Tisha B’Av Begins Tonight

Our tribe has suffered so much tsuris over the centuries that we lump all our mourning into one day. From the destruction of the First and Second Temples to the Spanish Inquisition to the Holocaust to the branding of Britney, we can fast and pray for better times ahead.
This week’s J. contains an interesting examination of Tisha B’Av (the Ninth day of the month Av) as “the inverse of Chanukah”: During the darkest days of the year we light candles and make merry, while on this lovely day of seemingly eternal sunshine we commemorate the blackest times of our history. We’re a pretty unorthodox bunch, but we appreciate the need to spend a little time tomorrow focusing on how gash-durn miraculous it is that Jews keep turning tragedy inside out and light up the planet.

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