Why is our Mourning More Lenient on the Afternoon of Tisha B’av ?

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The laws of Tisha B’av are infused with meaning and enable us to connect with the energy of the day. In addition to fasting, we practice the standard code of Jewish mourning: low seats, no washing or anointing oneself, no marital intimacy¹. Across the world, Jews spend the night of Tisha B’av in lamentation and grief.

Curiously, there is a shift in some of the laws once midday arrives. Starting from chatzot, we are allowed to use chairs of regular heights, greet each other, and wear tallit and tefillin². It is also permissible to do work which distracts us from the destruction. Let’s explore the background for this change.

The Timeline

The ninth of Av is inarguably the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, with laws and customs therein that express its doleful energy. Yet the Gemara³ tells us that the Babylonians entered the Beit Hamikdash on the seventh of Av, and burned it down on the tenth. Why, then, is our day of mourning on tet av?

The Gemara explains that after entering, they spent the seventh and eighth days defiling the Beit Hamikdash, and on the ninth of Av, shortly before nightfall, they set it on fire. The structure burned through the night, already the tenth of Av. This explanation given as to why we don’t fast on the tenth is that we begin mourning when the destruction began, midday on the ninth of Av.

This compounds the question on alleviating the mourning requirements midday on Tisha B’av, when the destruction actually began. It’s further peculiar to note that in Eicha⁴ we refer to the day as “moed”, something of a holiday, and we consequently do not say Tachanun, a prayer we typically omit for holidays and special occasions. How do we understand this?

Wood and Stones

In Tehillim 79, we cry for “…the nations (that) have invaded your heritage. They have defiled your mikdash, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.” That chapter begins with the words Mizmor L’asaf, a song by Asaf.

Asaf was a Levi and a musician mentioned as one of the Levi’im chosen by King Shlomo to play at the inauguration of the Beit Hamikdash⁵. Some of his “songs”, such as this one, are included in Tehillim alongside the works of David Hamelech.

The Midrash⁶ asks why this perek is not introduced as a lamentation of Asaf, or a wailing of Asaf. How is it appropriate to call it a song? How was it appropriate for him to be playing music at the sight of destruction in the first place?

The Midrash uses a parable of a King who was preparing a wedding house for his son. He bedecked the place with beautiful curtains and drawings. As the story goes, the prince rebelled against his father, who promptly destroyed the structure and ripped the ornaments to shreds. The prince’s mentor took a reed flute and played with it, saying “with the destruction of the wedding house, the king has spared the prince retribution.”

The Jewish teaching is that the worst evil is the very source for the greatest light. The darkest point of night is when dawn breaks. Our basest desires can bring the most potent elevation. Moments of confusion and hester, hiddenness, are precisely where Hashem is to be most palpably found.

Asaf was singing about the Mikdash in flames because he saw what was spared. From the invasion of Jerusalem until the burning he witnessed, Jews were being killed by the thousands, completely at the mercy of their invaders. But with the fire on the Beit Hamikdash, it was clear that Hashem was pouring his wrath out on the “wood and stones” of the physical structure, and that he would not destroy His People even as they defied their covenant with Him.

This is the secret of the threads of consolation on the afternoon of Tisha B’av. That is when the Mikdash was set on fire; that is when we knew Hashem has not abandoned us, and will yet redeem us. This is why we say Nachem, a supplication for the return and consolation of the avelei tzion, the mourners of Zion, in the afternoon as well⁷: we can finally find some comfort in the knowledge that with our exclusive House of connection gone, we are still here, and He is with us after all. There is hope.

Birth of Malchut

There is a deeper secret here too. The Midrash⁸ tells a cryptic tale of an Arab who came across a Jew working his ox on the fields. “Unharness your ox,” the Arab said, “Your Temple has been destroyed.”

“How do you know?” Asked the Jew.

“From the lowing of your ox,” the Arab answered.

As they were talking, the ox could again be heard. “Harness your animal again,” the Arab said. “The redeemer of the Jews has been born.” The Midrash goes on to supply scriptural proof that Mashiach will be born on Tisha B’av afternoon.

The birth of Moshiach on Tisha B’av sounds like an unfortunate collision, tone deaf to the mood of the day. Or maybe not. Maybe it is so we understand that Jewish mourning is not depressive or apocalyptic; maybe it gives us a clue to the direct effect darkness and destruction has on rebirth and redemption.

The Feminine View

In the Amidah we include a prayer for Moshiach: Et Tzemach David, the sprouting of David. In multiple places in Tanach, as well, the redeemer is referred to as a plant, or branch⁹. In fact, one of the names of Moshiach is Menachem, literally “consolation”, and its numerical equivalent is the same as tzemach, a plant.

The nature of planting is a most beautiful and graphic manifestation of this process. Seeds are hidden far below visibility, and as they begin to grow roots, seem to break down. They crumble, falter, surely on the way to death, when the impossible happens and a tiny sprout emerges. It may take months or years for the fruits to finally show, but the knowledgeable farmer has faith in the process underfoot. He knows it is precisely that breakdown that will produce the new fruit.

Moshiach ben Dovid will bring Hashem’s absolute kingship to the world. Malchut, kingship, is the final one of the seven sefirot and the only one that is female. Malchut is the highest sefira, the mark of completion, the receiver of the “male” six and the expression of them all. It develops in the dark, underfoot, with tzniut. When Hashem’s absolute dominance will be fully realized, when potential and actual will meet in glorious light, the female mode of expression will have brought all the male potential to completion.

The ability to see the shadow of redemption at the darkest point of destruction is the potency of the female perspective. Women are tasked with creating and carrying life, a months-long arduous process that culminates in an explosion of pain that seems to be anything but life-giving. And right at the moment of absolute agony and loss of control, a new life emerges.

Jewish women are the planters not just of further generations, but of the Jewish spirit as well. In every exile, our ability to see the light around the corner was the power that carried the Jewish people through. Through the female power of Emunah, we can see what is invisible, and bring all Divine Emanations to expression in Malchut.

May Tisha B’av indeed still be celebrated as a full-on Yom Tov this very year.