The Fast of Tisha Be’Av

Motzei Shabbat and Sunday, August 2 and 3

Tisha Be’av is a day of fasting and mourning for five tragedies:

1. In the year 1312 BCE, the spies returned from Israel with a bad report. The Jews believed them, as a result of which it was decreed that the entire generation perish in the desert.
2. The first Bait Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed by the Babylonians in the year 423 BCE.
3. The second Bait HaMikdash was destroyed by the Romans in the year 69.
4. Turnus Rufus, the governor of the Judean province in the first half of the second century, had the Temple Mount plowed under on that day.
5. In the year 133 the rebellion of Beitar was suppressed, resulting in the death of millions of Jews.

More recently:

• The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.
• Germany declared war on Russia in the start of World War I in 1914.

The following is a brief digest of the laws pertaining to this day: (For more information please see the Code of Jewish Law [O.C. 554 – 558].)