Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av: a Day of Infamy for the Jews

The Destruction of Jerusalem and G-d’s Holy Temple 

The Jewish day of Mourning on the 9^th of Av, 2012, occurred on the Jewish Seventh-day Shabbat, so the Day of Fasting Mourning on the 9^th of Av occurred on Sunday, 10^th of Av, August 28, 2012, thus completing the 3-weeks of Mourning of the Days of Infamy to the Jewish people.

 

 

The Fast Day of Tisha B’Av on the 9^th of Av

According to the Jewish Mishnah, within the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral tradition called the “Oral Torah” that was created by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi in the 2^nd century, there were five tragedies that occurred to the Children of Israel and later the Jews that were called the “Tragedies of the 9^th of Av”. 

These included: 

1. The day the Israelites refused to enter the Land of Promise in rebellion against G-d;
2. The destruction of the 1^st Temple of Solomon by the Babylonians;
3. The destruction of the 2^nd Temple of Zerubabbel later called the rebuilt Temple of Herod by the Romans;
4. The capture of the Fortress of Betar under the messianic revival of the Davidian pre, Simon bar Kokhba; 
5. The destroyed Temple site was desecrated by Hadrian by placing a statute to the pagan god Jupiter (reincarnated Babylonian god Marduk) and rebuilding the city of Jerusalem as the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina and permanently exiling the Jewish people from living in the city. 

Yet, this is not a “day of mourning” but rather a season of three weeks of mourning that started two weeks earlier on the 17^th of Tammuz when Moses threw down broke the Two Tablets called the “The Ten Commands” when as he was descending down from the mount called Sinai, he saw the Golden Calf that the Children of Israel had created during his absence with HaShem, the G-d of Israel. These sacred tablets, written by the finger of the Almighty One of Israel, were later written again and both were stored with the Ark of the Covenant in the Mishkhan, the Wilderness Tabernacle.

This is also a first of four fast days mentioned by the Prophet Zechariah whose purpose was to awaken the Hebrew sense of loss over the destroyed Temple and in preparation for the rebuilding of the New Temple of Ezekiel. By Hebrews, it is also meant that at the end of days, Master of Legions will reawakened spirit of consciousness of the nations of the  world and at that time the rebellious spirit of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel will also be resurrected. With a spirit of mass repentance they will join in fellowship with their brothers, the Jews of the House of Israel, so that the fulfillment of the ancient prophesies of prophets of Judah and Israel will be fulfilled. These prophesies include Ezekiel 36 (Redemption of the ancient House of Israel in spite of their 2½ millennium rebellion against the Holy Name of G-d), Ezekiel 37 (Resurrection of both the “Lost Bones” of the House of Judah and then the House of Israel with the Restoration of the “Two Tablets” representing Klal Yisra’el (Whole House of Israel). This prophesies will be fulfilled before the final calamities break out upon Planet Earth in Ezekiel 38 and the final GogUMogog War is completed.

The Fast Day on the 17^th of Tammuz

With the fast of the 17^th of Tammuz, five great Catastrophes occurred in Hebrew-Jewish history on the 17^th of Tammuz: 

• Moses broke the tablets at Mount Sinai in response to the sin of the Golden Calf; 
• The daily offerings in the First Temple were suspended during the siege of Jerusalem, after the Cohanim could no longer obtain animals for the daily sacrifice; 
• The Northern walls of Jerusalem were first breached on this day, prior to the final destruction of the Temple of Herod in 68 CE. 
• On this day, just prior to the Great Revolt, the Roman general Apostamos burned a Torah Scroll that thereby set the precedent over the next 2000 years of the horrifying destruction of burning Jewish holy books just prior to desecrations and pogroms of Jewish people, property and synagogues. 
• An idolatrous image to Jupiter was placed in the sanctuary of the Holy Temple by the Jewish emperor, Hadrian as a brazen act of blasphemy and desecration to Jerusalem and the G-d of Judaism. 

