Summer's Hiatus: Deciphering an Obscure Period on the Jewish Calendar

Part 1:  Why Do We Inflict Sadness Upon Ourselves?

The “Three Weeks” connotes the 21-day time period beginning the 17th day of the Jewish month of Tammuz (observed this past Tuesday, July 15), the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached during the Second Temple Era, and concluding on the 9th of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

The Rabbis, in their design of Tradition, have superimposed the respective anniversaries of many calamities that befell the Jewish people between these dates, and observant Jews commemorate the season in a progressive fashion.

It begins by refraining from cutting hair, making weddings, and listening to music. Then, when the month of Av begins, we add restrictions on bathing, washing clothes, eating meat and drinking wine. On Tishah B’Av itself, we refrain from eating and drinking altogether, and abstain from anointing with oil or perfume, marital relations, and wearing leather shoes.

The goal of these practices is not to inspire a feeling of victimhood or to wallow in self-pity. Nor is our aim to foment an attitude of “us against them,” or “never again!” Rather, the customs of the Three Weeks are designed to remind us of areas in which we have traditionally been spiritually weak and the steps we must take to remedy our shortcomings. Saddened as we are by the tragic recollections of our past, these customs actually inspire us and offer hope that the damage done to our nation — both by our enemies and by ourselves — is not permanent and that we have good reason to trust in a better future.

Additionally, the sorrow we feel is not only that of our own loss. We mourn, as well, and perhaps primarily, the pain that the Almighty feels over the events that have occurred, and his consequent reluctance to allow His Divine Presence to rest on the earth. We mourn the loss to all of mankind of Divine inspiration.

Judaism's dominant narrative maintains that, so long as the Holy Temples stood, all of mankind was elevated by the manifestation of God's Presence in a tangible and readily accessible manner. Upon its destruction, knowledge of God's existence ceased to be universal and the nations of the world slid inexorably into idol worship and later atheism. It seems, then, that the absence of a rallying point in the center of our community's existence was considered to be the seedbed of our potential extinction.  Our responses to such notions – through both ritual and activism – have held the cards to Jewish integrity for nearly 2,000 years.

Part 2:  The Prophetic Slant (and Rant)

Each of the Shabbat mornings during the Three Weeks is characterized by a special Haftarah or “Additional Reading of Scripture” from the Classical Prophets.  On the first two, we hear from Jeremiah; on the third, the message is derived from Isaiah.  These are stern forecasts if ill tidings, meant to be stern messages of last resort, from God's sermonic agents.

The Second Haftarah of Admonition begins with Jeremiah addressing the ancestors of the people of Judah, accusing them of abandoning God and following the Canaanite god Baal despite all the good things that God did for them. He notes how the present generation – his contemporaries – have followed in their ancestors' footsteps: they abandoned God and are instead worshiping many gods and idols.

This Haftarah represents the next part of the prelude to the fall of the Kingdom of Judah. In response to the Babylonian threat, the people do not repent; instead, they turn to false gods and to other nations for assistance. To Jeremiah this was quite surprising, and perhaps for us it is too.

Why would the people of Judah turn to idols, especially during a time of crisis, and not to their own God?

The reason, according to Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, is that idolatry is simply the “dark side” of faith. It is easy enough to believe in foreign gods when the surrounding nations and peoples believe in their power. This applies to Jews in particular, he argues, who seem to have a strong desire to believe in something; for example, Jews are overrepresented in modern-day cults. To this, I would add that a time of crisis would only amplify this inclination, since people tend to turn to faith during rough times. Which type of faith is rarely certain.

That said, there is another reason that the people of Judah turned to idols rather than to God. Reading between the lines of Jeremiah's speech at the beginning of the Haftarah, we can see what this reason might be. Jeremiah lists the miracles that God did for us as a people during the Exodus; we read about these miracles in the Torah, as well. According to Jeremiah, these miracles are the basic reason why we worship God. By the prophet's time, however, the Exodus was far in the past. The people of Judah had forgotten it, and thus had forgotten their reason for worshiping God in the first place!

Given this lapse of memory and purpose, it is not too surprising that the people of Judah forsook God. If this could happen in Jeremiah's time, it can certainly happen in our own time. It is easy to forget the fundamental question: Why do we serve God, as opposed to something else or nothing at all? We can all probably (hopefully) think of various reasons, and these reasons might differ from person to person; there is nothing wrong with that. Still, they are crucial. The Haftarah teaches us that, whatever our individual reasons for serving God might be, it's important to reflect on them from time to time, since no one is immune to the lure of idolatry.

Part 3:  Parallel Dimensions

I have purposely avoided a listing of specific rules and restrictions, in favor of more emphasis on the “texture” of this time on the Jewish calendar.  In this last installment, I will attempt to show how these days are a mirror image of the more joyous and, ergo, popular period that comes in Tishrei.

Let us examine a piece of Talmudic teaching:

Five tragedies occurred to our ancestors on the 17th day of Tammuz and five on the 9th day of Av.  … On the 17th of Tammuz the Two Tablets were broken [by Moses], the Daily Temple Offering ceased to be brought, the walls of the city [of Jerusalem] were breached, Apostomus burnt a Torah scroll, and an idol was erected in the Sanctuary. … On the 9th of Av it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would not enter the Land [of Israel], the First and Second Temples were destroyed, the city of Beitar was captured, the city of Jerusalem was plowed over.                  Tractate Taanit 26a

Rabbi Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin, the medieval sage known as the Maharil, picked up on the fact that these tragedies occurred specifically during the months of Tammuz and Av, the hottest and most uncomfortable months of the year [in Israel], and extrapoated from this a very encouraging idea: The period of the greatest oppressiveness of the summer begins at the midpoint of the month of Tammuz and concludes at the first third of the month of Av. In fact, a close look at the two sets of tragedies reveals that those of 17 Tammuz were only the beginnings of greater tragedies, whereas those of Av were conclusive in their nature. So, just as the heat begins to wane following the 9th of Av, the pain and suffering we endure will also conclude, and we will one day merit only joy and happiness.

That “one day” can be viewed on numerous levels, most tangibly in a mere seven weeks' time. For Rabbenu Yerucham teaches in his 14^th century work Toldot Adam that this period of twenty-one days corresponds to the twenty-one day period beginning Rosh Hashanah and culminating in Shmini Atzeret which marks the conclusion of the holiday of Sukkot. And, “One who toils to perfect his soul during these weeks no longer need fear a negative verdict on the Day of Judgment for he has already accomplished all that is necessary.”

So, we see that those of us who have made the effort to spare a measure of our luxuriant ways in this “low season” will find great spiritual reward during the Judaism's “high season.”