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Tisha B'Av: The Jewish Day of Mourning, Explained

Netivyah International

Low wooden stool, closed Bible and oil lamp in a dim stone room for Tisha B'Av

Tisha B'Av is the ninth day of Av, the fifth month of the Hebrew year, and it is the great day of mourning on the Jewish calendar. Jews fast from sunset until nightfall the next day to grieve the destruction of the First Temple by Babylon and the Second Temple by Rome. Jewish tradition remembers both on this date. Over the centuries other disasters gathered around the same day, so it has become one day to mourn many losses.

Because the Hebrew calendar follows the moon, the date moves on the Gregorian calendar and usually lands in July or August. For followers of Yeshua (Jesus), this is not a foreign day. Yeshua wept over the city whose fall it remembers.

Five sorrows on one date

The oldest list comes from the Mishnah, the body of Jewish teaching written down around 200 CE. Tractate Taanit 4:6 names five calamities that fell on the ninth of Av:

The decree on the wilderness generation. Ten of the twelve spies brought back a frightening report about Canaan. The people wept all night and talked of going back to Egypt (Numbers 14:1-4). God answered that they would wander forty years and not enter the land (Numbers 14:33-34). The Talmud (Taanit 29a) sets that night of weeping on the ninth of Av. It records God's sober reply: you wept for nothing, and I will give you a reason to weep for generations.
The First Temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army in 586 BCE.
The Second Temple destroyed by the Roman legions under Titus in 70 CE.
The fall of Betar, the last stronghold of the Bar Kochba revolt, in 135 CE.
Jerusalem plowed under. Afterward the emperor Hadrian rebuilt it as a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, and barred Jews from entering.

Scripture gives the First Temple's fall a little differently. 2 Kings 25:8-9 says the Babylonians came on the seventh of the fifth month, and Jeremiah 52:12-13 says the tenth. The Talmud (Taanit 29a) reconciles the two. The enemy entered on the seventh, set the fire toward evening on the ninth, and the Temple burned through the tenth. That detail matters for the customs, as you will see below.

Jewish memory kept noticing the date in later centuries too. King Edward I signed the order expelling the Jews of England on July 18, 1290, which was the ninth of Av. The deadline for Jews to leave Spain under the 1492 expulsion fell at the turn of July and August, on or about the ninth of Av. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914, the ninth of Av, and the war that followed brought great suffering to the Jews of Eastern Europe. On the ninth of Av in 1942, the first transports from the Warsaw Ghetto reached the Treblinka death camp.

The rabbis also asked why. The Talmud (Yoma 9b) teaches that the First Temple fell because of idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed. It says the Second Temple, in a generation that studied Torah and did good deeds, fell because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred. The sages added that baseless hatred weighs as much as those other three sins together. That is a hard word, and it is aimed at God's own people, not at their enemies.

The fast of the fifth month in Zechariah

The name Tisha B'Av never appears in the Bible, but the fast does. After the return from Babylon, a delegation came to the priests and prophets in Jerusalem with a plain question: "Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?" (Zechariah 7:3).

God's answer through Zechariah does not start with yes or no. It starts with motive: "When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me, for Me?" (Zechariah 7:5). He reminds them that their fathers ignored the earlier prophets while Jerusalem was still prosperous. Grief that does not lead to obedience misses the point.

Then comes the promise:

"Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.'" (Zechariah 8:19)

All four fasts belong to the story of Jerusalem's fall:

Tenth month (Tevet): Nebuchadnezzar began the siege (2 Kings 25:1).
Fourth month (Tammuz): the city wall was breached (Jeremiah 39:2). Today the fast is kept on the 17th of Tammuz, the date tradition gives for the Romans breaking through the wall before the Second Temple fell.
Fifth month (Av): the Temple burned.
Seventh month (Tishrei): Gedaliah, the Jewish governor appointed by Babylon, was murdered (2 Kings 25:25; Jeremiah 41:1-2). His fast falls the day after Rosh Hashanah.

These are still days of mourning. Zechariah says they will not always be. You can see where they sit in the larger year in God's Biblical Calendar.

Three weeks, nine days, one long day

Tisha B'Av is the end of a season. The three weeks of mourning begin on the 17th of Tammuz. During that time observant Jews hold no weddings, do not cut their hair or shave, and do not play or listen to music. In the last nine days, from the start of Av, more joys are set aside.

The Torah reading points the same way. Parashat Devarim is always read on the Shabbat just before Tisha B'Av, paired with Isaiah 1. That chapter opens with the word "vision" (chazon), so the day is called Shabbat Chazon. Isaiah's cry over a faithful city become unfaithful (Isaiah 1:21) sets the tone for the week.