During this season of mourning, the Jewish people for the last 2000 years have searched their own hearts and souls of sin, repented of these acts of desecration of a “pure heart” and renewed their dedication to follow ways of HaShem instead of their own. Two of the greats tragedies that occur on the personal level of the Jewish neshama (soul) are disobedience to the Torah and “Lashan Hara” that is speaking evil of other people in gossip with the intent to ruin or diminish their personality or stature in the religious community. As such this is a season to humble our hearts before the G-d of Israel.

At the time of the end, it was promised by the G-d of Israel through his prophets that this season of mourning will once again be turned again into a season of feasts for joy when the G-d of Israel prepares to return to live with His people. 

Zechariah 8:18-23 (parts) – “The word of HaShem, Master of Legions, came to me, saying: Thus said HaShem, Master of Legions: The fast of the fourth [month], the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth (9^th day of the 10^th month of Av) will be to the House of Judah for joy and for gladness and for happy festivals. [Only] love truth and peace!

Thus said HaShem, Master of Legions: It will yet be that peoples will come; as well as inhabitants of many cities. The dwellers of one [city] will go to [those of] the other, saying, ‘Let us go and supplicate before HaShem and seek out HaShem, Master of Legions!’ {They will answer} ‘I, too, will go! Many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek out HaShem Master of Legions, in Jerusalem, and to supplicate before HaShem.

Thus said HaShem Master of Legions: In those days it will happen that ten men, of all the [different] languages of the nations will take hold, they will take hold of the corner of the garment (tzitzit) of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that G-d is with you!”

This is a season mourning for the Jewish inhabitants in Jerusalem and Israel at the “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem and all around the world in their synagogues, who yearn for the rebuilding of the renewed Temple of G-d in Jerusalem. Was it not promised at the end of days, during the guela (‘days of redemption’) that the restoration of Klal Yisra’el (All Israel); the Jews of the House of Israel and the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel will be restored, and then all Nations of the world ‘that are left’ will come to worship at the House of G-d in Jerusalem.  

The Wailing Wall at Tisha B’Av

So now, for 2,000 years, the Jewish people with hope in their hearts have prayed for their restoration by the G-d of Israel with the hope and they will be restored back in favor as His people and He as their G-d. Yet, before we look at that day, let us review in greater detail the great events of infamy that have occurred on the 9^th of Av to the Jewish people. It began this day to the Nation of Judah in Jerusalem:

2 Kings 25:8 - “It was on the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem that is all the houses of the great, he burned with fire.” 

Hebrew-Jewish Events that occurred on the 9^th of Av

The 9th of Av, Tisha b'Av, commemorates a list of catastrophes so severe it's clearly a day specially cursed by G‑d. 

• The year is 1313 BCE and the Children of Israel are poised to enter the Promised Land; the miracle of the Exodus plus the Passage through the Red Sea were now their memories, and the Promised Land was their future. A commando forces was sent to scout out the land, and they returned on the 8^th of Av and reported, “we cannot conquer the land!” The Israelites rebelled and on the 9^th of Av, the G-d of Israel sent them back to the wilderness for another thirty eight years;
• On the 9^th Av, 423 BCE, the First Temple of Solomon was first set fire and destroyed by the Babylonians;
• On the 9^th Av, 69 CE, the Second Temple of Herod was first set fire and destroyed by the Romans;
• On the 9^th Av, 133 CE, the Jewish Messiah Simon bar Kochba were cruelly crushed by the Roman forces at the Battle of Betar;
• On the 9^th Av, 134 CE, the Holy Site of the Temple on the Temple Mount was plowed over by the Roman soldiers and  the construction of the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina by the Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed the last hopes of the Jews as they were barred from residing in the city;
• On the 9^th of Av, July 20, 1095 CE, the First Roman Christian Crusade was declared by Pope Urban II and 10,000 Jews were killed the first month. Over the next few months, thousands of Jews were massacred and Jewish communities were obliterated in Rhineland and France.

