The Blessing in the Three Weeks

The festivities take pause.

The music, silenced. 

We mourn. 

Our joy diminished, inward we retreat.  

To search, to self-reflect. To learn.

For three weeks every summer, the energy shifts and we live life differently. We mourn the destruction of our holy temple, the Bet Hamikdash, so many centuries ago. We take pause from our lives for 22 days and exist in a reality of sadness, of despair, and ultimately, of faith.

The Jewish calendar is made up of the ebbs and flows of divine energy; energies which birth our rich history. From repentance to joy, from freedom to revelation to miracles, and everything in between. The time between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av is no different. 

The energy of destruction has given rise to our most painful moments as a nation. The seventeenth of Tammuz saw Moshe break the luchot, the tablets, as he witnessed our nation’s impatience and crisis of faith. On that same date B’nei Yisrael cried in the wilderness when hearing from the spies of the land they were to inhabit, a failure of faith yet again. Years later the walls surrounding our beloved city of Jerusalem were broken and overcome which, three weeks later, gave rise to the complete destruction of the Bet Hamikdash on the ninth of Av. Twice. 

This pattern of calamity repeats itself in modern times as well.  On the ninth of Av in 1290 the Jews were expelled from England and then again in 1492 from Spain. It was also the day Germany declared war on Russia, thus beginning World War I. Many consider World War II and the Holocaust an extension of this war, which began on our same date.

As history has shown us, and as we know to be true, destruction and pain is followed by rebuilding and joy. The second luchot were the lasting ones, we did merit a state of revelation and we ultimately did enter the land of Israel. And we have proven, time and time again, the Jewish nation is only strengthened as we battle our enemies and ourselves, as we transcend and recommit to Our Creator, time and time again.

Our very calendar expresses this rhythm. Today still, and as we have year after year, do we tap into this energy of destruction. Each summer, during these 22 days we contract, we live quieter. We are meant to deepen our faith, to learn of Hashem and His attributes, to introspect on ourselves and to come close to Him. To begin the work of rebuilding.

The days of the three weeks number 21, adding Tisha B’av itself brings the total to 22. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, the number representing a complete cycle, from aleph to taf. Our 22 days of despair call for a humility and yearning for G-d. This yearning creates the necessary container for us to accept blessings, to build and to flourish.

The converse of our 22 days are the 22 days between Rosh Hashana and Simhat Torah. These days are the most joyous on our calendar, we celebrate creation and commit to our own creativity and growth. We affirm our trust in G-d’s protection as we sit in the sukkah and dance with the Torah, the temporal bridge between us and G-d. It is a time of divine intimacy. At this time, having properly prepared ourselves, we approach G-d with love and faith, joy and trust, completing the cycle.

From contraction to expansion, we break to build. Our painful labor, our spiritual development throughout the summer months, yields the fruits which are manifested in the 22 days of rejoicing between Rosh Hashanah and Simhat Torah. The parallel between the summer days of despair and the autumnal days of joy are evident in their shared quantity of 22, the same number of years Yoseph was apart from his father Yaakov, their shared pain a necessary foundation for future greatness.

Taf, the 22nd and final letter of the Hebrew alphabet, has a dichotomous nature. It represents both life and death, good and evil. It completes the cycle of reality, encompassing everything that comes before, the first 21 letters, and all that is in between. This totality is apparent in our calendar days of 22, as are reflected in the breadth of occurrences and emotion ranging from our greatest despair to our greatest joy.

Jewish life is lived in harmony, with rhythm and flow. It’s a system where the fall gives way to the rise, where the pullback fuels the push forward, where tomorrow is built on the broken pieces of yesterday. It is a life which calls for refinement through challenges, where we elevate our pain, where we keep going, keep creating. An upwards cycle which unlocks beautiful shefa, abundance, as we journey towards our personal and collective transcendence. 

The three weeks we have just entered are, when engaged with proper intention, the impetus for our growth, our joy and our blessings. Tisha B’Av, the ninth of Av, will one day be a day of great celebration, a day of pain transformed to an exalted holiday in the time of Mashiach. 

May we all merit to bear witness to this transformation soon.