Rav Desser (ibid.) quotes a prominent historian to the effect that the Spanish tyrant would surely have reconsidered his actions had he only known how much faith and hope he implanted in the Jews whom he banished by expelling them on Tishah B’Av, unwittingly demonstrating to them that it was none other than the hand of G-d that directed them even in their time of distress, and that in their exile He had sent them on a great and exalted mission.
The hand of G-d is not only upon us during these times; it is also with us. Our Sages say that Mashiach was born on Tishah B’Av (Yerushalmi Berachos 2:4). With the destruction are sown the seeds of redemption. Rabbi Yaakov Astor (ibid.) points out some fascinating examples from more recent history.
As mentioned, the Spanish expulsion of 1492 occurred on Tishah B’Av. The very next day, Columbus set sail from Spain on a voyage in which he would discover the New World, planting seeds that would take 400 years to sprout into the haven that America would become for Jews fleeing the cauldron of Europe before and after the Holocaust. And on that same day of infamy of Tishah B’Av 1942 that saw Treblinka’s gas chambers begin their operation, the Nazi leader gave the inexplicable order to divert his eastern armies to attack Stalingrad, a strategic blunder that initiated the decline of the Nazi war machine and that many military historians regard as the fateful turning point in the fortunes of World War II.
