Why Do We Mourn?

In these waning end days, the nine days leading up to Tisha B'Av, and in fact, on Tisha B'Av, we don't say hello to each other.

That's one of the things about the nature of the day, this ultimate fast day, this ultimate day of mourning for the Holy Temple, a that falls this year on Thursday, July 23rd, restarting really the evening before.

We don't greet each other.

We don't exchange greetings because that's one of the aspects of traditional mourning.

And then on this day, we all become like literal mourners for, God forbid, for a family member.

And the prohibitions that have been in effect and the customs that are in effect of mourning take on a new level.

on that day, the climax, which is in addition to prohibition against eating and drinking, we also don't wear leather shoes.

We don't have marital relations.

We don't wash.

We don't wash for pleasure, that is.

We don't shower or bathe, and we don't anoint.

These are all classic, typical, guidelines for a person that's in mourning and the focus of all of it is not so much that a person is supposed to be suffering, but that a person is not supposed to divert their mind at all from the actual subject matter, from the mourning.

So it's a day which is completely given over in every way to focusing on the loss of the Holy Temple.

One is not supposed to engage in business.

And the first part of the day, when it's not supposed to sit in a regular chair, when it sits in a low chair, those people that are familiar with the Jewish rite, R-I-T-E, of mourning, of sitting shiva, the seven days of mourning for, again, we say, God forbid, for a close relative, know that we sit low to the ground.

We all become as mourners.

And this time, it's for the loss of the Holy Temple.

So this brings us to this huge... really of trying to understand what is it that we're mourning for? And how do we express that? And how is it really, how has it ever, It's a very, very intense time of year and it's hot in this hemisphere.

I was talking to a very dear friend in Brazil yesterday and it's winter there.

But Tisha B'Av traditionally in the eyes of our sages is hot because they're from this part of the world.

This is where the temple is.

It's very hot.

It's a long fast because it begins like Yom Kippur.

It's the only other fast that begins the night before.

And it's complex, the emotions.