Israel Hayom..
First posted 01 August '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19587
Today is Tisha B'Av. We remember the destruction of our country and our Temples, or the reasons for that. Today is Tisha B'Av, and all the troubles visited upon us as a nation and as individuals are buried under and bound up with the pain of this day.
The Prophet Jeremiah, who foretold the destruction of the Temple in the sixth century BCE, put this at the very top of the lamentations that are read out each year: "Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress" (Lamentations 1:3).
Remembering this day is what enabled us to arise from the ashes and return to our land after being on the margins of history for centuries. Here we are, in our independent country, 1,947 years after the Second Temple was destroyed, and the memory is still alive and well, infusing us with motivation, inspiration and strength. Thanks to the power of memory, we were wise enough to keep our assimilation a matter of appearance only, because we were expecting to wake from this long nightmare at any moment and restore ourselves to what we used to be. Thanks to the power of memory, Rabbi Moshe Ben Nahman (the Ramban) arrived in Jerusalem in the year 1267 to re-establish the city's Jewish population, and the memory of Jerusalem gave the Jews expelled from Spain the courage and comfort to keep going in the countries where they scattered.
Today is Tisha B'Av, and if it weren't for this day, we would not have survived as a people. We would not know our traditions or our history, and we would not have brought the world the great spiritual treasures we created in the Diaspora. If it weren't for Tisha B'Av and the memory of grieving for Zion, Zionism would never have been born, and a sovereign Israel would have remained confined to the pages of history, never again to become a living entity.
