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The Liturgy of the 9th Av
Sr. Marie Despina

The 9th Av — Tesha b'Av — falls during the full heat of summer. It is the saddest day of the Jewish year, for on this day the Synagogue commemorates the worst catastrophes which have befallen the Jewish people in the course of their tormented history. According to tradition, it was a 9th Av when the Hebrews were condemned to continue their wanderings in the desert for forty years; on the same date occurred the destruction of the first Temple, the profanation of the second by Antiochus Epiphanes, and its final destruction in the year 70. It was on the same day in 135 that the fall of the fortress of Bethar is said to have taken place, leading to massacres and deportations worse than any previous ones. The same day further commemorates the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, the widespread massacres which accompanied the Crusades, the accusations of ritual crime and the Black Death, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and all the other pogroms and persecutions up to that of Hitler (though this last is more particularly commemorated on the "Day of Remembrance", the eve of Israel's national Independence Day). The memorial of all these disasters is kept on this day, since they are considered to be the result of the destruction of the second Temple and the deportation which followed it.

The 9th Av, therefore, is a day of religious and national mourning, observed by a special liturgy and fasting: "If someone were to eat on the 9th Av, it would be as though he ate on the day of Kippur [Atonement] itself' (a transgression involving the penalty of being outlawed: cf. Lv 23:29-32). Rabbi Akiba recalls the obligation of abstinence from all work as a sign of mourning, and other wise men say (Ta'anith 30b, from which the previous quotation is also taken): "He who eats and drinks on the 9th Av will not live to see the joy of Jerusalem, for Scripture says (Is 66:10): Rejoice, Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her... all you who mourned her...", which means that all who mourn the loss of her grandeur and one-time glory will see the restoration of her former splendor. Now, fasting has always been held in high esteem by the rabbis, as a means of penance and as a sign of mourning: "Rabbi Eliezer says: Fasting is greater that alms-giving, since it affects the body while the latter affects only the purse" (Berakhot 32b).

The fast of the 9th Av is preceded by three weeks of mourning, starting on the 17th Tammuz, the day sacrifices ceased in the besieged Temple. All rejoicing is forbidden, and theatmosphere of fasting becomes more oppressive during the nine days which precede the 9th Av. In fervent communities meat is forbidden, hairdressing and even bathing are banned, new clothes are not worn, and any new fruit of the season which ripens during these days is not eaten, in order to avoid pronouncing the blessing which thanks God for having lived until that time.

The liturgy of the 9th Av begins — like all the solemnities of the Synagogue — on the previous evening, and ends on the day itself after sunset.

In the synagogue, stripped of all its ornaments (like churches on Good Friday), the congregation sits on the floor or on low stools, as a sign of fasting. The tallit is not worn either for the office of first vespers or for that of the morning; feet are bare or shod in old shoes. In addition to the ordinary daily office, the officiant chants the Lamentations of Jeremiah to a plaintive melody, followed by elegies called kinot, and special prayers. All this is found, not in the ordinary prayer books — Siddur or Mahzov —but in a special volume called Seder ha-kinot l'Tesha b'Av (The Order of Lamentations for the 9th Av). This volume contains the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the elegies recited at first vespers, the texts of the Torah and the Prophets recited at morning office (Dt 4:25-40 and Jr 5:13-23, 9:1-23), and finally the lamentations recited on the 9th Av itself.

The literary genre of the kinot — the elegies recited for this commemoration — scarcely differs from that of the selikhot, the poems recited during the day of repentance which precedes the feast of Kippur; until recently, the same term was used to signify both. They come from very different poets, times, and countries, varying, moreover, according to the rites. Among them can be discovered works of the greatest Jewish poets, Eleazar ha-Kafiri (Palestine, 7th cent.), Solomon ibn Gabirol and Juda ha-Levy (Spain, 11th cent.), Kalonymos ha-Katan (the grandson of Juda Kalonymos, who was martyred in 1147) etc. They describe the misfortunes which have befallen the Jewish people in the course of the centuries, and express the hope of Israel. Thus we find among the kinot of the vigil a poem of Solomon ibn Gabirol which recalls both the destruction of Jerusalem and the prophecy of Ezekiel 23:

Samaria cries out:
My crimes have caught up with me;
To a foreign country they have taken my sons;
And Ooliba [Juda] cries:
They have burnt my palaces;
And Sion says: YHWH has abandoned me!...

