1. The 9th Day of Av (the 11th Jewish month) is the most calamitous day in Jewish history, first mentioned in the book of Zechariah 7:3. It is a day of fasting (one of four fast days connected to the destruction of Jerusalem), commemorating dramatic national catastrophes, in an attempt to benefit from history by learning from – rather than repeating – critical moral and strategic missteps. Forgetfulness feeds oblivion; remembrance breeds deliverance.
2. Major Jewish calamities are commemorated on the 9th Day of Av:
*The failed “Ten Spies/tribal presidents” – contrary to Joshua & Caleb – slandered the Land of Israel, preferring immediate convenience and conventional “wisdom” over faith and long term vision, thus prolonging the wandering in the desert for 40 years, before settling the Promised Land;
*The destruction of the First Temple and Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (586 BCE) resulted in the massacre of 100,000 Jews and a massive national exile;
*The destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem by Titus of Rome (70 CE) triggered the massacre of 1 million Jews and another massive national exile, aiming to annihilate Judaism and the Jewish people;
*The execution of the Ten Martyrs – ten leading rabbis – by the Roman Empire;
*The Bar Kokhbah Revolt was crushed with the killing of Bar Kokhbah, the fall of his headquarters in Beitar (135 CE), south of Jerusalem in Judea and Samaria, the plowing of Jerusalem, and the killing of 600,000 Jews by the Roman Empire;
*The pogroms of the First Crusade (1096-1099) massacred tens of thousands of Jews in Germany, France, Italy and Britain;
*The Jewish expulsion from Britain (1290);
*The Jewish expulsion from Spain (1492);
*The eruption of the First World War (1914);
*The beginning of the 1942 deportation of Warsaw Ghetto Jews to Treblinka extermination camp.
3. Napoleon was walking one night in the streets of Paris, hearing lamentations emanating from a synagogue. When told that the wailing commemorated the 586 BCE destruction of the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem he stated: “People who solemnize ancient history are destined for a glorious future!”