On the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, 586 years before the common era, Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.

This was Solomon's temple, what in Jewish history came to be remembered as the

first temple. That's because later another one, the second temple, then stood in Jerusalem for centuries,

before it too was destroyed, this time by the Romans, also on the Tisha Beav, the 9th of Av,

in the year 70 of the Common Era.

From that day to this day, Tishabé Ab have served as a day of commemorating Jewish tragedy.

It's a day on which we remember the Jewish martyrs killed in the Crusades.

It's a day on which we remember the Jewish martyrs killed in pogroms. We recite keynote,

elegies that bring to the forefront of our consciousness, the sacrifice and suffering that together

are an inseparable part of the Jewish past. It's a day on the calendar that is soaked in Jewish

tears. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

Tishabeav will take place this year in just over two weeks' time, and this year the Jewish people

have a new tragedy to reckon with. How might the liturgy of Tishabiav be expanded to encompass

the October 7th attacks in the communities of the Western Negev?

What is the rabbinic process of individuating separate fast days to commemorate specific calamitous events,

and when instead are they subsumed under the rubric of Tishabye of?

What elegies will we sing this year, and what elegies will be sung in a hundred years, and in

500 years, that weave October 7th into the religious consciousness of the Jewish liturgy?

I'm joined in this important conversation by the Rabbi J.J. Schachter, who for decades has led

Tisha Beav's services and has reflected deeply on questions of keynote and memory,

not only as a professional academic historian, but as a communal leader and teacher.

If you like this conversation, I encourage you to probe this subject more deeply with Rabbi Shachter

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