Tag Archive for: Temple

Lift Up Your Heads: Tisha B’Av and the Messiah

Today is Tisha B’Av. The 9th day of the month of Av. A day on the Hebrew calendar that has come to be regarded and observed as a most solemn time of fasting and prayer. It was on this day that Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. It was on this day that the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. It is on this day that the Jewish community remembers and reflects upon these and many other calamities that have beset God’s chosen people over the years.

Thanksgivukkah? How about “Taberthanksgivukkah”?

Chanukah. Thanksgiving. Their paths cross for the first time since 1888 this week. But is their chance encounter this year the only link between them? Could there be more that binds these two separate holidays commemorating events that took place nearly 1,800 years apart? And is there more that we can take from our simultaneous celebration of the two?