While the Roman Christian Crusades were being conducted in the Middle East and the Jews were slaughtered alongside the Islamic Arabs, one hundred years later, the French kings became involved in massive anti-Semitic activity as they came progressively under the rule of the Roman Catholic pontiffs. Before Pope Urban II made the declaration of the First Roman Christian Crusade, in April, 1182, King Philip Augustus ordered all of the Jews to leave the royal domain (in this case, the area around Paris). The Jews were permitted to sell their movable goods, but their real estate went to the crown, and synagogues became the property of the Church. Most Jews moved elsewhere in northern France. (The northern French Jewish communities were under the control of regional authorities.) In 1198 the Jews were permitted to return, but an additional tax was imposed on their activities.

It was the famous French ruler, King Louis IX (“Lieutenant of God on Earth”), known as “St. Louis”, who was invested as “Rex Christianissimus” (“most Christian king”), when he was crowned in Rheims and thereby obligated to the Roman Catholic Church to lead a Roman Christian Crusade to the Middle East. Yet to lead these crusades to the Holy Land and to finance his 7^th (1248-1254) and 8^th (1270) Crusades, he exiled all Jews who were in the banking industry lending money for loans (usury) and confiscated their property to use in conducting his crusades against the Islamic Infidels in Israel. He was also used by Pope Gregory IX in 1243 to burn over 12,000 manuscript copied of the Jewish Talmud and other Jewish literature and later began the Roman Christian Inquisitions against the Cathars, the Huguenots, and the Waldensians were are now recognized by scholars as the descendants of the Germanic Lost Israelite Tribes called the Visigoths, G-d’s emissaries of judgment upon Rome when the walls of Rome were toppled in 410 CE and later the Vandals, who again as Lost Israelites toppled Rome in 1455 CE and left their legacy upon the Cathars, Huguenots, and Waldensians who then left their legacy upon modern Protestant Christianity and the Puritan and Pilgrims who first colonized the United States of America.  

Later in 1289, the Jews were expelled from regions of France in Anjou, Maine, Gascony, and Nevers by King Philip of France; and later in 1321 when following the “Leper Scare”, King Charles IV fined numerous Jews for poisoning wells across France by using local lepers. Most of these Jews had moved back to Paris, where, even though they were subjected to restrictions, they were welcomed by the king. 

• On the 9^th Av, 1290 CE, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England by King Edward 1^st for he needed a source of income for the England's Jews were the king’s personal property and exploited for taxation until they were no long useful to the crown except as political bargaining. The business of many Jews was usury, forbidden by Christians, and was used by the Crown’s advantage to that the Jews would get receive the popular resentment of Englishmen who had become indebted yet the English rulers reaped the rewards.  In 1275, King Edward I issued the Statute of the Jewry. The act of borrowing and selling money for interest was outlawed and 300 heads of Jewish households were arrested and executed. In 1280, Dominican Friars tried to force conversion upon the Jews, and when that failed, with the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, King Edward I formally expelled all Jews from England.
• On the 9^th Av, 1306 CE, the Jews were expelled by the King Philip IV the Fair of France. He ordered his expulsion in 1306 CE after watching how King Edward I expelled the Jews in 1290 CE. After arresting all of the Jews on the 9^th of Av, he confiscated their estates and most of the Jews in France fled to Flanders (Netherlands), to the east in Provence or to the southwest in the Iberian Peninsula. It is interesting that in the year of 1309, Pope Clement V left or was exiled from Rome and he relocated the papacy to the French city of Avignon, beginning the era known as the “Papacy in Exile”, the Avignon Papacy or more critically or disparagingly was called the Roman "Babylonian captivity"

Nine years after King Philip IV the Fair expulsed the Jewish merchants from France, in the year of 1315, King Louis X readmitted the Jews to France with an offer of 12 years of guaranteed residence and freedom from the French government interference because of the “clamour of the people”. Their return was subject to certain conditions: the Jews had to purchase their readmission; they were not allowed to lend money yet now could conduct a new type of business that would be permitted as a pawnbroker. At this time they were forced to wear badges identifying them as Jews, not much unlike Adolf Hitler ordered the infamous yellow badges to the Jewish people before he signed the orders for the “Final Solution” for the Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe.

Yet by the year of 1321, King Charles IV was unhappy with the revenue he received from the Jewish communities, and they were expelled once again. Over the next 73 years, the Jews slowly moved back to southern France and re-established their businesses, until they were expelled for good by Charles VI in 1394. 

