At sunset this evening, Tisha B’Av (the Ninth day of Av) begins – a day of fasting and mourning to commemorate the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, as well as other tragedies of Jewish history.
It is traditional to read the Book of Lamentations in the evening, and to remember the promise of the Psalms that "In the evening, weeping and in the morning, joy" (Ps. 30:5).
Here is one more reading we might remember on this day — the address delivered to the Jewish community of Poland on Tisha b’Av in 1938 by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky (translation from page 1649 of Shmuel Katz’s monumental biography):
For three years I have been imploring you, Jews of Poland, the crown of world Jewry, appealing to you, warning you unceasingly that the catastrophe is nigh. My hair has turned white and I have grown old over these years, for my heart is bleeding, that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spew forth its fires of destruction. I see a horrible vision. Time is growing short for you to be spared. I know you cannot see it, for you are troubled and confused by everyday concerns . . . Listen to my words at this, the twelfth hour. For God’s sake: let everyone save himself, so long as there is time to do so, for time is running short.
And then Jabotinsky went on, in what Katz describes as a vision that “had the force of biblical prophecy":
And I want to say something else to you on this day, the Ninth of Av: Those who will succeed in escaping the catastrophe will live to experience a festive moment of great Jewish joy: the rebirth and establishment of the Jewish state! I do not know whether I myself will live to see it – but my son will! I am certain of this, just as I am certain that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. I believe it with all my heart.
As one commentary notes, it was Jabotinsky's “last Tisha b'Av message to his largest and most loyal constituency. In a short time both he and they would be gone.” But the Jewish people live, and the state of Israel exists.
Perhaps there is a third message of Tisha b’Av, beyond the mourning and faith in a brighter morning. That message may be that it is not enough simply to remember the past, nor to appreciate the present, but necessary as well to guard against the repetition of the tragedies commemorated on this day. With Israel under existential attack and the fires of anti-Semitism still lit, perhaps on Tisha b-Av we should also think about what we will do on the day after, to prevent the occurrence of another occasion on which to mourn.