The lamentation finishes, however, with a cry of hope:
Lead us back to the days of long ago,
And let Zion no longer say;
YHWH has abandoned me!
Be true to your word, rebuild Jerusalem,
0 Adonai!

Among the many poems sung on the actual day of the 9th Av, a significant number are attributed to Eleazar Kalir (or ha-Kaliri). Several comment on the catastrophes of 70 and 135 and the misery which followed, and begin like the Lamentations of Jeremiah, of which they are a continuation: "Eikha...?" (How...?): "How could you be carried away by your anger to destroy with one bloody hand those who are faithful to you?..."; "How is it that the flower of Samaria lies fallen, and how has the singing of those who carried the ark died out?...". Another lamentation repeats in each verse: "For you, Lord, justice... For us, shame...", while listing the divine punishments and the faults of Israel through the ages. One of the most famous, entitled "The Cedars of Lebanon", describes the martyrdom of the wise men of Israel during the persecution of Hadrian.

Other lamentations, belonging to later authors,describe the horrors committed by the Crusades in Germany in 1096 and 1147, the burning of holy books in Paris in 1244, the iniquitous trials and the pogroms roused by accusations of ritual murder:

On men, on women
Fall the crows...
They torture us for an illusory crime:
The cannibals accuse us:
With the festal knife [of the Passover]
we are supposed to have
Sacrificed a child, they say we have
eaten it; They are willing to pardon us
If "graciously" we convert our ways:
No pious man has ever heard the like.
Look, they kill Samuel,
First his wife, then his pretty daughter;
With a piece of cord: his brothers and sons...
[Other atrocities follow]
Sabbatai, too, and his wife were reduced to ashes
For never having betrayed you.
Father, look at these victims;
By their death they have borne witness to you,
You, who have no equal.
(Quoted by Zunz, Die Synagogale Poesie Des Mittelalters, Frankfurt, 1920.)

In the sephardi rite we find a lamentation which begins, like the first question posed in the Passover ritual, with "Mah nishtanah...?" (What is the difference...?), and continues by drawing a parallel between the wonders worked by God for his people on the night of the Passover, and the evils which have beset them since.

Among the most beautiful and most famous are those of Judah ha-Levy, the greatest of the medieval Jewish poets. They have been called "Sionides", since they describe the burning love of the poet for the beloved city of God and they begin with its name. Other poets have subsequently composed lamentations of the same type.

The 9th Av, a day of mourning, had already become by the talmudic era the special day of the dead, the day when the cemeteries were visited. However, the Jews go there also on other fast-days, and always recite special prayers for the dead on their anniversaries.

The Jewish people are, nonetheless, a people of hope: from the depths of their distress they have never doubted that one day God will come to help them; they believe that if they continually make pilgrimages to the Western Wall of the Temple to weep for past misfortunes, the trial will end, the Messiah will be born on a 9th Av, and on that day mourning will be turnedto rejoicing. That is why the following Sabbath, called the nahamu Sabbath, is the first of a series of seven on which the prophetic reading is taken from Deutero-Isaiah (chapter 40 ff.): "Console my people, console them, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her time of service is ended, that her sin is atoned for...". In this context it is not surprising that the unexpected liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967 should have seemed to the Jewish people to be the dawn of the day marking the end of their trials; but while awaiting the coming of the Messiah, who alone can rebuild the Temple, they continue to fast and pray.