Tishah B’Av: Endless Sorrow, Eternal Hope

The Rav on Kinot

The excerpt below from Kinah 10 in The Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinot (OU Press, 2010) expresses Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s inspiring and creative view of the fundamental nature of Tishah B’Av as a day not just of mourning, but of hope as well. And, characteristic of the Rav, he demonstrates how the specifics of halachah support his philosophical view.

“Ki chelayah chuyavti kedor hamabul—For we deserved extinction no less than the generation of the Flood.” This passage sounds the recurring theme found in the kinot that the Beit HaMikdash served as a substitute, as collateral, for the Jewish people, and the physical structure of the Beit HaMikdash suffered the destruction that rightfully should have been visited upon the entire nation. The kina says that the Jewish people are responsible and are deserving of punishment; we are guilty, and we should have been destroyed as was the generation of the Flood. G-d, however, in His mercy and grace, subjected His throne, the Beit HaMikdash, rather than the Jewish people, to disgrace, abuse and destruction. It is for this reason that Tisha B’Av contains an element of mo’ed, a festival—G-d rendered His decision on Tisha B’Av that Knesset Yisrael is an eternal people and will continue to exist. The Beit HaMikdash was humiliated, profaned and destroyed in order to save the people. 

This concept is expressed halakhically in the character of Tisha B’Av afternoon. The second half of the day has a contradictory nature in halakha. On the one hand, the avelut, the mourning, is intensified because the actual burning of the Beit HaMikdash commenced in the late afternoon of the ninth day of Av, and the flames continued throughout the tenth (Ta’anit 29a). On the other hand, Nachem, the prayer of consolation, is recited in the Amida for Mincha in the afternoon, and not in Shacharit of Tisha B’Av morning or Ma’ariv of the preceding evening (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayyim, Rama 557:1). Similarly, tefillin are put on in the afternoon, not the morning (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayyim 555:1), and sitting on chairs rather than on the ground is permitted in the afternoon, not the morning (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayyim 559:3). In Mincha, one re-inserts in Kaddish the phrase “titkabal tzelot’hon uva’ut’hon—accept our prayers and entreaties” (see Beit Yosef, Tur Orach Chayyim 559 s.v. ve’omer kaddish belo titkabal, with respect to the recitation of Titkabal in Shacharit). This phrase is removed from Kaddish earlier on Tisha B’Av because the assertion that “satam tefillati—my prayer is rejected” (Lamentations 3:8) which prevails on Tisha B’Av, comes to an end at midday. Paradoxically, the moment the Beit HaMikdash was set ablaze was a moment of relief. At that moment, it became clear that G-d decided to take the collateral, the Beit HaMikdash, instead of pursuing the real debtor, the Jewish people. Paradoxically, once He took away the Beit HaMikdash in the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, the nechama, the consolation, could begin. Tisha B’Av is a day of limitless despair and boundless hope and faith.