job and the other is a brief reference in the Book of Zecharia, where the high priest is described as standing before a divine angel while Satan stands at his right to accuse him.
Satan has a central role in the story as an angel in the divine court. According to the biblical narrative, Satan — here too commonly translated as the Adversary — seems to urge God to create hardship for his righteous servant Job, arguing that Job is faithful only on account of his wealth and good fortune. Take those away, Satan claims, and Job will blaspheme. God permits Satan to take away Job’s wealth, kill his family and afflict him physically, none of which induces Job to rebel against God.
Sephardi Jews also read the book on the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av) found on the Jewish calendar.'The ninth of Av') is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both of Solomon's Temples; in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar; (After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jews of the Kingdom of Judea went into exile. The 2nd Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire during the First Jewish-Roman War. in 70 CE.)
The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 9 Ab 135 CE.[9]
Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.[10]
Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.
The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).[10]
Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.[9]
On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.[13]
On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.[13]
The AMIA bombing on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on 18 July 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).[14]
The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, according to some Religious Zionist rabbis like Yaakov Ariel and Dov Lior.[15][16]Kinnot have been composed about the withdrawal,[17][18] and the connection to Tisha b'Av was emphasized in 10-year anniversary commemorations.[19][20] The disengagement's timing lent itself to symbolic interpretation both by Religious Zionists and by wider Jewish culture.[21] However, even within Religious Zionism, Chaim Navon holds that the disengagement did not rise to the level of a calamity[22] and Shlomo Aviner has written that mourning the disengagement on Tisha b'Av is forbidden because it incites political division. Yona Metzger, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled in 2006 that the disengagement was a tragedy but mourning rituals should not be integrated into Tisha b'Av, while Howard Jachter permits it in narrow fashion.
While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, most religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.
The year of 5784 (2024) has Tisha B'Av on August 13.We are under a high alert
with Iran's Ayatollah giving the order to attack Israel and all Jews. Nine days from
now, what calamity might happen if any? Western intelligence sources told Sky News Arabia that they had evidence Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which begins on August 12 and ends on August 13, the site reported on Friday. Iran’s attack will reportedly be coordinated with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group embedded in Lebanon.
Satan is explored in detail in Jewish mysticism, orKabbalah.
According to Kabbalah, God is Ein Sof, or "without end," and is never depicted in human form or as having a gender. Instead, Kabbalah defines God by describing what God is not.
Kabbalistic sources expand the view of Satan considerably, offering a rich and detailed portrayal of the demonic realm and the forces of evil in the world, which are to be warded off in some cases with various forms of magic, from amulets to exorcisms. Among the most prominent forms of Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, which emerged in the 12th century and has since become a central component of Jewish mystical thought. Other notable early forms include prophetic and apocalyptic mysticism, which are evident in biblical and post-biblical texts.
The Jewish mystical tradition has much to say about Satan. Indeed, kabbalistic texts offer a rich description not merely of Satan, but of an entire realm of evil populated by demons and spirits that exists in parallel to the realm of the holy. Satan is known in Kabbalah as Sama’el (rendered in some sources as the Great Demon), and the demonic realm generally as the Sitra Achra — literally “the other side.” The consort of Sama’el (who is mentioned in pre-kabbalistic Jewish literature as well) is Lilith, a mythic figure in Jewish tradition more commonly known as the rebellious first wife of Adam.
The kabbalistic sources portray the demonic as a separate and oppositional realm in conflict with God. Kabbalah even offers explanations of the origins of the demonic realm, the most common of which is that this realm emerges when the attribute of God associated with femininity and judgment, is dissociated from the attribute of God associated with grace and masculinity, and becomes unconstrained. Evil, in this reading, results from an excess of judgment.
Many of these ideas would later find expression in Jewish folk beliefs and in the works of the Hasidic masters. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Poloniye, one of the chief disciples of Hasidism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov, wrote in his Toldos Yaakov Yosef that God would eventually slaughter the angel of death during the messianic age — a belief that clearly echoes the Christian view of a final showdown between God and Satan at the End of Days. Hasidic folk tales are replete with descriptions of demonic forces, among them a famous story in which the Baal Shem Tov defends a group of children from a werewolf.
Even today some Hasidic Jews will seek out protections from such forces in the form of amulets or incantations. Some Jewish communities, particularly in the world, also prize amulets as protection from evil spirits and maintain a number of customs and rituals aimed at keeping those spirits at bay. Jewish sources dating back to biblical times including formulas for exorcisms to free the possessed of an evil spirit, known as a dybbuk.
The term appears in multiple other instances in the Prophets, often in a similar context — referring not to a specific figure as the Satan, but rather as a descriptor for individuals who act as a satan, i.e. as adversaries.
In Islam, Satan is called Iblis, and is also known as ʿAduw Allāh ("Enemy of God"), al-Aduw ("Enemy"), or al-Shayṭān ("Demon"). Iblis is the leader of the devils, or shayāṭīn, and is often compared to the Christian Satan.
Some of these Christian ideas are echoed in Jewish tradition, but some also point to fundamental differences — most notably perhaps the idea that, in the Hebrew Bible at least, Satan is ultimately subordinate to God,carrying out his purpose on earth. Or that he isn’t real at all, but is merely a metaphor for sinful impulses.
The kabbalistic and Hasidic literature complicate this view, offering a closer parallel to Christian eschatology. Both the kabbalistic/Hasidic and Christian traditions describe the forces of the holy and the demonic as locked in a struggle that will culminate in God’s eventual victory. According to some scholars, this is born of the considerable cross-pollination between Christian and Jewish thinking in the so-called “golden age” of Jewish culture in Spain during the Middle Ages, from whence many of the early kabbalistic texts, including the Zohar, emerged.
I'll conclude with Maimonides's thoughts. The word Satan, Maimonides writes, derives from the Hebrew root for “turn away.” Like the evil inclination, Satan’s function is to divert human beings from the path of truth and righteousness.Maimonides seems not to believe Satan actually exists, but rather that he is a symbol of the inclination to sin. The entire Book of Job, he writes, is fictional, intended merely to elucidate certain truths about divine providence. And even if it is true, Maimonides continues, certainly the portion in which God and Satan speak with each other is merely a parable. Maimon Ben Joseph (1110-1165) dayyan in Cordova, Spain, which he left in 1148 with his family because of persecution and went to Fez, upholding the faith of Jews who had been forced to convert to Islam; eventually settled in Egypt.
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