Teaching Team
Post Tisha B'Av Thoughts
It's Tuesday morning after Tisha B'Av and I think for the first time since the fast on Sunday I am reflecting about how the day went. Boaz and I along with our families spent the day at the MIA conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Surprisingly I would say that this year was one of the easiest day-long fasts I had in a long time. Although I would like to think that I was on a spiritual high all day, perhaps it's because I drank a ton of water on Shabbat, or maybe because I started cutting back on my coffee intake before the fast, or it could have just been the business of being at a conference that made the day go by faster. Yet, all in all it was still a fast.
Boaz and I had the opportunity to talk to many people about the importance of the Ninth of Av and the destruction of the Temple. At one of my lectures I was sharing all of the traditional prohibitions of the ninth of Av such as fasting, sitting on the floor until noon, and reading Lamentations. I told everyone, if that sounds miserable that's because it's supposed to be.
How those of us felt on Tisha b'Av, hungry and uncomfortable is how we are supposed to feel about the destruction of the Temple. These traditional customs enable us to get a glimpse of the magnitude of the exile Israel is currently in and the part we play in it. The Jerusalem Talmud tells us:
The generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt is to be regarded as though the Temple was destroyed in that generation. (y.Yoma 1:1)
As Aaron told us in a previous blog, the Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred and general lack of love between people. According to the traditional opinion, because the Temple has not been rebuilt yet, our generation is equally as unloving.
This is quite a sobering thought and instills in me the need to spread the teachings of the Master Yeshua all the more. His message of love, forgiveness, and the return to Torah is needed today just as much as it was two thousand years ago when he gave it.
Peter tells us his second letter that through our righteous behavior we can in fact "hasten" the coming of the Messiah which in turn means the rebuilding of the Temple as well.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! (2 Peter 3:11-12)
The responsibility rests with us. It is my prayer that this year the lessons we learned on Tisha b'Av will stay with us for the coming months as we prepare for the High Holidays. We have a lot of work to do in partnering with HaShem to end this bitter exile. May we see Messiah Yeshua return speedily in our days. Amen.
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For us, Messianics, there is perhaps still another dimension of Tisha b'Av. I refer to the intimate relation between the destruction of the Temple and the destruction of the Temple of Yeshua's body, at the Crucifixion. This relation may add to the Messianic meaning of our observance of the day. I know of course that we already remember Yeshua's passion and death on Nisan 14, but at that time we are in the festive mood of Pesach, and more occupied by the salvific fruits of his death — by reason of his being the fulfilment of the Pesach Sacrifice — than by his death itself. On Tisha b'Av however we have the opportunity of contemplating the terribility of our Master's death on the Cross, which, like the destruction of the Temple, was caused by baseless hatred.
Geert ter Horst | August 13, 2008 8:36 PM
I heard Boaz & Toby speaking about Tisha b'Av at the MIA conference. I am still very much a spiritual milk drinker in the Messianic way, but two things they said caught my attention:
1) Luke 19:41-44; our Messiah wept because of coming temple destruction;
2) The destruction of the Temple, the death and dispersion that took place involved, affected, thousands of Messianic believers too.
So I decided to pray and read Lamentations. My prayer and weeping was not just about the past event, but also about the future destruction. Just as many Israelites of that time didn't realize what time it was, neither do many Israelites (believers) today. "If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes." Luke 19:42
Just as celebrating the Feast days teaches us history and prophecy, so does Tisha b'Av. Only this time many temples will be destroyed; 1 Cor 3:16-17.
Glen Williams | August 18, 2008 11:08 PM