Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Av, also known as Menachem Av, since we hope for comfort during this most sad of the months. AV is the fifth of the 12 Jewish months. The name of the month, as that of all the Jewish months, finds its source in Persian mythology. These foreign names were brought back to Israel after the exile of the First Temple. Prior to that, months were only known numerically, as the Torah records them.

 

The letter tet is the 9th letter of the aleph bet. We know from late into the Seder that 9 represents the gestation period prior to childbirth. The mystics believed that the first nine days of Av are a microcosm of the biological process from conception to birth. Aharon haKohen died on the first of Av (Aharon's name is linked to the Hebrew word 'herayon,' the word for conception in Hebrew) and the ninth of Av is the date of birth of the Messiah. Our salvation will come on the most traumatic, painful and inauspicous day of the year.

The zodiac sign of Leo, or a lion, is associated with Av. Av also means father. Why would the month of Av, the most bitter of the months, be associated with the patralineal property? Would I not prefer Tishrei or Adar to be associated with my father? The Kabbalists teach that the lion represents the superrational power of the Divine will. They teach that God's will to destroy the Temple was really to rebuild the third and permanent Temple. The Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni on Yirmiyahu 259) teaches that "The lion (Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzer - see Yirmaiyahu 4:7) came in the month of the lion and destroyed the lion (the Temple) in order that the Lion (Hashem - see Amos 3:8) come in the month of the lion and rebuild the lion."

The Talmud teaches that the Temple began burning at the end of the 9th day and burned through the 10th of Av. If this is the case, why do we not fast on the 10th? Why do we break our fast while the Temple was an inferno? Our sages suggest that Hashem was debating if He should destroy the Jewish people or not. At the end of the 9th of Av in 586 BCE, He chose to punish the Temple - sticks and stones - and spare His people. Ultimately I cry for my father most when I am in trouble, and that is the month of Av.

May we enter this month with our ears open to hear good reports, uplifting tidings and joyous redemptions. Like the ancient myth of the phoenix, may we be born from the ashes of tragedy, and may the roots of redemption sprout forth during this month.

Chodesh Tov - a beautiful and inspiring month.

Rabbi Elly Krimsky

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Historical events that took place in Tamuz

(courtesy of "Day by Day in Jewish History" by Rabbi Abraham Bloch a'h, father of Dr. Ray Bloch).

1 - Death of Aharon, the High Priest (as such, Rosh Chodesh is called Taanit Tzadikim). His son and successor Elazar also died on this day; the British seized the ship Exodus in 1947. The seizure caused the death of 3 and the wounding of 100.

6 - The leaders of the Amsterdam Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza on July 27, 1656.

7 - Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, was executed on July 16, 1918.

9 - The 10 scouts returned from Israel with an unfavorable report; the First Temple (586 BCE) was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nevuzaradan; the Second Temple (70 CE) was destroyed by the Romans (Titus); The city of Betar was captured and tens of thousands of Jews lost their lives (135 CE); Turnus Rufus plowed the Temple Mount and its surroundings to make it into a colony (71 CE); the period of expulsion began for Spanish Jewry in 1492; Shabbetai Zvi was born in Smyrna, Turkey (July 23, 1626) - there is a tradition that the Messiah is born on the 9th of Av; Petach Tikvah was founded in 1878; World War I broke out on August 1, 1914.

11 - The Common Council of New York City punished Nicholas Smart, a non-Jew for affixing kosher symbols to non-kosher meat (1796), the first known intervention by civic authorities to protect kashrut;

12 - The famed disputation between the Ramban and Pablo Christiani opened on July 20th, 1263.

15 - The last of the generation of the wilderness died prior to the Jews' arrival in Israel; inter-tribal marriage was permitted; King Hoshea allowed his subjects in the northern kingdom to make the pilgramage festival to Jerusalem, which had been prevented since Yeravam; the wood collection for the season was completed in the Temple; the Romans allowed burial of the dead in Beitar in 138 CE; Baron Lionel de Rothschild became the first Jew in the British parliament. A new oath had to be created, without Christian references;

19 - Bar Ilan University, the first secular university under religious auspices in Israel was founded, August 7, 1955.

Sources

Bloch, Rabbi Abraham. Day by Day in Jewish History

Kitov, Rabbi Eliyahu. The Book of Our Heritage.

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