How the fast is kept

On the afternoon of the eighth of Av, many eat a full meal at midday. Then, late in the day, they eat a small separation meal, the seudah hamafseket. This is often bread, water and a hard-boiled egg dipped in ashes, eaten alone on a low stool. The fast begins at sunset and ends at nightfall the next day. If the ninth falls on Shabbat, the fast moves to Sunday.

Like Yom Kippur, it is a full fast from food and water. The mood is different, though. Yom Kippur is solemn and hopeful. Tisha B'Av is grief. Traditionally people do not wear leather shoes, bathe, use lotions or perfumes, or have marital relations. They avoid greeting one another and sit on the floor or a low chair until midday. Even Torah study is limited to sorrowful passages: Lamentations, Job and the hard chapters of Jeremiah.

In the synagogue the decorative curtain is taken off the ark. In the evening the congregation chants Lamentations (Eichah), the book traditionally ascribed to Jeremiah. In the morning they recite kinot, elegies written over the centuries for each new tragedy. Men pray the morning service without tallit and tefillin, since these are counted as adornment.

When the fast ends, some customs linger. Many keep the mourning restrictions until midday on the tenth of Av, because the Temple was still burning.

Why a disciple of Yeshua would remember this day

For the observant Jewish community, Tisha B'Av is not only about the past. Mourning the ruin is a way of longing for the Messiah and the end of Israel's suffering. Followers of Yeshua can stand right beside that longing. We believe the Messiah has come, and we wait for His return, when the kingdom is restored to Israel (Acts 1:6) and Zechariah's fasts become feasts.

The Gospels put Yeshua in the middle of this story. As He came near Jerusalem, "He saw the city and wept over it" (Luke 19:41). He spoke of enemies surrounding it and leaving no stone on another (Luke 19:43-44; Matthew 24:1-2). He warned that Jerusalem would be "trampled by Gentiles" for a time (Luke 21:20-24). Forty years later the Second Temple burned on the ninth of Av. When a believer mourns on this day, he grieves what his Master grieved.

The rabbis' word about baseless hatred also cuts close. Yeshua said His disciples would be known by their love for one another (John 13:35). Tisha B'Av is an honest day to ask whether that is true of us.

Marking Tisha B'Av at home

You do not need to become Jewish or copy synagogue practice to honor this day. A family can mark it simply.

Eat a plain supper the evening it begins. Bread and soup, no dessert, maybe sitting low or on the floor. Tell your children why the meal is plain.
Read Lamentations 1 together. Read it slowly, by one lamp if you like. Then read Luke 19:41-44 and let the two passages sit side by side.
Name any baseless hatred. Ask honestly: is there someone in our family, church or street we hold in contempt without cause? Make one call or write one note before the week is out.
End with the promise. Read Zechariah 8:18-19 aloud. The fasts are real, and so is the feasting to come. If you want to understand the appointed times those feasts belong to, start with the basics of the Mo'adim.

Before bed, pray Psalm 122:6 for the city Yeshua wept over: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May they prosper who love you." Then ask the question Zechariah's hearers were asked, and answer it for yourself: when I mourn, is it really for Him?

Questions people ask

What is Tisha B'Av?

Tisha B'Av is the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av and the main day of mourning on the Jewish calendar. Jews fast from sunset to nightfall the next day to grieve the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Other tragedies in Jewish history are remembered on it as well.

What does Tisha B'Av mean?

The name simply means "the ninth of Av." Tisha is Hebrew for nine, and Av is the fifth month of the Hebrew year. The day carries the meaning of national grief, honest self-examination and longing for the Messiah's redemption.

Is Tisha B'Av in the Bible?

The name is not, but the fast is. Zechariah calls it "the fast of the fifth month" (Zechariah 7:3-5; 8:19). God promises that it, along with three other fasts tied to Jerusalem's fall, will one day become a time of joy and gladness.

When is Tisha B'Av this year?

It always falls on the ninth of Av, beginning at sunset the evening before. On the Gregorian calendar that usually means July or August, and the date shifts every year because the Hebrew calendar follows the moon. Check a current Hebrew calendar for this year's exact date. If the ninth falls on Shabbat, the fast moves to Sunday.

Why is it spelled Tisha B'Av, Tisha Be'av and Tisha Baav?

These are all transliterations of the same Hebrew name. The apostrophe or "e" stands for a short vowel sound in "be-Av," meaning "in Av." Tisha B'Av, Tisha B Av, Tisha Bav and Tisha Be'av all refer to the same fast day.