Ever hear the old saying when someone asks about a certain Jewish holiday and their response is yeah it's a holiday because they tried to kill us they failed?

Let's see. Well Tishaba of the ninth ninth of Av inverts that formula.

That's the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, a fast day whose logic goes something like this.

They tried to kill us.

Well, they did.

Let's not eat.

This is the day we, the Jewish people, chose to bear the weight of every horrible

thing that's ever happened to us, the biblical sin of the spies, the destruction of the first

and second temples, the Alhambra decree, aka. the October the 7th. It's a 25 hour fast and as the sun descends and the stars start to

twinkle in the darkening sky we pull out the most depressing scroll in the entire Bible and read about the fall of the

first temple. If you've never read the book of Echa or Lamentations, well I can't

say I recommend it because it's truly a bummer. And yet on the other hand, there's no book that emphasizes just how important

the temples were to the Jewish people. They were the most potent simple of our sovereignty,

our power, our connection to our land, and our God, and each other.

They stood in the holiest place on Earth.

If the Jewish people view Israel as the holiest country and Jerusalem the holiest city?

Then the temple mount is its umbilicus.

Gross, I know, but an apt metaphor since it's where we are most connected to God.

But holy sites are magnetic. since it's where we are most connected to God.

But holy sites are magnetic.

The temple mount didn't just beckon Jews,

it then called to Christians, and after that, to Muslims as well.

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