Meaningful Mourning: Helping Kids Connect with Tishah B’Av 

Mourning the Beit Hamikdash can feel so abstract to kids (and adults too!). First of all, what’s the Beit Hamkidash? And also, for many kids unfamiliar with grief, what does it mean to mourn? 

Here’s how you can make the day mean something in an age-appropriate way. The idea is to bring it down to their terms and their language in a way that will resonate with them, while keeping the atmosphere of the day reflective. 

Coloring Time: Young kids can spend time coloring a detailed picture of the Beit Hamikdash. (At the bottom of this article, you’ll find a Beit Hamikdash color-by-number and a Beit Hamikdash symmetry challenge.) As they color, you can explain how special, beautiful and holy the Beit Hamikdash was, and how devastated the Jewish people must have been each time it was destroyed. You can also play a quiet, acapella kumzits in the background, with songs that fit the mood of the day. 

Story Time: I always find it helpful to give kids a well-developed analogy to help them understand abstract and challenging concepts. A story I tell kids on Tishah B’Av is about a young girl who dreamed of having her own treehouse. She and her parents worked hard to buy materials and build a beautiful treehouse. Here, I like to invite kids’ participation in telling this story: What made it a special treehouse? What did it look like? What was included? Then we imagine how upset she must have been when a storm knocked it down (or, for a stronger analogy, when her parents took it apart because of her poor behavior).  

Building Time: Older kids can actually build their own Beit Hamikdash: out of Magna-Tiles, Lego, Clics, wooden blocks or whatever other building toys they have. Use reference images and text-based descriptions to help you map it out. Then, together, knock down the building. Discuss how it feels, and connect it to what our ancestors experienced long ago.  

Quiet Activities: As for what kids can do the rest of the day, consider quiet, low-key activities that will keep them engaged. Kids can create their own thematic Tishah B’Av puzzles, get busy with coloring pages, or make and then play a memory matching game. They can make a Kotel collage using magazines or put together simple sock puppets to act out the treehouse story. Writing a heartfelt letter to Hashem, asking Him to bring peace and rebuilding to our world, is another powerful activity, and it’s a way for even young children to express their hopes. 

A Message of Hope: Even on Tishah B’Av, we look to the future and hope for the rebuilding of the third and final Beit Hamikdash. End the day by asking kids for small ways they can help. A classic camp activity that I’ve done many times, and always found meaningful and hopeful, is filling out little stone cutouts with mitzvot we can do (in speech, action and even thought), and then building a “Kotel wall” from all the stones. That is, after all, how we get ready for the final Beit Hamikdash: one mitzvah at a time. 

Tishah B’Av is a long day, and for many, a hard one. But it’s also an opportunity to help kids, and ourselves, connect with our history, our nation and our hope for a better future. With a little thought and care, even young kids can begin to understand that feeling sad for what was lost is part of what makes us long for what will one day be rebuilt (soon in our days, please G-d!). 

Beit Hamikdash color-by-number:

Beit Hamikdash symmetry challenge:

Sari Kopitnikoff is an experiential educator, digital artist and content creator who is passionate about creating books, games, activities and shows that bring Judaism to life. You can find her books, games and lots of educational activities on her website, thatjewishmoment.com and on social media, @thatjewishmoment.