• On the 9^th of Av, 1492 CE, the Jews were expelled from Spain when the Golden Age of Spain closed by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand and the Jews were banished from the land. The Inquisition in Spain and Portugal resulted in the complete expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula as families were separated, many died by drowning and massive loss of property. The Jewish Kabbalist Christopher Columbus and his crew took their three ships away from the coastline of Spain on the Sabbath of the 9^th of Av, 1492. The next day, “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492” with his Jewish crew and discovered the Americas;
• On the 9^th Av, 1648 CE, Chmelnicky massacred tens of thousands of Polish Jews;
• On the 9^th Av, 1914 CE, traditional history claims that Britain and Russia declared war on Germany and World War I began. The unresolved issues from World War I caused World War II and the Jewish Holocaust. World War II and the Holocaust, historians conclude that the long drawn-out conclusion of World War I that began in 1914 created the nucleus for War War II. And yes, amazingly enough, Germany declared war on Russia, effectively catapulting the First World War into motion, on the 9th of Av, Tisha b'Av. At that time, 5% of all Jews in the world lived in the war zones. Jewish soldiers were a part of the armies on both sides. Over 120,000 Jewish casualties occurred in the armies, and 6,000,000 Jews died during World War II. Afterwards, over 400 pogroms immediately were started against the Jews in Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, and Russia;
• On the 9^th of Av, 1941 CE, Adolf Hitler signed the papers for the “Final Solution” of the Jews;
• On the 9^th of Av, 1942 CE, Heinrich Himmler, the director of the German Gestapo began implementation of the “Final Solution” as the first deportation of the Jews started from the Warsaw Ghetto with the extermination of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto and the arrival of the first transport of Jewish to the Treblinka concentration camp;
• On the 9^th of Av, 1989 CE The Iraqi walked out of the talks with Kuwait, invaded Kuwait, set fires to her oil wells, and precipitated the Gulf War led by President George Walker Bush and the American Coalition in 1992;
• On the 9^th of Av, 1994 CE, the deadly bombing of the AMIA, the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina occurred with killed 86 people and wounded 300 others occurred;
• On that same day, the 9^th of Av, 1994 CE, the twenty-one pieces of Shoemaker-Levi Comet began bombarding the Planet Jupiter;

2005 Gaza Disengagement: Expulsion Jews from Gaza 

• On the eve of the 9^th of Av, 2005 CE, the State of Israel under the rule of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon enacted its most infamous acts of evil against the Orthodox Jews, called the “Sheep of Israel”, living in Gaza. The entire community of about 10,000 Jews plus their entire homes, synagogues and world renowned flower and vegetable nurseries were razed and destroyed either by the Israeli military or later the Palestinian people. Since that day, thousands of rockets have fallen upon the Jewish cities in Israel while PM Ariel Sharon still lives as one in the state of the “living dead”.
• On the 17^th of Tammuz, July 13, 2006, the same day that the Babylonian and the Roman military breeched the “Northern Gates of Jerusalem”, the Hezbollah mercenary forces of Shi’ite Iran in Lebanon breeched the “Northern Gates (Border) of Israel” with a commando forces and captured two Israeli soldiers. This capture precipitated the Israeli-Lebanon War.
• On the 9^th of Av, 2006 CE, the Vatican sponsored “Rome Peace Conference” put the finishing touches on the Vatican mediated “Rome Peace Accord” that effectively halted Israel’s defensive thrust into Lebanon to wipe out the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and then halt the Lebanese-Israeli-Hezbollah War that was precipitated by a Hezbollah commando force that abducted two Israeli soldiers. The war ceased and the international forces of NATO were successfully implanted into Lebanon along the “Northern Gates (border) of Israel;

“Arab Commando Group Seizes Members of the Israeli Olympic Team at their Quarters at the Munich Olympic Village." This is an iconic image showing one of the hostage takers during the event known as the Munich Massacre, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. 

