Tisha B’Av Video 5771: What Does the Churban Mean...
If we can’t cry on Tisha B’Av for what happened, we can at least cry about the fact that we don’t fully understand Tisha B’Av & what we lost with the...
The Love of Brothers
Adapted for this series from Rabbi Yaacov Haber’s “REACHINGS” Short Story: Two brothers lived on two sides of a mountain. One was rich but had no children, one had many children...
The Prophecy Shall Come True
The Talmud, on the last page of the Makkot tractate (24b) relates a story about Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva who were on their way...
The Connection Between Parshat Devarim and Tisha B’Av
Parshas Devarim is always read on the Shabbos right before Tisha B’Av. The Biur Halacha (528:4) explains that this is purposefully done in order that Moshe Rabbeinu’s admonition to the Jews...
The Haftarah of Shabbat Chazon
The Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, is called Shabbat Chazon – the Shabbat of foretelling – as we read the Haftara portion from the prophecy of Isaiah (1:1-27), as the final of...
Tisha B’Av and Parshat Va’etchanan
The Torah reading of Tisha B’Av morning is found in Parshat Va’etchanan (4:25-40). The Talmud (Sanhedrin 38a) references this reading with the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash, as the numerical...
It’s a Mitzvah to be Sad…One Day a Year,...
Once a disciple of a certain Chassidic Rebbe noticed his Rebbe dancing happily on the Ninth of Av. He was astonished by this behavior, for everyone knew that Tisha B’Av was...
What Mourning Means: Reflections of Rav Soloveitchik zt”l on...
Rabbi Koenigsberg is a Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, and the editor of two volumes of the Shiurei HaRav series, an annotated collection of...
By Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Tragedy in Perspective: Why Did Rabbi Akiva Laugh?
At the end of “Masechet Makot,” the volume of the Talmud called “Makot,” on pages 24a and 24b, there are two similar stories. In each, the same group of great scholars...
Destruction and Desecration: Titus the Wicked and his Nephew...
“The replacement for Vespasian, the newly crowned Emperor, was the wicked Titus, from whose mouth the verse ‘Where is their G-d, the Rock in Whom they trusted?’ seemed to come. For...
