Archive for the Fast Days Category

(Everyone comes in, sit on floor and light candles in dark, without explanations) In the last century, the author Mark Twain wrote in an article entitled “Concerning the Jews”, the following statement: “If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race.

I am sure that you have all seen the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Jimmy Stewart in the lead role is forced to evaluate whether his life has any meaning due to a seemingly endless onslaught of troubles. When he is helped to see his struggles in

The period of the Three Weeks determines the ‘who we are and how we live’ all the time. For when we mourn over the Bais Hamikdash, when we feel the pain of its loss and the sufferings that our ancestors went through during that period, it is

Rav Yaakov Weinberg zt”l, was the Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisraael in Baltimore, Maryland USA. The 17th of Tamuz is his yartzheit. Here is the opening of a lecture that he gave at Aish Hatorah on the subject of this fast day. The material is Copyright 1999

The 17th of Tammuz is a fast day commemorating the fall of Jerusalem, prior to the destruction of the Holy Temple. This also marks the beginning of a 3 – week period of mourning, leading to Tisha B’Av. The 17th of Tammuz is the first of the

During the First Temple period, right before its destruction (3338/423 BCE), Nubuchadnetzer began a siege of Jerusalem that would end in the devastation of the Temple and Jerusalem herself, and the exile of the remainder of the Jewish nation into Babylonia. The day that siege began was

Author: Rabbi Aharon Hoch   Yom HaAveilus (Day of Mourning)   Yom Taanis (Day of Fasting and Teshuva)   Yom Kinah (A Day of Learning How to Cry)   A Day of Comfort and Root of our Redemption 1. Equated with Shiva and Pre-burial aninus. 1. Even

Chazal say that since Churban Bayis Sheini we should really be in a permanent state of mourning.  However, we could not permanently live that way so for most of the year we conduct our lives as if everything is normal and how it should be.  For three weeks of

As we approach Tishah b’Av, we strive to find ways of improving ourselves, so we can ensure that this will be the last year without the Beis HaMikdash. The famous gemara in Gittin about Kamtza and Bar Kamtza teaches us a great deal about the cause of the destruction of the

by Rabbi Yosef Eisen *    *    * In the middle of the twelfth century, fanatical Almohad Muslims overran Southern Spain, causing a massive Jewish exodus to the Christian North. At first, the Christians proved to be as tolerant to Jews as were the Muslim rulers of the

I. Introduction: One of the 613 mitzvos is to blow the trumpets when dangers are approaching the people. Why blow? Get the attention of the people to do teshuva and get themselves out of their mess. Rambam says that someone who doesn’t pay attention to these “divine

Tisha B’Av – which falls this year on July 24 – always brings back the personal memory of a conversation between two teen-aged cousins more than thirty years ago. It took place on the outskirts of a non-religious kibbutz in the Galilee, on a hill overlooking a

We may not notice it as much as previous generations did due to the relative good relations with the non-Jewish world (though recent events have shaken us), but we are in exile and have been for almost 2000 years. The prolonged exile has devastated normal Jewish life

If you have ever visited Jerusalem, you have undoubtedly visited the Western Wall. And, if you are like the hundreds of thousands who are drawn there year after year, you have probably wondered just what is this Wall? Why is it so special? And why has it

There are five days which Chazal enacted as fast days. These fasts are:The Fast of Gedaliah — Tzom Gedaliah (the day after Rosh HaShana)The Ninth of Av — Tisha B’AvThe Fast of Esther — Taanis Esther (the day before Purim)The Seventeenth of Tamuz – Shiva Asar B’TamuzThe