• On the 9^th of Av, 2012 CE, the 2012 Olympics were inaugurated in London, England. This date marked the 40^th anniversary of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany when on September 5, 1972, eight paramilitary terrorist of the Palestinian military organization called Black September infiltrated the Munich Olympic village and killed 11 members of the Israel Olympic team. On this 40 year anniversary date, the International Olympic Organization refused to honor a “moment of silence” for the Israeli Olympic Massacre in Munich and the slain Israeli Olympians who lost their lives at that event.
• Will it be on the 9^th of Av, 2016 that the international forces of GogUMogog under the leadership of Gog, the Leading Prince (President) of the Land of Magog (America) will breech the “Northern Gates of Israel” as the combined Gog-Magog/Armageddon War makes its last thrust to capture Jerusalem, and implant the forces of HaSatan in HaShem’s Solar Rex (center of the Solar System) capital on Planet Earth?

According to the historical account of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, the 1^st Temple of Solomon was burnt on the 10^th of Av.

Jeremiah 52:12-13 – “In the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylonia, Nebuzaradan, the chief executioner, [who] was in the service of the  king of Babylonia, came to Jerusalem. He burned the Temple of HaShem, the king’s palace and all the buildings of Jerusalem; and every great house he burned in fires.”

Yet, to even make the historical account more complex, according to the decisive eyes of the Talmudic sages another complexity occurred when compared to the II Kings 25:8-9:

II Kings 25:8-9 – “And in the 5th month, on the 7th of the month...Nebuzaradan, chief executioner, servant of the king of Babylonia, came to Jerusalem. And he burnt the house of G‑d and the king's palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem and all the houses of the dignitaries he burnt with fire.

And so it appears that according to the historical biblical texts the Temple was burnt on the 7^th, the 9^th, or the 10^th of the Jewish month of Av. The celebrating Babylonian soldiers desecrated the temple premised by eating, drinking while marauding the temple premises on the 7^th of Av. According to the Talmudic sages who evaluated all the ancient textual documents concluded that beginning of the destruction of Jerusalem including the temple began on the 7^th of Av.  On that day the military forces of Babylon entered the city of Jerusalem. With boisterous celebrations they entered the temple and began vandalizing it with rampant destruction and desecration.

These acts of violence continued through the 9^th day of the month of Av. At the evening of the 9^th day, they set fire to the Temple, and witnessed it burning throughout the evening and continuing into the 10^th of Av. So as history depicts, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon was entered on the 7^th, set ablaze into an inferno on the 9^th, and continued to burn through most of the 10^th day of Av. With the temple burning and its final destruction beginning on the 9^th, the Jewish mourning rituals are today observed beginning on that date until the midday of the 10^th of Av.

As we have seen, these dates of infamy, the 17^th of Tammuz and the 9^th of Av, have marked their place in human history for almost 3,400 years. Even today, the modern 2012 British Olympics refuse to give international credence to the hopes, freedoms, and rights of the Jewish Israeli contenders to be free humans on the Planet Earth, free of anti-Semitism, and free to live in the land of their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as given to them in a perpetual covenant for all generations. For this, we yearn for the revealing of the Jewish messiah who will bring an era of spiritual elevation as we learn to live in an era of freedom enlightenment.  

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To the one who has an innate curiosity to know more about the role of the Temples of King Solomon and later King Herod in the lives of the Hebrews and then later just the Jews, this may be a genetic whistle by HaShem, the G-d of Israel who is calling you back to the brotherhood of Klal Yisra’el (All Israel). To learn more about this redemptive process, you are Welcome to Contact “Kol Ha Tor”, the Voice of the Turtledove.

Here is a joint Orthodox Jewish and 10-Triber Mission to bring awareness of the imminent fulfillment of the Biblical Prophecies regarding the Redemption of all Israel (12 Tribes Re-conciled and Re-United). This super Event of all Times will entail establishing in the region of Shomron (the Ancient Bible Heartland of the Patriarchs) and the Judean Wilderness into a new homeland for the Return of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel when All Israel will finally be redeemed.

For inquiries about Kol Ha Tor Vision for the Lost Tribes of Israel, Visit – “Shomron Lives!”, a Spiritual Retreat and Guest House in Samaria, that hosts Shomron (Samaria) Tours to reacquaint the Returning Lost Tribers of the House of Israel.